EQT tuning is Trash!

[Joe_Mama]

Interesting thread. I have never dealt with EQT or Sneakytune but based on original post I think this whole thing is a bit of an overreaction.

I think a bit more patience would have helped...

 

[swcrow]

Unfortunately its not that simple. We ran into issues in the IT MSP space all the time, more work than we can handle and a lack of competent engineers. Same thing happens to tuners. Hiring someone to tune hundreds of customer vehicles is a huge liability to the business. Not something where you just want to pull someone off the street.

Spot on....I'm an EA and we see this all the time. You can flex and add more folks to "handle" the workload, but the spin-up time, knowledge transfer and evaluation of skills takes a long time before they can actually put their hands to the plow and start working. I have to assume tuning is the same...it's essentially IT, just on different computers.

 

[JerseyDrew77]

I’m anything but a eqt fanboy, Hence the reason I run Sneekytuned and always recommend Andrew… but there’s no denying that ED is a class act and a very transparent Vendor… that’s one of the reasons people on the forums love the brand.

As far as “best” as Jim and many other eqt fans that live by absolutes say…I don’t identify with them

Hey, don't bring me into this drama.

 

[Acadia18]

Spot on....I'm an EA and we see this all the time. You can flex and add more folks to "handle" the workload, but the spin-up time, knowledge transfer and evaluation of skills takes a long time before they can actually put their hands to the plow and start working. I have to assume tuning is the same...it's essentially IT, just on different computers.

Balderdash... Everybody knows 9 women can make a baby in a month.

 

[El_bigote_AJ]

Hey, don't bring me into this drama.

Haha, Andrew is sneeky of sneeky tuned… his government name - lol

 

[Ed @ EQT]

Spot on....I'm an EA and we see this all the time. You can flex and add more folks to "handle" the workload, but the spin-up time, knowledge transfer and evaluation of skills takes a long time before they can actually put their hands to the plow and start working. I have to assume tuning is the same...it's essentially IT, just on different computers.

Somebody gets it! This is not like hiring someone to flip burgers, or even to turn wrenches. It's not even the same as hiring an IT guy or a software developer. The skillset involved in tuning is very specific and there are not many qualifies people out there. Training someone new from scratch would be a huge undertaking and prohibitive in terms of time investment. Then comes the liability associated with having someone new tune thousands of cars as well as learning trade secrets. As such, we are very lucky to have 2 extremely qualified tuners on staff.

As far as support staff, however, we have expanded substantially over the last couple of years. We now have 2 full time and 4 part time employees who answer phones, support tickets, e-mails, DM's, etc. And that's not counting myself and the handful of group mods we have who also help answer questions in our FB group. I don't think any other tuner of our size has devoted this much effort and money into their customer support staff.

Thanks
-- Ed

 

[JC_451]

You don't get to take on too many customers and then hide behind not having enough staff.

Refusing customers is obviously a bad business model, but so is taking on so many your service level falls below the level that made you successful.

 

[oddspyke]

You don't get to take on too many customers and then hide behind not having enough staff.

Refusing customers is obviously a bad business model, but so is taking on so many your service level falls below the level that made you successful.

I actually think turning customers away is good business in some cases. Other tuners change their custom tunes to "sold out" when they get too busy, which is preferable to paying money and having a bad experience (this thread is exhibit A). To use an analogy, imagine you go to a restaurant that is busy and understaffed; would you rather be told there is a 1hr wait to be seated or seated immediately and not see your server for an hour?

 

[Ed @ EQT]

You don't get to take on too many customers and then hide behind not having enough staff.

Refusing customers is obviously a bad business model, but so is taking on so many your service level falls below the level that made you successful.

We are not taking on too many customers and we do occasionally stop taking additional tuning orders when we need to catch up. We’re also not hiding a thing. We have generally been running at a consistent pace aside from unexpected personal/health issues with staff. And now we're ramping up quite a bit so that we can greatly reduce our response times as well.

The main issue with this OP was a miscommunication on our end, not a lack of staff.

Thanks
-- Ed

 

[anotero]

Unfortunately its not that simple. We ran into issues in the IT MSP space all the time, more work than we can handle and a lack of competent engineers. Same thing happens to tuners. Hiring someone to tune hundreds of customer vehicles is a huge liability to the business. Not something where you just want to pull someone off the street.

Typical "growth of business" problems. In any case, the least the person putting together an actual tune can do is be more forthcoming. Something for Nick to think about.

 

[anotero]

I Can agree. But it seems people are more concerned about EQT rep VS the person who's actually losing $$. Or not money since I'm agreeing to get this corrected so it's just time. For me to say EQT is trash is a true statement based on my situation. months of tuning to get laggy performance and be told it's my hardware. Nick he was adamant it was me and not the tune, so what do people want me to say about the tune. What I got and what I was told holds true to my statement at the time. Now that Ed has clarified doesn't change the tune that I got. Cause it is Trash. We now understand why it's trash, cause I was sent a wrong File and being told I have boost leaks.

Anyway I don't wanna drag this back and forth with the fans any further. And turn this into something else. I'm glad Ed address the issue and hoping we can correct this going forward. And now I guarantee because of this post they will be more vigilant with customer tunes.

I never understood why it's so difficult to double and triple check your work. Reread the email three times before sending it. Verify three times you are sending the correct file. Name files unambiguously. It's basic noteskeeping.

 

[anotero]

I’m anything but a eqt fanboy, Hence the reason I run Sneekytuned and always recommend Andrew… but there’s no denying that ED is a class act and a very transparent Vendor… that’s one of the reasons people on the forums love the brand.

As far as “best” as Jim and many other eqt fans that live by absolutes say…I don’t identify with them

It's important to differentiate between Ed the business and Ed the person. When the king steps in and solves the problem that's great. But he can't step in every time. His "cabinet" has to be able to deal with issues without involving the king.
And everyone (vendors, buyers, housewives) should be as descriptive and unambiguous when naming files.

 

[The Dude]

I never understood why it's so difficult to double and triple check your work. Reread the email three times before sending it. Verify three times you are sending the correct file. Name files unambiguously. It's basic noteskeeping.

yes, but there are another 35 emails besides yours and they want their shit today too. That's at a lot of places. It's difficult to find qualified staff that wants to work.

 

[anotero]

They do need more help answering emails but it's probably difficult to find a good tuner.

Every business wants to grow. Unless you employ a planned economy model, there'll always be a duscord between the amount of business flowing in and the resources devoted to satisfying that demand. Proper PR and technical expertise go a long way, along with understanding when to say: bros, we are up to our necks, not taking orders for the next three months (scaaary).

In any case, Ed has a much better public attitude that Jon from 5150, and tgat adds points to EQT PR.

 

[anotero]

Sorry but I will have to disagree with one point. You were not sent a trash tune. You are just on a 1st revision, a conservative file which is running mostly as expected for the setup and state of tune. There is nothing bad or wrong with the tune itself… you just haven’t been able to get it completed yet due to the service issue and miscommunication we already discussed.

If you want to call anything “trash,” I suppose you could use that term to describe the level of communication you received from us so far. And I don’t mean to minimize that at all as this is very much unacceptable IMO and it’s being addressed. But FWIW, if you had simply contacted me or any of our support staff directly at any point with your concerns, I’m sure we would have figured everything out at least as quickly.

Threads like this don’t automatically pop up in my inbox until someone makes me aware of them, so a more direct line usually helps. At the end of the day, we all need to do our part to communicate with each other, especially when things are not as expected.

Thanks
— Ed

Kudos to you for maintaining composure. I've seen far worse from other tuners.