Reading this thread mate I have to agrea with you but unfortunatly find its a growing trend amongst uk business be it plumbers, electricians etc etc, take for instance dad, recently tried to get a quote for a good £1000 worth off plumbing work, phoned at least five companies explaining what he was wanting to be told not a problem will get a quote together and get back to you, strangely only one got back to him with a quote that was a total joke, ended up getting the work done in the end for £800 from a local chap. this is not uncommon as have had excatly the same thing myself whenever trying to get quotes for work.

the strange thing is everyone jumps to these same peoples defence whenever you complain / say anything about them. would they be happy just to be ignored for weeks on end and yep funny as soon as you post something then bingo " I am here how dare you speak like that about me " !!!

an email or phone call cost nothing and and yep still to see my first post like yours complaining about duncan or any off the other fine tuners we have on the site who despite being constantly busy seem to find the time to at least acknowledge you even if it is just to say they are busy but will get back to you.

Trackhound near edinburgh who are doing my mapping have replied to every single email I have sent and answered every single question I have asked which are no doubt the same questions they get asked time and time again !! now this particular guy is a very busy guy who obviously takes great care / pride in his work and who wont just " fit you in " on a friday afternoon for another couple off quid in his pocket and I appreciatte that and its things like this that give folk a good reputation which when working on scoobies/ evos etc is off prime importance no doubt !!

so yep think out paths crossed the other night on a particular thread regarding mappers funny enough !!! but yep on this occasion totally agrea with you mate.

 

Give APi a call their always willing to give advice.

 

Under the circumstances you've handled the situation well in my opinion. It's a shame Paul is alienating himself more and more these days. He is a very skilled and talented guy who will always be in demand but his people skills are very poor.

 

Tracktive solutions are a stone's throw from you.

 

I agree with the above, you have handled this well. There is no excuse for such a ridiculously low level of customer service. If someone is horrendously busy and working mega hours then they might aswell work one extra hour a week just to send an email out to all the enquiries merely stating how busy they are with an apology included.

I run my own business and I've been in positions where I have been out on site for over 100 hours in one week, I still didnt ignore valued customers

 

[/Quote]Tracktive solutions are a stone's throw from you[/quote]


I take it you didn't read this.

 

Who told you Tracktive don't do EcuTEK?! They have been mapping my ECU on EcuTEK since last year.... They are certainly still do it as it was mapped again this week!

 

That's 16.5h a day working 6 days a week! How do you manage?!

 

Really?

https://www.scoobynet.com/member.php?u=13494

https://www.scoobynet.com/scoobynet-...rformance.html

https://www.scoobynet.com/member.php?u=50105

If Paul's too busy, then why not just say so?

 

Tracktive do Ecutek and Richard is a very experienced person.
He has also mapped mine.

 

Tell me about it! There was over 20 hours travel a week on top of that. Did it for 6 weeks straight, I nearly died! I lived off fruit juice, coke zero and kebab meat pizzas with extra jalapenos. By the end of it I was pasty white, spotty and in dire need of alcohol

 

What do you do for a living if you don't mind me asking?

 

Maybe Paul meant he doesn't come on here 'anymore' ?

It does say on his stats that his last activity was feb this year.

 

I'm a Business Consultant with a speciality in Project Management

 

you ought to give zen a call, id say they should call you but thats not going to happen is it

To the op I wouldnt have waited that long, no way!

J

 

It seems they would certainly benefit from my help!

 

This thread is a complete joke in my opinion.
Every thread I've seen/read regarding Zen only includes good comments. I've used Paul myself many times and have no complaints whatsoever, his mapping skills are second to none. He knows these cars inside out and has always been more than happy to talk me through any issues/questions I have had. I would trust him with my car without any question !!
For some reason the OP and Paul have had some sort of issue that isn't being admitted here. Ask yourself, why would Paul call him and give him a mouthful ?? Anybody who knows Paul will know that doesn't sound quite right. I'm not saying Paul didn't ring him but something has happened there that we don't know about.
The comments above saying he's a 'tosser' and 'doesn't know how to run a business' are absolutely pathetic in my opinion. That really is a bunch of people making comments about something they know **** all about.

My car will only ever be worked on by Paul.

 

Quite probably.

 

Thats your choice mate and everyone has one, however threads like these are sometimes necessary to let people know of a poor service, same if you want a insurance quote of people on here, cant get a hold of them but put a thread up and hey presto!!!!! they appear.

Think the guy has acted well and as its a Subaru community he is right in letting the rest of us decide on who looks after our cars.

Agree that calling him names is out of order.

IMO

Mac

 

I emailed Zen not long ago about mapping an Apexi PFC and got no response, tried ringing the numbers off the website and no answer. In the end I got racedynamix to fit a Simtek, can't fault Duncan, and the car drives like a dream.

 

Shaun and Fpan, cheers for the advice on Tractive, will have to pop down for a chat.

It appears that i'm not the only one in this position and others have gone the same way and used more reliable mappers.

