Shockworks is listening but they dont care. Why would they, everybody keeps buying there stuff.
Until they really see business suffer, nothing will change. The reason why this is happening is because they are too busy. They would probably welcome less orders!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think "don't care" is accurate. But being too busy due to demand is probably very accurate.
I am in a manufacturing field (military small arms). High demand utterly screws with production and delivery schedules. You forecast production based on past demand with no idea whether the demand will increase, decrease, or remain flat. You order material from suppliers, of which steel and titanium are difficult to come by sometimes. You hope all the material you get from your supplier is in spec and suitable for use in your manufacturing operation and that you don't have to reject it and wait for new material.
When demand suddenly increases you struggle with whether to hire more people which you will have to train (slowing production) and hope demand doesn't drop off and you have to lay them off. So you grin and bear it with the staff and equipment that you have.
Demand is so high you can barely keep track of all the orders. One or two drop through the cracks. It happens. Somebody is mad because of the poor customer service. You didn't mean to do it. You'd like to please everyone but you just don't have the physical capacity to do it.
As you get a bit further behind, more people start calling and asking where their stuff is. It's really hard to weld sliders or bumpers with a phone in your hand. If people would just stop calling you could actually get some work done. But if you don't answer the phone those same people will be all over the internet asking, "Has anyone heard anything from XYZ company? Are they out of business?" The internet is brutal! The customers just don't understand... and often they won't even give you the courtesy of addressing their customer service issue with a phone call first before posting all over the net for the world to read. And frankly, some of their demands are just plain unreasonable - but there is no convincing them of that. This isn't Amazon.com. I don't have 10 warehouses throughout the country stocked to the rafters with every conceivable product under the sun. That guy that just bought the sliders for his '03 4Runner doesn't understand that you sold the last set yesterday, you'll have to build more and for the next three weeks you're working on 05+ Tacoma front bumpers to fill orders. It is going to be awhile until you build another batch of those sliders and at the moment you don't even know when or where they'll fit into your production schedule.
You answer the phone and try to give them an estimate of when their product will ship, hoping that your estimate is at least close. Darn it if your local outsourced powder coating guy isn't backed up and behind schedule too. It sucks to have to rely on other people to keep your business running but you're just not quite big enough to invest in an in-house powder coating setup when you really need to hire another welder and buy more material.
Meanwhile a handful of people keep calling asking when you're going to finish the prototype front bumper for the 2012 redesigned "whatever". Not to mention that one guy that wants a custom rear swing away tire carrier for his '89 Mitsubishi Montero and if you'd just build them as a full production item he knows they'd sell well because him and everyone else would want one - he knows the 4x4 market so well afterall.
The life of a small to medium manufacturer...
Expect to wait for high quality and high demand items and the internet and forums like this hold a lot of the blame. You get a good, capable local manufacturing shop like Shrockworks or CBI Off Road that does some great work for a couple guys in their area. They post it to the internet and suddenly these shops become nationally known in short order for creative, innovative, quality equipment and it's all they can do to keep their head above water to meet the sudden demand.
Being in the field, I've learned to be much more patient because I know what they are going through as manufacturers.
- DH *stepping off my soap box now*
