Hi everyone,
I really appreciate reading all of your comments. I know how frustrating shopping online has become during the Covid pandemic, and that unfortunately includes some of your experiences with Pyramyd Air. I know there are a range of issues that can lead to these bad experiences, many of them outside of our control and some of them being our fault. I do want to say, that we are not too big to care, we are doing everything we can to overcome these challenges. To me, airguns are supposed to be fun, and it really takes the fun out of it if you have a really awful experience right up front trying to buy your airgun. Like most online companies, we got hit really hard by the pandemic, more customers were stuck at home bored and looking to their hobbies as an outlet and airgunning seems to have really become popular. Our customer service team was pretty small before Covid, only a handful of full time people. We have grown that same team to over 5x it's previous size in a year. As you can imagine that is an incredible amount of recruiting, training and learning that has to take place, all during a time when the government is paying workers to stay home, and our entire team was working from their kitchen tables while trying to home school their kids.
I am not in any way trying to make you feel bad for us or make excuses, we are continuing to get better and respond faster. We have opened up more ways for you to get in touch with us to make it easier; from text messages, to our self help guide (which is getting smarter at a rapid pace) and introducing chat options on the website. Our response rates are finally starting to get back to where they were before Covid. We are responding to your emails within 8 business hours over 95% of the time (and hope to decrease that time soon), and our customer service team is answering your calls quickly for the first time in over a year (there is still a long line if you want to talk to a product specialist or technical support, we are going to be adding appointment scheduling for you to make it easier).
One thing we cannot control is the sheer lack of inventory. Demand remains incredibly high, while suppliers still struggle with everything from shipping logistics to continued lockdowns that they can't plan for. This extends to small parcel carriers as well, FedEx, UPS, etc all are struggling to adjust to the demand of online shopping post covid. They are so overwhelmed they do not even respond to us the way they used to when something goes wrong. Backorders and lack of product are simply not something we can waive a magic wand at. Trust me, we would greatly prefer to have everything you want in stock and ready to ship out when you call.
I appreciate all of you who have stuck with us or given us another chance after a bad experience during Covid, and I will continue to listen to your feedback and improve our team.
Thank you!
Eric Wilson
Director of Customer Experience, Pyramyd Air