Okuma frustrations

[Christopher M Songer]

I have an account with Okuma for a few years.

I send my order in by email to one regular person.

Sent my order on Sun hoping to get a response on Mon.

Nothing Mon, nothing Tues so I sent another email inquiring late Tues CLE time and got a reply Tues evening CLE time that the order would be processed that day. Mind you I had a LONG delay with a previous order just 4 week prior.

Sept 13 email order sent Sunday
Mon Sept 14 nothing. OK
Tues Sept 15, nothing yet so send another email to see if they got my first one
Got a reply that the order would process same day.

Nothing until Tues Sept 22 that order parts "approved and int the que to be fulfilled"
Now just over a week since order sent and one week since promised processed.

Email further says "orders may take 5-14 business days for processing" 15 business day pushes this out to Oct 12/13 potentially. Then shipping will take a week. 

I might be looking and getting my parts ordered on Sept 14 as late as Oct 19-20. Not cool.

And I did not get my "Parts account" discount. So I email my contact same day Sept 22 about the $ and have heard nothing.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way. When I call in an order sometimes it shows up with parts I did not want but I have no "paper trail" to fall back on.

Frustrated in CLE.
 I understand staffing, vacations and a BUSY time of years on both ends as retailers, guys like me tryin to get reels back in the owner's hands and the reel owners who hope to fish again this year!

Shimano, Daiwa, Pure fishing all do a better job in my experience.

Looking for advice to help me with Okuma, I know it sounds like I am complaining and well I am but if I can do better on my end I will.

This is NOT the first time I have had this frustrating situation with Okuma parts orders.

I COULD RULE THE WORLD IF I COULD ONLY GET THE PARTS

Tight Lines!

Any constructive input appreciated.

[JasonGotaProblem]

My guess is that individual is no longer with the company, and their emails aren't getting forwarded to anyone else.

[mikeysm]

Buy American

[cbar45]

It appears you have followed the correct procedures, and their business model is just not conducive to rapid parts orders fulfillment.

Other than you letting Okuma owners know of a potential delay in getting parts; it looks like the ball is totally in Okuma's court to up their game.

[OhReely]

I feel your pain, understand your frustration. I think Jason's response is highly possible. Perhaps a disgruntled employee left and severed your link. I see this kind of thing occurring in so many facets of everyday life as companies downsize in all manner of ways in order to cut costs, boost profits and keep the shareholders happy. The advice I offer is always have a backup source for parts by establishing channels with various suppliers. Then spread your orders around so that your secondary and tertiary suppliers don't loose interest.

Hopefully your customers won't loose interest due to lengthy waits for parts. I hope your problem with Okuma gets resolved soon.

There is another thing you can do if you care to expend the effort. Several years ago I purchased a used Nissan from a Kia dealer. There were problems that the salesman lied about. I wrote a lengthy, but not in anyway threatening email, detailing the problems. I named the salesman but did not accuse  him of anything at all, just expressed my disatisfaction. I then sent the email to everyone above his paygrade at the dealership and in Kia North America. Every director of every dept and division that I could find in the whole company. I sent the email to all parties at the same time. Within two days I received a call from the salesman asking me to return the vehicle so they could see the problems first hand and try to resolve them. I went back with the vehicle, met the salesman and his manager. The issues got resolved. My point is it's easy for things to get ignored when you're trying to push them up the chain of command but when the s*** starts flowing downhill people want the smell to go away.

[Brewcrafter]

Buy American

Has nothing to do with anything here.  Okuma has their warehouse right up the road from me in Ontario.  So it's not like parts are coming halfway around the world - anytime I've ordered from them parts have arrived quickly and just fine.
And elsewhere you will find extensive threads on Avet.  I like my Avet's, several of my friends have multiple Avet's, and....I dread ordering parts from Avet... - john

[Christopher M Songer]

My guess is that individual is no longer with the company, and their emails aren't getting forwarded to anyone else. Th

That happened before, the person "retired" but the new guy picked me up right away.

[Christopher M Songer]

I do use other resources for parts such as Tuna's Reel Troubles in Ludington MI. He has the most common parts for many Line Counter reels I see but NOT ALL parts.

Any good suggestions for Okuma parts, I use Mike's in BC, even visited the place x2. Mat's in Eagle River, Wisconsin but he has older parts inventory. I hate Platinum in Florida, as we had a falling out after accusing me of takin and old part and trying to return it.  The part came defective and I never opened the packaging it came in.