Trying to contact SBG
 

I've been trying to contact your shop for a few days now, but it seems no one answers the phone :(

I'm the happy owner of your headlight kit for the FD3S, however I need to order a part from this kit off of you. I managed to damage the box from the kit that has your SBG logo on it and has a large white plug from the wiring harness that plugs into it.

If someone could contact me, I'd love to buy another.

Thanks,

-Geoff

Have you tried emailing them? I was in contact last week, and they were very quick and happy to respond.

+1 shoot them an email, SBG always gets back to me within a day or two

Good luck. I've called 4 times in the last 3 weeks with no reply.

I just spoke to Heath yesterday, I pointed him to this thread a few minutes ago :icon_tup:

That seemed to work. Was called back a few hours ago and had all my questions answered.

Hey Geoff,
Unfortunately we've been in and out of the office late last week and early this week... machine shop, anodizing, manufacturing meetings, and dyno tuning training. When in doubt please email info@sakebombgarage.com or shoot a text to the shop phone number 510-356-5556 (we get text notifications and email notifications when we're out, and I can typically respond relatively quickly, even if we're in the middle of something else).

Unfortunately we're completely strapped for time as it is, so typically phone calls get shuffled to the back of our to do list that grows longer as the week goes on :lol:

Anyway, I got your email and I'm looking to see if we have an extra relay box floating around, if not we'd have to get you a new harness. Shoot me a picture of the one you have (there are a few versions).

Also thank you everyone for being so patient with us... I feel bad leaving you guys hanging :blush:, we're just terribly understaffed for everything we're trying to do. Everyone says it's a good problem to have (but not really :smoker: :hah:). We wouldn't exist without the FD communities' support though (and patience), so thanks to all of you guys!

Thanks for the response.

I'll snap a couple pics of the box when I get home from work and I'll send them to you via email.

-Geoff

well, i been trying to contact them for a month (little longer) now and still waiting for pricing on a part but never did got a return call or email. i call, text, email, and left a few voice mail but now i give up. heath sound like a cool guy when i purchase the fire extinguisher from him but after that purchase sounds like everytime i call i get ignored. its getting annoying so im done trying now. thanks

Hows it going? Unfortunately we're just completely slammed, we're all at the shop working currently and it's 8:45PM our time, we're just weeks behind as we're getting more requests and orders than we can physically fulfill. It's a good problem but also a terrible one at the same time... we've just legitimately got hundreds of requests we need to get back to so questions that are somewhat custom unfortunately just end up getting shuffled to the back of the list... we're literally running beyond capacity currently.

I remember your question and have a post-it on my desk... I'll shoot you a response now. We're trying to get back to everyone as quickly as possible but to be completely frank, the requests are coming in faster than we can get back to people... there's a virtual line going out the door but I know you guys can't see that online :(

-Heath

Try emailing them, i always got quick responses that way. Its probably easier for them to manage compared to phone calls as well.

^ We're a small development shop, so we don't have a dedicated customer service center. Since we do a lot of R & D and assemble kits on site, it's very hard for us to sit down and take calls. Email we take care of while engaging in other tasks, and because its not in real time, its much easier for us to manage responses that way. The upside is whenever you correspond with us, you're talking to one of the people who does the CAD design for our parts, assembles the brake rotors in your kits etc.

So we can provide a lot of direct feedback. Having said that, we're sorry for the times when there is a lapse in communication. We do our best to build positive relationships with our customers, and if there is something you need, please email us at info@sakebombgarage.com or use the contact feature on our website.

-Alexandra @ SakeBomb Garage

I've worked with Alexandra before, and she is awesome at responding. Sometimes we've corresponded back and forth several times in a day, which is very uncommon these days.

:icon_tup:

I'm really glad to hear that and we absolutely appreciate it! We try to share the workload for emails, but there's so much going on here from engineering to testing and validation, working with manufacturers, testing on the dyno here... it sometimes feels like you need to be an octopus to be able to get everything done at once! haha.

That said, I don't think anyone here would trade what we do for the world... we're completely underpaid and overworked but we get to do what we're passionate about every day pushing the boundaries of what the FD is capable of daily and sharing that with the community. For the record, if you run the numbers we make virtually nothing off the FD as a platform, we dump nearly 100% of all profits generated back into R/D for this car (which is why we've had to take on other platforms like the Miata, S2000, Lotus Elise, etc.) to help pay the bills here... but the FD is my personal passion and the rest just funds this platform and development :nod: :icon_tup: Long live the FD!!

I will second the positive comment about Alexandra and getting responses. If it isn't same day, there is a reason, and it usually means she was gathering information for a good answer. This was the case with my multiple messages.

Zero complaints. I also understand that sometimes there is a wait for a small business.

Will Third Alexandra and SBG being very good at getting back to me via Email. :icon_tup:

I'm waiting to hear anything about an order I placed on the website March 7th. I sent an email a couple days ago as well. The parts I ordered just came up and sold here on the forum. I'm curious if the parts I paid for, listed on the site, are available or not? The thing I'm not a fan of as a customer is having my money taken by a business for an advertised product and not receiving the product OR communications from them as to what is going on, I mean you already took my money. I've been a big fan and supporter of you because I like the service you are providing to the community and I'm not too terribly close to driving my car at the moment so the wait isn't so much an issue. I just want to know what is going on with what I paid for.

Just received an email notification that my other is now shipped out, thank you.

better pick up the nuts before you lose them, and your customers.

Heath and SakeBomb's customer service has been outstanding over the years, if anything they're a victim of their own success (i.e. hard to keep up with demand)..... whenever there is an outlier like this, I let Heath know and he jumps right on it :icon_tup:

seems by this thread, several people aren't too impressed. and yes, i know what it's like to do everything and be overworked. but if you don't resolve it, eventually it will come back to you.

people don't like excuses, and that is an excuse. odds are 10 to 1 a customer is more likely to post negatively than to bother giving any form of positive recognition. compound that that it probably took a dozen customers being ignored phone calls before this thread even existed, a dozen potential customers who may have gone elsewhere.

I have zero complaints about SBG. I have bought a few different things from them. Every product I've purchased I'm very happy with and would purchase again. My reaching out here was just that. Yes I explained my perspective as a customer and the issue was resolved quickly. I care about customer service as much as I do the product. I noticed some cracking on the lenses of my lights I bought in the first group buy they did. It was a couple years later and I reached out to them. I was never made to feel like it didn't matter to them. I was provided replacement housings very quickly and without any hassle. I respect that what they are doing will occasionally result in customers feeling like they're left in the dark but I feel like their track record proves that regardless of the obstacles and challenges, as well as ridicule for stepping up to the plate, they face to provide the community with needed products they meet the demand. Call me optimistic but it appears as if they at times have everyone available working to provide us different products that they don't always have time to reach out. Is that best practice, of course not but I get it. Given the limitations of their operation and type of products they are providing, frankly, I'm impressed with what they do.

I e sent a couple emails as well with no response. Im very interested to know if my parts shipped as im now waiting on them to finish the rebuild and it takes a couple weeks to get to japan. Ive already missed one race this season and would like to mot miss the next.

I've sent just you a pm. Sorry this must have gotten overlooked but I'll help you sort it out ASAP!