30 November 2009
Stepping Up
I want to write about a surprisingly happy event that culminated today for me.
A few weeks ago, we decided to let a professional rebuild our staircase for us. This was a very smart decision, as the original plan was for me to do it myself. So far, he has installed the skirt board (boards on the walls adjacent to the steps), treads and risers. Unfortunately, we had not yet decided on balusters (spindles), so our contractor had to take a break for a few weeks for us to get these ordered.
A week or so ago, we started looking for the perfect wrought iron balusters to complete our new staircase. At Home Depot, we had approximately one style to choose from, but it was a very reasonable price at around $5.00 per baluster, plus accessories. We needed forty, so we were looking at around $200-300 for it all. We decided that if we are remodeling the stairs anyway, we should spend a few extra bucks and get what we really want which will hopefully pay off in the long run also. Our contractor brought us a catalog to look through, and with the help of an online design tool, picked out our favorite style. I spent a couple of hours searching online for the supplier with the best price; then I procrastinated through the holidays.
Last night I determined that I would have to take the final step and get these ordered so that we can have our stairs completed by the end of the year. I found the two lowest priced sites and then began to compare other aspects of the companies. Although the overall price would have been around $30 cheaper at ironpickets.com, I felt much more comfortable with the cheapstairparts.com website. Here are some of the main reasons:
- Prominently posted customer service phone hours with a toll-free number.
- FAQ’s, a dedicated contact page, and a gallery of their product in use
- Shipping and return policies
- General aesthetics of the website
- Same day shipping
- A price match guarantee
The Iron Pickets website basically provides a listing of available products and that’s about it. Actually to be fair, the main page contains a local phone number as well as a gmail address to contact them. This did not do a lot to reassure me. The funny thing is that since I’m pretty technical, I recognized that both sites used free shopping cart software to create their sites. Cheap Stair Parts was savvy enough to jazz up their site enough that the average consumer would have no idea.
My guess is that neither site actually stocks these items, they simply market the products to buyers and then send the order on to the same supplier, House of Forgings and then collect their profit on the sale. Instead of completing the order last night on the cheaper site (I considered it), I decided to wait until morning and give the more reputable company a call in an attempt to get the price match.
Boy am I glad that I waited. I called the toll-free number, and spoke to Douglas, I believe. After telling him what I was looking for, he assured me that they could match the price of the competitor. The websites stated that the prices were between $11.44 and 12.95 for the different baluster styles that I was ordering, plus accessories. All in all, I expected the order total to be around $560 + $108 for freight shipping. The representative said something along the lines of “let’s do each of the balusters for $10 each to make sure we beat everyone else on price”. All in all, the total price (shipping included!) ended up being $552. This is almost $120 less than I was prepared and expecting to pay. They will ship it today and it should be here in a few days.
I’ve been happy all day after this phone call. It just goes to proves that good customer service does more than makes the customer happy with that single transaction. I’d be happy to recommend them to others looking to make a purchase and they are getting some free advertising and a link from me in this post.
Hopefully, all goes well with the remainder of the transaction and I won’t have to write a follow-up.
By the way, if you live in the Kansas City area and you are looking for a dependable Master Carpenter, I’d recommend contacting Ronnie Duncan at 913-909-3089. Tell him that Matthew Sumpter sent you. I’ve already recommended him to a couple of other friends of mine and so far, I haven’t heard a complaint.
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