Ian Sommerhalder/Celebrity Authentics

[abreeskye.livejournal.com]

You guys, I'm pretty upset.

I emailed Celebrity Authentics a couple questions WEEKS ago. They never responded to me, so today I decided to hunt down their number and call them. They are understandably only open Mon-Fri. I left them a message to call me back. I decided, ah, well. I'll just go ahead and order my autographs without getting the response I need.

I go to the preorder page, and see that Ian Sommerhalder is now listed as SOLD OUT. I'm really REALLY upset. If they would have gotten back to me WEEKS ago I would have been able to preorder. Anyone else have any issues with them not responding to emails/messages?? This was to be the highlight of my Dragon*Con this year :/

Comments

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

If they had replied to your email and you preordered, someone else who didn't email them wouldn't have gotten the autograph. So, what is their motivation supposed to be to reply to your emails?

[rhino-rex.livejournal.com]

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/25/email-tricks-of-the-super-successful/
responding to emails quickly is how you get people to trust you and use your service again.
my guess is that this is a fly by night service that figures on automating everything and minimizing work to maximize perceived profits. entrepreneur still thinking in dollar per hour on two minute/two line email responses. can and will be put out by someone that can communicate.

[lemur-bat.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit wary of posting on a potentially flammable thread, but I do want to share my experience with said company. I found out that they were doing pre-sales through FB and subsequently was alerted to when they began sales, which was back in June, I believe. I figured they would sell out quickly and as such, tried to snag tickets that first day. Needless to say, they were swamped: their website crashed and the phones were impossible. They eventually sent out a message asking customers to e-mail their orders in along with contact info and they would call everyone. I honestly wasn't sure if they would, but lo and behold, I got my call a few hours after my e-mail. And this all happened on the first day of pre-sales. So, I would venture to say different experiences for different people. *shrugs* There were a lot of people on FB who were pleased with how they handled the rush. I can even vouch that the company seemed to respond to FB postings in a timely manner. Any company is going to have it's pitfalls and it's kinda random bad luck as to who will experience them. I might imagine the sudden sell-out being due to the prospect of the the guest not cancelling so close to the con and people changing their minds at the last minute. Those pre-sale tickets were available for a surprising amount of time. But I did kinda screw myself by not picking out my pictures! I didn't realize those were sold out too. I think a trip to the dealers den might remedy that, hopefully!

[altxchange.livejournal.com]

Is there a reason why you didn't follow up weeks ago? As soon as it went past a few business days, a follow-up email or phone call really should have been done. Email can be incredibly unreliable as I've had emails from customers end up in spam folders sometimes depending upon what email provider they use.

Your only recourse at this point is to *calmly* call them on Monday to see if any exceptions can be made, if they have a standby list for cancellations or if they can contact you if they have time for more sales/photos than they originally allotted.

[wsmith1966.livejournal.com]

Hello, My friend sent a private message to you pertaining that I have a pre-order ticket for a photo op and a autograph as well. I tried to get a refund for my ticket but celebrity told me all sales were final. If you want to still get a photo op or autograph. Just contact me and I will sell you my ticket. As I am trying to save some money and cut back whom I am getting photo ops with.

[jonathan davis (from livejournal.com)]

Seeing that CA has scheduled just about every minute of the TVD cast's time while they are at Dragon*Con and Ian for example is only signing for 2 hours each day. I highly doubt they will have any extra tickets for sale at the con.

It's gonna slammed as it is without adding more people.

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

I bought my tickets the first day of the pre-sale. The website was slammed and everyone panicking but I sent an email and a message and I got two calls back that day, one for the email and one for the message.

I left them another message with a question a few weeks ago and forgot I'd called until they called me back to answer my question. It wasn't an urgent issue- just a question so it didn't bother me that it took them over a week to call me back.

They definitely have some kinks to work out of their system but I felt they provided great customer service to me.

Sorry to hear you had a negative experience. It sounds like you found someone selling their ticket, though. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/mad_brilliant_/]

If you click on the "View Details" button for Ian, you'll see that you can ask to be put on the wait list. I'd suggest doing that ASAP.

[abreeskye.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I've added my name. THIS is the kind of response/help/advice I was looking for :) I didn't even know a wait list existed. Again, thank yo so much.

[abreeskye.livejournal.com]

Thank you to all of you that responded to me on a positive note!

I spoke with Abby at Celebrity Authentics today, she was VERY nice and helpful. She apologized about what happened with the email, recognized me from my post to them on FB and my message to them over the weekend. She said they are going to try and figure out why they never received/responded to my email, that shouldn't have happened.

Proof that good customer service will make you more money? I'm going to buy more autographs from them now, and quite possibly in the future as well if they are in charge of guests I'm interested in.

Thanks again fellow con-goers!