RE: GENESIS REVIEW
Gulliver ,
I'm not flaming you and thanks for your great review of genesis truck. .....but I would just like to point out some things
you said: "but I think maybe the expectations we ALL had about this truck serve to heighten awareness about every little thing that is going wrong with it."
But who set the expectations? Did we? No, its Not us customers. It's the advertisement they have on their web site and magazines. Not our fault. You tell the customers something, then it has to be true because we are "paying". Our money in exchange for their product is a contract. It's not like they are giving away this truck for free. Why the wrong parts? or Why advertise the wrong thing, if its only some typo why not review it thoroughly before shown to public? Advertisement is the reason we buy products. Also, some people say, its cheap for a lot of goodies that comes with it, so we should shutup and be contented. It seems cheap because vendors display a price of something like $800+ but its crossed out and they say "our price is only $500+", naahh, who believes that? For all we know the true price might be way cheaper than $500. Of course companies wouldn't say what the real cost is behind a product. But we still buy it because of what is "advertised" and we trust that what is advertised is true.
I agree with you, customer service has been great so far. I have seen them answer the questions in this forum. Andrew has been really helpful. It's the assembly, QA and execution of release I am complaining about. If I were to release this truck, I would send it to shops or vendors who pre-ordered, earliest first, but I still won't say that it is available yet. I would only say that when most of the vendors & hobby shops HAVE my truck and I can steadily supply them with more. In my opinion, the only reason I see that the trucks were delivered to east coast first is that it maybe more cost effective for them instead of having to send out a few trucks to different states at any time. But still, as a company, I would consider that before announcing availability date and I would also consider how my customers would feel if they were to wait a looooonnnnggggg time. Availability is another misleading announcement, again customers are "expecting". Besides, doesn't "available" mean "available"? or has the meaning changed since I last looked at the dictionary. You set the expectations right, then customers won't complain. If they tell us available in October 2004? I tell you, only a few will complain and would still pre-order because they know it wont be here until october. If they miss october again, back to same problem.
Yes, yes CEN said they are sorry, I accept that. But will that make me wait more, no, I want to buy something else now, my excitement for this truck has passed. I'm not loyal to any brand and in fact will get a plane instead since this deal didn't work out for me.
And still others would say, But this is the first release of the truck, expect it to have some kind of flaw no matter how good the testing (ex: T-Maxx, etc). But didn't we learn enough from the past and other companies that made those mistakes? Or is this just a trend that other companies will always follow? I'm sure all will agree that something CAN be done about it. Or is our attitude always going to be like (hey, broken gears! its okay, T-Maxx was even worse, no problem, Ill just repair it). You release a product and it has flaws means you did not test enough (Note: previous sentence is a general statement for any product and not an assessment of Genesis). Did CEN do their best to quickly release it to public? Maybe they did, that's why some parts may not have not been inspected thoroughly. Is that right? I don't think so.
OZZIE,
way to go man! We appreciate what you are doing by really testing this product before selling in your store. But hey, I thought CEN supposed to have done this already for us? What does that tell us if we have to test again? How exactly did they test? rigourously? yeah, but who tested? group of experienced individuals who are working for them or who they have business relationships with? close friends? Maybe. Was this tested by a randomly picked newbie out there who is interested in the hobby but doesn't know anything about RCs to see if the truck and instructions are idiot proof? An experienced hobbyist will find out soon what is wrong with the truck. How about a newbie? They are advertising for everyone right?