Well, I some what expected this because it is a custom product. Let's see if when they come in they are done correctly and have a good fit. Usually when the final product comes in, it makes up for the wait.
So if I was you, I would just hold on for a bit, and I will give you the final heads up on the total experience. So far, audiologist was great, US based ACS client service people are sub par. Let's see how the product is.
Thank you for being the tester 
Well, I some what expected this because it is a custom product. Let's see if when they come in they are done correctly and have a good fit. Usually when the final product comes in, it makes up for the wait.
So if I was you, I would just hold on for a bit, and I will give you the final heads up on the total experience. So far, audiologist was great, US based ACS client service people are sub par. Let's see how the product is.
I just had some ACS sleeves made for ER-4P by a local franchise. I am rather disappointed with them. The sleeves don't seem to extend or not very far into my ear canals. The audiologists impressions were much longer and it appears they just cut most of the ear canal part off. One is actually slightly longer than the other. It is as if they are sitting in your outer ears. The ER-4 stick out quite far from the sleeves and when you try to extract them from your ears they pull out of the sleeves. With triple flanges the ER-4 are are almost flush with my ears. The triple flanges have better isolation and are more comfortable.
I can't use them and are sending them back.
Leveller,
This is what I fear with these. So waiting forever for this and having it come in and be crappy is very disappointing. How long did you wait for yours.
I have to say, this is really giving me a sour taste in my mouth about ACS. I may call my audiologist and talk to him about how rediculous this has been. He is the one responsible for bringing this to the states, it may be worth while for him to hear what is going on.
Granted, I do want to wait to at least get them first. Hopefully mine aren't bad.
Also, leveller, please keep us to date on how long it takes to get a refund. Knowing places like this, a refund will take forever.
I will also update this today. I am calling again today. I told them I would give them till today before following up again. They never pick up between 12-2 for lunch. So I will call after 2P.
****UPDATE****
Okay, so as expected they picked up their phone after 2PM. So don't bother calling between 12-2P or you will never get an answer, just the answering machine.
So, on to the live voice. I got the same lady I got last time. I guess they only have 1 support person there for the group. I wish I could say I was polite today, but I was extremely rude.
I called and asked what the status of my order was. She replied by stating there was no status update for the order. So nothing has changed. She has no idea why they don't have my shipment yet. This is when I became very rude.
1- She had all of last week to get back to me, to even say, "I know you are waiting on your shipment. I sent 5 e-mails and heard nothing in return. I apologize, I will keep trying". She didn't do this.
2- When I called her on it, she said that it takes a while to translate German to English. I called her on the fact that there is a German gentleman in the office. If it takes a week to translate German to English and vice versa, then I hate to see how long it takes to make these molds. (I did not tell her this last part, not that rude). Of course she has no response to the fact I knew there was a German speaking man at her office.
3- When I ask for a gameplan, she said I will continue to reach out to them to get some feedback. So the same gameplan that led us to nowhere for the last 4 weeks. (did not say the last part either)
4- Rudely (responding to my rudeness) she said, fine sir I will drop all I am doing to see what is going on with your shipment, as if she was doing me a favor after my 7 week wait. We wouldn't have any issues had this even come a week ago. I was willing to wait twice the advertised wait time. So, I said, okay, please follow up when you have more answers.
****UPDATE 2****
So I just got a call back. It took about 30 minutes for her to get back to me. The positive is that she got back to me (thank god), the negative is that she thinks I am an idiot.
So in a full week you cannot give me an answer, however, in all of 30 minutes you were able to get me a response. WOW. Why couldn't you do that a week ago? In either case, I decided not to be rude to her. However, it does seem that is the only way she will do her job correctly.
