MAJOR THUMBS DOWN TO SCHNEIDER'S SADDLERY

[enjoytheride]

I love schneiders and I don’t see how going on and on about how much you hate them does any good. You had one bad experience and if you don’t like the company move on to another one.

I ordered a blanket and was very satisfied with the speed in shipping and what I got. When my horse mysteriously ripped out the chest straps two years later I wasn’t mad at sstack, I was mad at my horse! The blanket wasn’t under warrenty but when I emailed them they told me I could ship it to them and they would fix it for free anyway. Then they even suggested that I get it fixed locally so I could get it quicker and that I could send them the bill and they would give me a gift certificate!

[foursocks]

I love Schneiders. They have fixed two blankets for me now- actually, they replaced one and fixed the second.

If I want a really nice halter, I go to Quillins or another leathermaker. In fact, my show halter is a 3/4" Quillins with a really nice nameplate and I love it- yes, it was a bit expensive at the end of things but it is a very good-looking halter. For a show halter, I’ll pay more.

If I want a serviceable 1" leather turnout, which is my horse’s daily halter, I shop around and buy the cheapest one, which usually ends up costing 20-30 bucks with shipping. I understand that I will probably have to replace it a couple of times a year, but leather wears better and doesn’t rub my horse’s delicate wittle face the way a beat-up nylon one will. Therefore, the extra expense is worth it to me. My shipping halter is a low-end Quillins, because it is tough, relatively inexpensive, and is still nicer than the usual low-end leather halters I get for turnout.

You get what you pay for, and a good leather halter is not cheap. Good customer service is also important, but as DMK points out, the CS position is usually the cruddiest one, and sometimes dealing with someone freaking out about a mid-level halter not being perfect might be onerous, to put it nicely.

I don’t know- you are going to do what you are going to do, but I’ve never had anything but great service and products from Schneiders. Of course, I only buy their top-level blankets with the two-year warranty- but that is because I understand how to insure myself against disappointment. You get what you pay for and if that means spending a bit more to get the best then so be it.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

Wow. Reading these responses, I feel like I sometimes do when I’m grading students’ exams, when there is a huge disconnect between the statement/question and the response. There you go…so much for the “no child left behind” educational policy.

[Iron_Horse_Farm]

[QUOTE=LKF;3067758]
You will not be disappointed with Quillian’s. The leather is fine quality, that has been worked in oil and their name plates are a thick brass (real brass) with engraving that will last throughout the years. You’re going to be extremely pleased - all the famous TB farms get their leathers from them.[/QUOTE]

What they said!!!

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

Well, I am hoping to get out there today and measure his old halter. By Monday I should be able to make voice sounds well enough to be understood (is my hope) because sign language won’t work well over the phone. I’ve bookmarked everything!

I just thought this would be a nice self gift, and a nice way to acknowledge having Ted for 10 years. I appreciate others might not feel the same way about a horse/human “anniversary.” But when I got him, he was so skinny, so defensive, so green, and I was so clueless. People were taking bets on who would survive, if either. And to see the huge change in both of us now, mentally and physically…well call me foolish or sentimental, but I wanted to have something “special” that each time I used it, I would say, “this is an acknowledgment of how far we’ve come.”

Obviously, however, I was nuts for thinking this could be accomplished for $50.

[Hony]

[QUOTE=EqLuvr;3073735]
With all due respect, a $50 halter is a cheap halter. I’m sure it was defective. I guess it just seems over the top to bring it onto the Internet. It sounds like they did try to work with you.[/QUOTE]

I agree with this. I’m betting the reason the company couldn’t make it right is because they are selling a cheap halter for a cheap price and you are asking for a nice halter at a cheap price.

Good customer service is very important but some times people need to realize they are asking for too much. If you buy a budget bridle you can’t complain that the quality is crap and expect a quality bridle to arrive in its place unless you are willing to pay for the higher quality. I suspect this is why Sherri was starting to get short on the phone.