Matty, all I can say is good luck to you. Just dont come ballin when you've done all the hard work on your car then cant get Zen to sort it. You might get lucky, might not, thats your choice and you're welcome to it. Just read back through the posts on this thread tho, IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH THE SAME OPINION. Fingers crossed you'll get a discount for being a loyal, patient customer, lol

Oh and FYI, there is no history between me and paul because he never replies to emails or phonecalls. Yes, I was booked in to go there for a tweek a few weeks ago and it was booked the Friday after I knew my engine was going in. On the monday my turbo gave up so I emailed straight away saying I wanted to cancel because I'd have to source a new turbo 1st. The appointment I made for the Friday was via email, he's never rang me before and theres never been any beef.

 

It would seem that Zen have been to hell and back in the last two years or so what with the winding up of the old set-up were they did everything, through to Paul on his own and now the move to new premises. I have had a lot of work done by Zen and it's certainly stood the test of time. Looking back I remember a chap there called Sam who used to deal with customers and was very competent in subaru matters. He left to live in Aussie and a vital link was lost. I've witnessed Pauls frustration in being focused on his work and not able to spend time on the phone talking to customers.
Trev

 

I don't like posting on threads like this but in this case I feel I had to.
Paul sorted my map out on my car after another respected mapper hadn't quite sorted it. I have used 4 mappers in all on 3 different cars. Andrew Carr was very good and did a great job on my hawkeye but couldn't map my current hatch. Richard Bulmer did a good job on my P1 and didn't approach him over my hatch. An other respected mapper did my hatch and I wasn't happy with the result to which he said it was the best he could do ( I'm not talking bhp just straight drivability ) I took it to Paul and he was one of the most helpful people I have met. My car has a fantastic map and I would only take my car or future cars to him.
This is just my opinion of my experience with Paul and Zen.

 

Kev

the quality of his work hasnt been put into question, I think most people on here me included, have only heard good things about zen.

customer service is part of the package though....

 

as said take your money elsewhere. I have given up chasing companies to spend money with them. Plenty of companies out there which excellent reputation/customer service.

 

In order to defend myself here I have had to reregister along with new email addy to boot. I've lost the login details to my normal non trader account, but if I try to recall a password it only tries to do so for my trader account as they share the same email address. Nevertheless for the first time in 6 months I have felt the need to log in to scoobynet, a site which I possibly look at one or two threads every few months, mainly project threads.

I will start by saying I know I am not the best when it comes to replying to phonecalls and emails. But.....

Prior to today:

Stuart's initial contact was at 12.56am on 26th of May asking about how the Ecutek license worked after being put onto my by the car's previous owner, I replied at 9.05am on the same morning with a detailed email.

Stuart's second contact was at 1.15am on Friday 24th June. I was busy helping various cars prepare for Brands hatch Time attack that week, going to brands that same friday, and worked the whole weekend looking after 3 cars, with friday testing, and saturday and sunday competing. On monday 28th June (ie the next available opportunity) I replied to stuarts email, giving him all the details he needed, he replied to say he would be in touch (when he had sourced a new engine).

On Sunday 3rd August, Stuart emailed me again, once asking for an appointment. This one email was left unanswered for 6 working days, nd then with no further email contact Stuart started a scoobynet thread asking if people had trouble contacting me, that was the 10th of August. So over the course of that sunday and the following few days there were numerous emails exchanged. At 8pm on the sunday night I emailed to say I would let stuart know once i had a chance to plan the following few weeks of stuff. On the Tuesday morning I had given Stuart a choice of days and we ended up with a day sorted.

As it turns out, when we got past all the communications problems and the desperation for the mapping to be done, the new engine was not yet in the car, let along running and confirmed to be ready to map. But I sorted out a deal to map the car for £200 including VAT to cope with the new engine, and a change to 95RON fuel. In the week running up to the mapping there were problems with the running of the car, then Stuart cancelled the mapping due to serious problems. After all of the back and forth I wasn't best pleased that the car wasn't confirmed to run before the date was set, and then the worst happened wasting everyone's time.

The current lack of communication is the result of not replying to his last email 5 days ago, sent at 6.40pm on a saturday evening, at the time I was driving back from Cornwall. I did not look at my emails on sunday, as I was attending the TimeAttack at Anglesey. Monday was a bank holiday and after driving much of the weekend I spend the bank holiday OFF work. Looking at a weeks worth of emails I had not replied to all of them and Stuart's email was left unreplied to for two working days. During that time (tuesday/wednesday) our new (VOIP) landline phone was manned most of the time at the workshop. Then this morning Stuart put 2+2 together (no reply for a few days and changing phone number on website after landline install) and came up with 10 and asked if we had gone bust.

The last time someone decided to circulate a rumour that we had gone bust, it resulted in use very nearly going bust, making two people redundant at chirstmas including my own brother in law, so I do not appreciate such posts.