So she said the reason why my product is being so delayed is because it is being given special attention by the lab. My order had 3 seperate criteria:
1- Black
2- Full Conch
3- Over the ear
Because of this, the lab needed to give it special attention. That is fine (If true, I doubt her truthfullness on this). Why wouldn't they say that this is delayed because of this 4 weeks ago? I spoke to the German gentleman and he said it would not be a problem and should cause no delays. So I think she just looked at the file and pulled that statement out of her butt.
I was still very nice, and did not say anything rude. I asked if she knew if the product was completed yet. She said she did not ask that question. WOW, really, you have someone waiting 7 weeks, and you don't ask that question? WOW. Wonderful proactive client service there.
She said that under her opinion (useless opinion if it has no fact) the product is most likely done and should be in the next shipment. When I asked her when the next shipment would be, she said sometime this week. At this point, I asked her what a reasonable time for me to wait to call before I check in. She said that she could not tell me that. So I told her I would follow up next week. This would put me on my 8th week of waiting without even knowing if the product was created or not.
I don't really trust a single thing she says. To me she is just a yes woman, that is completely useless. I seriously doubt she contacted anyone about this. I bet she just looked at the records and said that this orded is out of the norm, so lets use this as a reason for the delay. To not ask if it the final product completed or shipped is rediculous and unprofessional. It is not hard to be proactive and ask simple questions that would satisify a rightfully frustrated client.
If anyone has a good contact for me to call I would appreciate it. I feel like I am getting no where on this process with this lady. I am willing to bet that I will be sitting here next week stating the same exact thing.
Does anyone think I am being too impatient. Isn't 7 weeks with no actual proper feedback the proper breaking point for rudeness? As for whether you want to go with ACS is up to you. If she is telling the truth and my delay is actually caused by my "special" order, then I would definately not order from ACS. For a custom mold company to have problems adding color, full conch and over the ear is completely unproffesional. I would think these items are very basic for any custom mold shop.
At this point, if I was you and waiting for this product I would do the following:
1- Contact competitors and find out their wait time for the type of order you are making. Ask what they would do if there were any delays. Find out if there other people to talk to in case if there were any problems with your order. Definately make sure you can work with more then one person.
2- If you can, wait until I get the final product. I will let you know if they did a proper fit and if it actually was worth the wait, or if it will be the same as Leveller's experience.
3- If you have a generic order, you maybe fine.
4- Definately do not buy before doing item #1 and item #2 from above. I hate for you to go through the same type of frustration because of your custom order.
At this point, I find it extremely difficult to recommed ACS. The only saving grace will be the final product.
Does anyone think I am being too impatient. Isn't 7 weeks with no actual proper feedback the proper breaking point for rudeness?
From a normal bystanders perspective 7 weeks is a long time. From a Head-Fi perspective and from someone that has a friend that got ACS attenuating molds 7-8 weeks is normal. He got normal attenuating mold, not black, full conch or over the ear and they still took 8 weeks. So to me, normal.
I just had some ACS sleeves made for ER-4P by a local franchise. I am rather disappointed with them. The sleeves don't seem to extend or not very far into my ear canals. The audiologists impressions were much longer and it appears they just cut most of the ear canal part off. One is actually slightly longer than the other. It is as if they are sitting in your outer ears. The ER-4 stick out quite far from the sleeves and when you try to extract them from your ears they pull out of the sleeves. With triple flanges the ER-4 are are almost flush with my ears. The triple flanges have better isolation and are more comfortable.
I can't use them and are sending them back.
What did ACS say when you reported the problem? All contact I've had with ACS directly has been very positive and they have been very helpful. I aslo know of people who have had ill-fitting sleeves and ACS have sorted it for them.
7 weeks sounds about right. My refit for customs took somewhere around there as they had to remake it. Although your order seems to be different than just regular custom tips so it should take a bit longer but nothing out of the ordinary. Also you have to realize that they will not be as long as your ear impressions were and they typically are a little bit shorter. Ear impressions pretty much use some kind of cotton to put in your ear and then the stuff they use for the impressions go as far as the cotton goes. I would imagine if it was the full length it would be pretty uncomfortable and painful. I wouldn't want my customs to be too much longer.
he isnt complaining that they aren't as long, he is complaining that they cut them unevenly.