I know that when I’m sick I’m pretty unreasonable so wait 'till you feel better then deal with the situation keeping both sides of the situation in mind.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

Wow. No wonder SAT scores have dropped lower and lower in this country.

READ FOR COMPREHENSION. THE HALTER WAS DEFECTIVE. THEY AGREED. THEY ALSO AGREED TO REPLACE IT WITH A NON DEFECTIVE HALTER. THEN THEY DID NOT.

I did not ask them to replace it with a $70 halter. I asked them to send another halter of the same brand, same quality, BUT NOT DEFECTIVE. AND THEY REFUSED.

Geez. No where in the description of any of their halters did they say, “By the way, this will arrive defective because really, you want a nice halter, you need to spend $70.”

So - tell me - the next time you buy a pair of Ariats, and it arrives with broken zippers, and you call the company, they tell you to send back the boots, then - instead of replacing them with new boots - they simply send the original boots with broken zippers back to you and say, “Well, that’s all we’re gonna do” - do I have the right to say, “Hey - you’re feeling crappy, the weather sucks, and you should have spent at least $300 on a pair of boots if you want the zipper to work.”

[sublimequine]

DressageGeek; Wow, you’re kinda stooping to the level of just insulting people now. Grow up. :no:

FWIW, I basically had the exact same thread as this one, only for the company Stagecoast West. Had a horrible experience, and apparently I was the only one, so a bunch of folks came in and tried to bash me for it. Only I didn’t compare them to children or make snotty comments about their intelligence or ‘reading comprehension’. :lol::lol::lol:

But seriously. Some of the folks in this thread I don’t agree with. But you’re being worse by the outright insults you’re tossing out. :uhoh:

[RiddleMeThis]

[QUOTE=sublimequine;3075643]
‘reading comprehension’.[/QUOTE]

She has said the same thing over and over again on this thread and still has people bashing her for something that IS NOT the problem and NOT what she is complaining about.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

@sublimequine;3075643

DressageGeek; Wow, you’re kinda stooping to the level of just insulting people now. Grow up. :no:

FWIW, I basically had the exact same thread as this one, only for the company Stagecoast West. Had a horrible experience, and apparently I was the only one, so a bunch of folks came in and tried to bash me for it. Only I didn’t compare them to children or make snotty comments about their intelligence or ‘reading comprehension’. :lol::lol::lol:

But seriously. Some of the folks in this thread I don’t agree with. But you’re being worse by the outright insults you’re tossing out. :uhoh:

I agree, and I apologize. So much for coming on the board and sharing an experience so that others might benefit. Won’t do it again.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

@RiddleMeThis;3075657

She has said the same thing over and over again on this thread and still has people bashing her for something that IS NOT the problem and NOT what she is complaining about.

thanks. I started to think I was no longer writing comprehensible English.

I feel just like I did my first year in grad school - at my first “drinking party” (what can I say, I was a late bloomer). I was blitzed on 2 glasses of wine (doesn’t take much for me). And when the host’s mother called, we started making “suggestive” sounds and in general, trying to embarrass our friend, at which point she switched to another language. And for a minute or two there, I did honestly believe I had lost the capacity to comprehend English. That’s how I feel on this thread. Must be the teacher in me, you don’t want to leave it until the students “get” it.

[VCT]

I think the big problem is that INEXPENSIVE should NOT equate to DEFECTIVE. And IF it IS going to equate to that… then yes, I think the company sells crap. And if they aren’t going to stand behind their CRAP then they shouldn’t sell it IF they want to have an untarnished reputation.

Yes, the quality may not be top notch or even average but it should not be dangerous, break in a week or arrive to the consumer with parts broken/worn/discolored/etc. I don’t think DG or I were expecting average or above quality items… we were just expecting something that could be put to the use it was intended for.

No one is expecting high quality expensive item for a budget price.

We just expect them not to arrive broken, break in a week of normal use, or be potentially harmful in the intended use.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

VCT, thanks. And hope there is a source for the metal buckles so that you can salvage the blankets. Kind of hard to use them if they can’t stay on.

