Indie labels & emails

[just a normal guy kevin]

I have a question for people here who own small one-man or self-run indie labels...can you talk a little bit about how you manage your emails from customers?

I don't want to be that entitled customer but, the more LPs I buy from small indie labels, the more I run into poor customer service. I've had about 4 cases where I buy a record off a label's website via PayPal then a week or two passes and I get no update. Then it's about another week or two before the label responds to my inquiry.

Are all small labels incredibly committed to customer service but just busy? Or is the aloof, detached personality stereotype that is given to musicians and record shops also prevalent amongst labels? Probably somewhere in the middle, yeah?

Maybe we can breed understanding & share some stories from your perspective on why contact & fulfillment might take a little longer than what is expected. Or just post 3 lowercase letters without spaces or punctuation. Thanks!

[Fowty Dollaz]

Not that this applies to me to answer, as I have had very few experiences of this, but when it does happen it is the worst. For instance, today I had a small label email me (unprovoked) to let me know they were out of mailers. That was cool. Plus it's only been 2 days since I ordered, so no worries. However, other labels have just not sent any form of communication or update (or package) without me harrassing them for weeks. I think it all is a matter of timing and how "entitled" they feel.

[museummouth]

I run a decently successful Etsy shop and I almost always respond to emails he same day and with as much kindness as possible no matter how rude or dumb people are.

[Out of Breath Records]

jfc

[larry47591]

I try to answer emails quickly.  I always ship orders within 3 days but mostly of the time I mail them next day.  Anytime I have had a longer delay I emailed my customers.   I just treat customers the way I would want to be treated.  

[One Hundred Fifty-Two]

From experience some label owners are musicians or managers or roadies and so they are on tour and can't respond. Other are run by people in school and when finals roll around they go MIA.

[just a normal guy kevin]

Definitely sympathetic to the day job & school responsibilities. It would be awesome if their stores would put up a notice saying that they'll be "on leave" for X weeks or if they just put an auto-responder on their work email with a heads up. So many options to make communication clearer.

[overdue]

I hadn't run a label before this, but I had done mailorder for a comics publishing and custom button business with my wife. And a ton of ebay stuff when I'd downsize for a move.

 

Sometimes I'd order from people, the product would show up weeks later than it should have, and in a few cases, not at all. I'd always have those frustrations when ordering stuff online too, so I always do my best to be timely with shipments and emails.

 

I typically ship out next day, I make the Post Office part of my morning routine. If I don't, I usually give people a heads up about why there's a delay.

 

The only time it's tough to catch up is when a release first comes out, and there's like a 100+ shipments all at once. Friends help out if they can, but it's still a lot to get through.