7 weeks sounds about right. My refit for customs took somewhere around there as they had to remake it. Although your order seems to be different than just regular custom tips so it should take a bit longer but nothing out of the ordinary. Also you have to realize that they will not be as long as your ear impressions were and they typically are a little bit shorter. Ear impressions pretty much use some kind of cotton to put in your ear and then the stuff they use for the impressions go as far as the cotton goes. I would imagine if it was the full length it would be pretty uncomfortable and painful. I wouldn't want my customs to be too much longer.
I hope you do realize how difficult it is to provide perfect customer service for everyone. I'm speaking from experience. For the rep to not know all the details is to be expected - she works at the desk, not in the lab. With the volume they probably see, your order would go along the normal process and not receive particularly special attention as for notifying you. Do you know how many other people they need to reply to in a day? How many notifications they would have to send out if they documented the entire process via email messages? A lot, I tell you. Your CS department has to be efficient, otherwise you're wasting your time and money by needing to hire extra employees. That drives the cost of the products up.
I don't mean to defend ACS in particular, but just CS reps in general. They put up with a lot of crap. Some bend over backwards for everyone, and some don't. It also depends what all your job includes - for myself I'm accounting, shipping, management, and CS in one. I run the show. It gets crazy, and 24 hours simply aren't enough in a day.
But, all we can do is try our best. You pestered her enough that she went and bugged whoever she bugged for the details. You see, she does disrupt the work of that person, and if she did that for everyone then nothing would get done. This is why things work when everyone's order gets equal treatment and things move along the usual conveyor belt rather than being carried along by a dedicated pigeon.
Of course, this is not intended to offend or attack you, my apologies if it does seem that way, but I'm just putting in my 2 cents I've gathered from working in the industry.
What did ACS say when you reported the problem? All contact I've had with ACS directly has been very positive and they have been very helpful. I aslo know of people who have had ill-fitting sleeves and ACS have sorted it for them.
Well, I was speaking to the client service at ACS NY. She pretty much said that the item is not in and that is all the information she had or could get. I have heard nothing but stellar things about ACS from the UK side, which made me decide to go with them. I think the US based, or NY client service is just lacking.
I am debating calling the UK directly and seeing if I could just work with them.
I hope you do realize how difficult it is to provide perfect customer service for everyone. I'm speaking from experience. For the rep to not know all the details is to be expected - she works at the desk, not in the lab. With the volume they probably see, your order would go along the normal process and not receive particularly special attention as for notifying you. Do you know how many other people they need to reply to in a day? How many notifications they would have to send out if they documented the entire process via email messages? A lot, I tell you. Your CS department has to be efficient, otherwise you're wasting your time and money by needing to hire extra employees. That drives the cost of the products up.
I don't mean to defend ACS in particular, but just CS reps in general. They put up with a lot of crap. Some bend over backwards for everyone, and some don't. It also depends what all your job includes - for myself I'm accounting, shipping, management, and CS in one. I run the show. It gets crazy, and 24 hours simply aren't enough in a day.
But, all we can do is try our best. You pestered her enough that she went and bugged whoever she bugged for the details. You see, she does disrupt the work of that person, and if she did that for everyone then nothing would get done. This is why things work when everyone's order gets equal treatment and things move along the usual conveyor belt rather than being carried along by a dedicated pigeon.
Of course, this is not intended to offend or attack you, my apologies if it does seem that way, but I'm just putting in my 2 cents I've gathered from working in the industry.
Not offended at all. I actually do know what it takes to be in client service. I am the manager of Account Management (Client Service) for a software company. I have been doing this for 10 years and my team went from a team of 12 to a team of 4 because everyone thinks that India can do what we do.My experience with the worker at ACS makes me finally get why many people think anyone can do CS.