[VCT]

Yeah, I can get new buckles and fix the blankets.

When the first one broke I remember I was just like Huh, thats odd. I’ll have to fix it… blahblahblah.
The BOTH the chest buckles on the other blanket broke the next day. then I was like, Something is just wrong with these.

I got one for one of my schoolies and one for a aged pony I rescued and then donated to a therapuetic riding center (totally sound) for lead line use where they proceeded to lunge him every day to quiet him down enough to use for regular lessons. Who lunges a 23 year old pony everyday? So now he’s lame and they didn’t want him anymore so they gave me the option to take him back before they got rid og him. So here he is.

[DressageGeek_Ribbon]

Glad you got the pony back again, and hope the lameness resolves quickly!!!

Bet that’s one TH place you won’t give another horse to.

[VCT]

Dunno that he’ll ever be really sound again. He has sidebone in a front foot now. He looks pretty sound out in the pasture now though. I had a lightweight rider get one him once in the late late fall. He was so happy to be out and about… but still a bit off.

He has COPD too… which is why I donated him for leadline in the first place. He’s perfect on a lead… but is a “spunky oldster” when just ridden. He’s too heavey to really work at all, and too “spunky” for total beginners off of leadline (where work level would be more appropriate to his breathing problems).

Ah well, he’s cute and sweet.

[mrsbwayne]

I’d be mad too if I returned something for repair and they just sent the same item back and said, eh, can’t help you, after they agreed to fix it. I mean, $50 sounds like a nice halter to me!

[WildBlue]

[QUOTE=DressageGeek “Ribbon Ho”;3075691]
That’s how I feel on this thread. Must be the teacher in me, you don’t want to leave it until the students “get” it.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I’m sure most people ‘get it’ (well, maybe not why it’s worth a second thought–let alone a vent in front of thousands of people–but the original complaint was fairly obvious, if one-sided). However, this is no different from pretty much any other multipage thread on a BB–you get a wide variety of responses from a wide variety of people. Everyone hones in on something different and filters it through their own experiences.

And, like most other threads of the type, every single person doesn’t pat the OP on the head and say ‘there, there’. And then the OP starts getting snippy, popcorn and margaritas begin to appear, and… Oh, wait, I might be reading a little ahead.

[gloriginger]

hey dressage geek-

I might have missed it somewhere in this train wreck- but did the manager ever call you back? I am asking only from a CS standpoint, I worked for a few years as a manager in a CS depertment and I am always curious about the way other companies handle these types of complaints.

Sorry to hear about your experience, there is nothing more frustrating than crappy service!

[slc2]

There seems to be two basic angles in the responses.

One is that 50 bucks is a cheap halter, and it’s over the top to complain about cracked, discolored leather and a sharp nameplate.

The other is that it’s too bad the service wasn’t very good.

The sequence of events was that there were several shipments back and forth and nobody was terribly happy.

Mail order horse supply outfits go thru a lot of changes over the years, even some of the oldest most established ones have had uneven periods. There are always mistakes, and always disatisfied customers in any business, and always some of the mistakes are going to be utterly stupid. In a mail order company with hundreds of employees one person having one bad day can cause a lot of ripples.

The key is to have an idea of how many customer complaints there are, and how they are resolved. With most retail businesses, we really have absolutely no idea of what those numbers are.

And all we can go on in most cases is reports from friends and acquaintances, which don’t always reflect what percentage of transactions had problems and which didn’t. But that’s about all we can do, because these companies don’t put out annual reports of customer service. Some people have unfair expectations that the mail order company doesn’t feel are legitimate complaints, but they need to have a decent way of reviewing them and resolving them. IDeal is if a non-company employee (quality reviewer service, etc) helps evaluate the complaints. Employees can have a bias in evaluating complaints.

These days with so many companies selling a wide range of quality of goods thru the internet, and people very often not getting to see and evaluate the merchandise, I actually do think mail order outfits should pu8lish the number of customer complaints, how they are evaluated and resolved.