I did phone Stuart to ask him about his post today and to let him know I wasn't happy and he would need to find someone else to map his car, my exact works were:
"Good luck with finding someone else to map the car, I'm sure you'll be just fine".
I genuinely wanted him to get it sorted, I am rather surprised that given his posts even before the phonecall he would want me to map his car. After not one trial by scoobynet but two, before he has even done any business with Zen at all, I don't feel comfortable having the guy as a customer, but I don't wish him anything but success with getting his car sorted.

I asked "has your car blown up?" I made no reference to anything in particular, especially not the suitability of any existing map. But it did illustrate how upsetting wild assumptive questions can be which was the point.

I informed Stuart that I didn't not look at scoobynet and only knew about the thread after being told about it on the phone. At no point did I claim to have "never been" on scoobynet. It should be obvious to anyone that looks up the details that I have posted 1000's of times as a private individual and as a trader, so lying about such things would be rather foolish, no? And I did not rant about it!

Stuarts reply was "why would I not be" on scoobynet, implying it seemed to me that it was my duty to have a presence on it as that's where "all the mappers are".

I can answer that. Subaru mapping represents about 25% of my work at the moment, of which none comes directly from scoobynet as fresh business (but plenty of existing customers from times when I did use Scoobynet). At that level I can deal with the enquiries more or less and do all the other work in for the bargain, and I'm pretty happy with that. I wouldn't want more enquiries just now, I would rather have less and be able to do the work than not be able to keep on top of it. Currently I would prefer to map only through trade outlets, this works better for me and is currently how the majority of my work is done, I don't have the problems of trying to both map the cars and cover the enquiries, the traders get the chance to put a complete job through, mechanical and mapping, and everyone is happy. Sure I make less money but I can do the work quickly and efficiently so I can make living, and not get so stressed about it, except of course today when instead of being able to relax with my family this evening, I've been stewing on this.

I am very sorry I don't reply to everyone as quickly as I possibly can, but in this case, the longest that Stuart had to wait for anything from me since first buying his car was 6 working days. Prior to this he has sent 1 email that I haven't replied to, on the 14th of August at 10.50pm, which he repeated on the 15th August at 8.30pm and that got a reply the following morning from me at 10.45am.

 

Ok, i'll confirm now that what Paul has posted, to a degree is correct.

Given the time it took trading emails, lost phone, number changes etc I booked the map based on my engine already being installed at the time and by the Sunday night it would have been running. This left 5 days to double check everything prior to going down for the map tweek. However we found that the turbo had suffered oil starvation once the car had been run for a day so I emailed straight away to say that I couldnt make the map, 4 days beforehand.

A couple of things, "none of your work comes directly from scoobynet" mainly due to the lack of presence on here but you may prefer it that way. It just seems strange that someone with such a good reputation and following in this trade doesnt use this forum as a way of marketing or customer relations as others do. Many people recommend other mappers on here purely from previous experience plus the ability to communicate on here.

2nd is the whole email/phone business. I run my own business and thats my choice and I have a social life too. This doesnt mean that I ignore calls/emails if i'm not working, thats just wrong. If I cant answer the phone etc I get someone to do it for me, or call divert etc because I know that if someone is ringing me about work and doesnt get me, they'll move onto someone else.

This thread wasnt designed to be a business bashing, it was designed to air my frustrations at the lack of communication and options to get hold of you and maybe a firework up the **** that in the current economic climate, customer service goes a LONG way and as stated by others, is often more important than the service being provided.

Anyway, you've said your piece and i've said mine. You own the map to the car and theres nothing I can do about that now.

 

wow had a gd read of the thread and although ive had no dealing with paul ive always read on here about his gd work,
however with so many new folk coming to the fold then by not posting on here and taking so long to reply it will stop that new business coming your way as the new owners want it done asap.

 

Not sure why the fact that Paul doesnt come on here is causing such problems.

He clearly has a waiting list so why would he add to his work load by posting on threads in here?

Maybe the reason he doesnt come on here anymore is because of witch hunts like this from many people who have never even used his company or know both sides of the story.

 

People shouldn't be put off employing Paul by what they read on here, or any other internet forum for that matter.
Dissatisfaction with any aspect of customer service provision will usually result in an anguished shout from the roof tops, with good service frequently receiving less vociferous praise.
It's true that Paul can be hard to get hold of, never more so than when he has been relocating his workplace, or working away from his base, and it will be very irritating when you are waiting for that elusive call back. However he is surely not unique in this.
But you can be assured that when his talents are focused in your direction, the wait will have been worthwhile. His knowledge and expertise are second to none and it has been my experience that he will always do his best for you.
It's only natural that when you decide to go for an upgrade, or require some remedial work, you'll want the work done well in a time that suits you and go first to your favourite mapper/machanic/whatever.
The bottom line is that if you can't get a response, you have the option to wait or go elsewhere.
You don't have to slate somebody because they have done nothing worse than be busy.
It's a tough business being a one man band.
It's only going to be tougher when you're one of the best and in constant demand.