Arrowquip Stockyard Review

Miscellaneous stuff…

• The calf-to-adult adaptor posts (which allow for the different height components for calves and adults to be joined together) were welded upside down (I have assembled the calf race with the caps on the ground and the feet in the air, to enable me to continue building).
• The calf table’s large pivot bolt and nylocks were not even finger tight – one nut is sitting on about one thread without the nylon having been engaged, the other nut is missing altogether, presumably fallen off in transit.

How were these issues handled?

In my opinion, badly:

• I emailed the address printed on the back of the budflow assembly instructions, as the contact point for any issues, and copied in my territory sales manager, at the end of September. The sales guy got back to me but I didn’t hear anything from client care.
• A few days later (October 1st) I emailed the sales guy again with some more issues and pointed out that while he’d been in touch, I’d heard nothing from client care, and copied in the general client care address. 
• I finally received a call from client care on October 6th, with an apology for the issues I’d noted, and advice that parts were being trucked to the territory manager to install.
• The territory manager came onsite October 14th and spent the morning confirming the issues, effectively trying to work around them (e.g. drilling additional holes) and assisting with assembly of the budflow. In doing so, we only then discovered some of the issues listed above, which I reported again the next day by email, to the guy who’d called me from client care. The territory manager advised he expected to get the entire budflow replaced. 
• A month later, having decided I could no longer afford to wait for the budflow to be replaced before continuing with the build, I moved on with assembly, and discovered the issues with the gates, which I again brought to the attention of multiple people in the company via email on Sunday November 15th. I added that if I didn’t get a written action plan mid-week, with concrete delivery dates, I’d be seeking legal advice.
• Four days later, November 19th, the territory sales manager was back onsite confirming the newly discovered issues. The action plan and delivery dates still hadn’t come. Indeed, I had still not received a single email from anyone in Arrowquip client care, only the one phone call back on October 6th.
• Having raised these issues in the online Regrarians workplace forum, I was given the email address of two senior staff based in the US. I wrote to them on Friday 20th November, as I’d still not received an action plan or delivery dates (though the territory manager had mentioned December 25th as a hypothetical date, which I thought was a joke, but we’re now pretty close to that). I received a prompt and courteous emailed reply (my first from anyone at Arrowquip other than the salesman who sold me the yard) which referred me to, and CC’d, the managing director of Arrowquip Australia.
• The managing director also replied that day (Friday 20th) and advised this was the first he’d heard of my issues. This may well be the case, but if I was managing director of a stockyard company which had supplied (in one single order) gates that don’t open, gates that don’t fit, and gates that don’t close, stuff welded upside down and around the wrong way, and missing parts, and which had received notification of potential legal action sent to multiple employees, I’d be asking myself what kind of company culture exists that such issues could go under the radar of the managing director for 6 weeks. I also received a call from the client care manager that afternoon, asking when would be a good time to talk through the issues on the phone with both him and the managing director. We agreed on Monday for the call, and I also advised the managing director – who had asked, in his email, for a good time to speak to me directly – of this agreement.
• Monday came and went. As did the rest of that working week. I spoke to a lawyer during the week. After 5pm on Friday arvo, 27th November, I received a call from the client care manager who apologised and advised that my replacement parts would go through production the following week and hopefully ship the week after.
• Tuesday 1st December I received an email from client care advising that the parts were “progressing well” and confirming that they’re working on shipping the next week.
• Fifteen days passed, and on December 16th, I received an email from client care advising that while they had planned to ship the previous week, some parts had been held up, and everything is packed with the truck ready to be loaded Friday, and client care would let both me and the territory sales manager know when it leaves.
• I received a call on the 18th from the territory sales manager to say the offside crush (which was supposed to be here last month) had arrived, and to line up a time for him to perform the replacement of the budflow and faulty gates. I still haven’t actually been advised by client care that the truck has left the factory, so I’m not holding my breath.
• It’s now December 20th, 5 days from Christmas, in the height of my raspberry picking season, and I have until December 31 to have the yards installed and ready to use to meet the COVID-19 asset write off stimulus deadline. For yards I paid for in mid-July. 
• Update 28/12/2020 – the offside crush arrived two days before Christmas, with the issues as noted in the video toward the top of this page. The replacement panel gates etc. are, I’m advised, somewhere in Tasmania having left the factory on the 19th of December and apparently in Tasmania by the 21st. As I told the Territory Manager, I’m pretty annoyed, on principle, that they haven’t arrived yet, but I also have plenty of other stuff to manage at this time of year. Including, now, how to get the issues with the crush resolved (noting that the Arrowquip warranty plainly states that any modifications to the crush will void the 10 year warranty).

In stark contrast to these dealings, I have also had an issue with an Orion water tank I purchased, which is going to be replaced under warranty after I emailed a picture to the company. I was phoned and given a day the truck would arrive to collect and replace the tank. A couple of days out from that day, I was phoned again to say – in advance – there were issues with some production equipment and it’s possible the tank would be delayed. I was called again to confirm that the delay had indeed occurred and another date was booked, with the advice that I’d also receive a time of arrival closer to the day. That’s how you handle production issues: keep your customer informed; if you promise a call, make the call; if you say you want to speak direct to the customer, make the effort to actually do that; at very least acknowledge receipt of emails.

Hopefully I’ll have a happy ending to add at some point when things are less busy. I’ve heard very good things about Arrowquip prior to, and after, this purchase, so perhaps I’m just really, really, unlucky.