The fact is that I had called her three times about the delay. Any time I get more then 1 call from any client, I make sure to keep up to date on their situation. Second, all 3 times she told me she would contact me with an update. All 3 times I waited 1 week for an update and heard nothing so I called to see if there was any update. In all 3 instances it was clear she just took the call and did not follow up to see what was happening. When I handle my clients, if they are waiting for over 1 day, I will call them to say, I have been following up but heard nothing, but I will continue to follow up.
On top of this, this was the same lady I called the first time before purchasing anything just to check on some things. She could not answer a single question I had. They were all questions related to the ACS Business. Small questions like, can you do full conch, can you do over the ear, can you do different colors. The first call, she said I don't know sir. That is it. The second call, I pushed her and she transfered me to her lab after me prying. At the time she told me the person who I was speaking to was her manager. Yesterday, she said he was a lab technician when I asked to speak to the same gentleman who earlier she said was her manager. She also tried to pull the I am the manager here. Not sure if that is true or not. But she seems to be very unknowledgable about the product to be a manager.
If anyone at any time said anything to me about 7 or 8 weeks being the norm. I would have patiently waited for the 8 weeks, and would have been ok with 10 weeks. This is because I know how these things work. When people say 3 weeks, and your at 7, and the client service person/manager says they don't even know where in the chain your product is, is unexceptable client service in my eyes.
I know that CS people do multiple things. In my line of work, I handle phone calls, the helpline, installs, troubleshooting, data questions for data that is not even our data, billing, custom data loading, trainings, and in house visits. However, I do take the time to do what I need to do to service my clients the way they should be serviced. It is a simple concept that I have. I am the face of the business. What I do represents my company as a whole. If I am poor, then the client will think my company is poor. To me, ACS in the states seems at the very least overwhelmed by the process and cannot handle the orders. I see this because of the CS representative.
All I really wanted from her is:
1- A phone call stating, sir your product will take longer then normal because of your custom order. I only got this 6 weeks in after I got rude and pushed her for answers.
2- What is the timeline, when could I expect the product. I still don't have this answer after 6 weeks.
So, I understand what your saying, however, I also think that CS at least in NY is horrible. Picking up a call and not providing any information is not client service. A live voice is not client service. To be honest, if I was ACS, I would get rid of this lady and get 3 people in India to do her job. They can do exactly what she did but handle 3 times the amount of calls. Either that, or get rid of her and hire some one just to do anything besides her CS responsibilities and hire 1 person in India to do her job. I would even take an online system that at least tells me if my item is in production. Anything. In 6 weeks since the fitting, I have no more information then I did day 1.
ACS just called me (Oct 6th) which is exactly 3 weeks since I had the impressions made (Sept. 15th). I was told that my molds were in production and they took my payment information. I was told that I can expect to receive them in 2-3 weeks. Mine are standard. I will post back when I get them. The woman on the phone was friendly and efficient. Good experience thus far here
I just got my impression taken today for ACS Custom in Canada (lab in Ottawa, audiologist in Toronto). The impression did go very deep and from the looks of it I'd managed to mock up an insertion where it should/would be able to go all the way in. I told them I want the molds in black.
I emailed them and told them to insert it as deep as possible like the above picture. Instead of the following, which was also done by ACS (which ACS, I don't know)
This looks pretty horrible. With 60% of the barrel sticking outside, it goes in 90 degrees, then another 90 degrees bend to direct the sound to the ear drum? Why didn't they just make it go straight in?
This looks pretty horrible. With 60% of the barrel sticking outside, it goes in 90 degrees, then another 90 degrees bend to direct the sound to the ear drum? Why didn't they just make it go straight in?
Wow, that looks like a blind monkey did it. That is a very disturbing picture. I can't believe ACS would let a product like that get past QC. I think their stock just dropped a bit in my eyes.
