Companies that don't have a phone number where you can talk to some one Hmmmmmm

[Mjolinor]

You are talking about large long term existing companies. I am talking about a new technology where (with a few notable exceptions) there are few employees, a high proportion of those employees being technical people and generally companies with little spare cash that are trying to make something from nothing.

That is very hard work and phones are expensive to man. With the best intentions in the world technical people make crap phone operators. They can email sensibly with the needed information but they cannot generally man phones and talk to planks about why the printers don't work when they are not plugged in.

That is why, for the sake of the industry newer forms of communication should be embraced, endured and accepted.

[spaceman]

To each his own, many won't be around down the road so it won't matter after that.
Im old school and better to get off on the right foot with your customer. Any way will see how these companies do
for the long haul.

[richardphat]

No freaking way I will ever write wall of text to every customer supports.....

Company such as Solidator DLP never replied to my 5 emails address .... until my boss called them, which they finally replied. They told me a salesman will contact us shortly, and guess what ... they never called us back.

[curious aardvark]

Hate phones - love email :-)

Should you be daft enough to publish your phone number on the net your quota of nuisance phone calls will go up so high you'll think you've got permament tinnatis from the constant ringing.

So no, I don't look for a phone number when buying online.

Seem like a really dumb reason for not buying a printrbot.
This is NOT a new anonymous company. The guy's on facebook and probably the other social media stuff. His track record is excellent, almost nobody posts bad reviews of his printers. His company is about as open as it could be.
What do you want, his personal home number ?
Sheesh

[spaceman]

I wouldn't buy a Printrbot for other reasons then that.
I will stick to companies that have phone tech support.

[Bobby Lin]

Not just in buying 3d printer or purchasing my 3d models, but in general I only do business with a certain company or website if their email, phone number and physical address(it would be better if it's incorporated with Google Map) are present on the website. In that way I am confident that the company is not a scam and truly exist. Even better if they put some certificates or some proof of documents that their company or business is legit. Reviews from past clients helped too.

[lakester]

I can only say that most of the negative comments I read about printrbot were on the Printbot "Answers Forum"..., and there were more than a few. At the time, what were undoubtedly simple problems related to power supplies found no definitive answers.

I agree that the company's reputation was overall excellent, but for many folks, the inability to reliably find simple answers to simple questions could be a deal breaker.

....
Seem like a really dumb reason for not buying a printrbot.
This is NOT a new anonymous company. The guy's on facebook and probably the other social media stuff. His track record is excellent, almost nobody posts bad reviews of his printers. His company is about as open as it could be.
What do you want, his personal home number ?
Sheesh

[Miker_D]

From a companies point of view, having a customer service phonenumber is incredibly inefficient.
I used to work in customer service for a small european software start-up which had a hugely success mobile RDP app. We only offered email support and that ensured that two people in part time could handle all requests. If we had to answer a phone, each ticket would have taken twice to three times as long as it had to solve the issues and the quality of service wouldn't have increased (I my job satisfaction would have massively decreased).
The next thing is, due to globalization, time zone differences become a bigissue. A smallish company (lets say a start-up for arguments sake), just can't hire people to answer phones 24/7. Our office was located in Vienna, but most of our customer base was in the U.S. If a customer would call us on 0800 EDT, it would be 1400 MET in our office. Which leaves a time frame of about 4 hours for the closests US customers on the east coast and 1 hour for customers on the west coast. You might consider outsourcing your costumer service to a 24/7 call center in Bangalore or wherever, but in my opinion nothing good will ever come from this course of action. .

[spaceman]

From a companies point of view, having a customer service phonenumber is incredibly inefficient.
I used to work in customer service for a small european software start-up which had a hugely success mobile RDP app. We only offered email support and that ensured that two people in part time could handle all requests. If we had to answer a phone, each ticket would have taken twice to three times as long as it had to solve the issues and the quality of service wouldn't have increased (I my job satisfaction would have massively decreased).
The next thing is, due to globalization, time zone differences become a bigissue. A smallish company (lets say a start-up for arguments sake), just can't hire people to answer phones 24/7. Our office was located in Vienna, but most of our customer base was in the U.S. If a customer would call us on 0800 EDT, it would be 1400 MET in our office. Which leaves a time frame of about 4 hours for the closests US customers on the east coast and 1 hour for customers on the west coast. You might consider outsourcing your costumer service to a 24/7 call center in Bangalore or wherever, but in my opinion nothing good will ever come from this course of action. .

Hmmmm who buys from the company, the customer. Enough said.

[Miker_D]

Hmmmm who buys from the company, the customer. Enough said.

Yes, so what? Do you really think, that not having phone support makes a serious dent in the sales figures, if you sell a good product?