Famous Smoke Shop — Local services in Forks Township

I was going to let this go after having an awful original experience but after famous wasted more of my time, promised to make things right, and didn’t follow through on a single account, I decided to post my experience. To start, I’d like to say that I have been smoking cigars for well over 15 years. I do have a great point of reference as I have purchased from dozens of different retailers, both brick and mortar as well as online for many years, with an average spend of $3000+ each year so this review is not coming from and ignorant noob.

I have made a sizable order from famous, around $400 worth. One of the boxes was a gift and a few others I was going to take on vacation with me, that was two weeks after I made the purchase. A week after my purchase, I received a phone call saying that my order was not shipped, it was on hold until I send a picture of my credit card. I don’t know why it took them a week to call me but I did send it within minutes of receiving a call. The order was then shipped late and using the slowest shipping method so of course, it got here after I had already gone on vacation. As a result, it sat in extremely hot metal mailbox for another week, without decent packaging, without humidification means, without a single Boveda pack (including Boveda packs had become a standard with most online retailers but care about the hobby and their customers, clearly not Famous), rendering all cigars on smokable.

Clearly disappointed, I’m still very tolerant to issues so I emailed their customer service saying I am not looking for any reimbursement, refund, or any action from famous whatsoever, just wanted to let them know my disappointment and how poorly my order was treated, basically explaining what had happened and why I was upset to make sure that this didn’t happen with the next person. I figured I would try to revive the cigars, put them in a humidor for a few months to see what happens.

To my surprise, I got a call from famous customer service. Not the person I was dealing with before, but another agent. She wasn’t really sure what was going on or what to do but was asked to give me a call. After a good 20 minutes on the phone, she promised to send me a replacement order with a return shipping label so I can send the original order back. It has now been more than two weeks, I received no communication from famous, they didn’t follow through, I didn’t get a shipping notification, a tracking number, a return label or anything. They have gone silent and chose to not follow through on their promises. While I have no plans to review my experience originally and didn’t want anything to be done about the issue as I didn’t need additional stress in my life…….but after going through a round of apologies and NOT following through on a single promise, I changed direction and decided to post my experience here.

Needless to say, I will not be going back to famous and advise that you do not either. There are countless retailers that actually care about the hobby and their customers. Good shipping practices, packaging, overall quality, excellent customer service are all very easy to find in this hobby as the competition is fierce. Do yourself a favor and shop with someone that will send you a quality cigars and make you feel like they actually care about you and...

What’s going on with your new website, ordering and CRM systems?

I placed an order on Thursday afternoon, I normally get an email the same day or early the next day saying that my order has been shipped, but not this time.

I logged in my account this morning, Saturday, to find out that my order was on hold. No reason provided and I never received a notification. Thank God I looked, as I would have never known.

Normally that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I’m leaving Alabama on Wednesday to go back home to Canada, so I made sure to order with plenty of time for my cigars to get here as it normally takes 3 days. But since my order has been on hold for 2 days already, I knew this would be a problem.

I emailed them this morning hoping I would hear back by 1pm, but no go, so I gave them a call. After 15 minutes on hold, I spoke to Heather. She acknowledged the order had been on hold because of a glitch in their new system, and that she could approve the order. But this is where things get interesting.

I informed her that the order wouldn’t make it here in time, but if I could change the address to my friend’s place in Virginia, I could still make it work. Unfortunately, this is not possible in their new system. All I could do is to either hope for the best that the order makes it in time, or cancel my order and re-order.

When I asked her if the sale price, I paid would be honored, she informed me that she couldn’t honor the price, I would need to call back on Monday and hope that whoever I speak to can make it happen. I then asked if it was possible for me to get a rebate or a deal since, for no fault of my own, I had to call back again on Monday in the middle of my move. You guessed it, nothing she can do…

I understand that there can be hiccups when you ‘’upgrade’’ to a new system, but shouldn’t the goal of the new system to work better than the last? As someone who’s worked with customers for more than 20 years, there is one thing I know, some things will go wrong, that’s a guarantee, but you define great customer service on how well you handle these situations and putting the responsibility on your customers is not the way to go.

I placed 14 orders in the past 2 and a half years and spent about $2,000 with you guys, and you dropped the ball BIG TIME. You had the power to turn your mistake into a great customer experience by going the extra mile to rectify the situation but chose not to. This is not the way to treat customers…

Update#1 Although I was told I could cancel my order, it seems that I cannot do it myself through the website and I need to do some by once again calling in...

This is...

For better or worse, I’m a cigar lover. And, this cigar lover loves Famous-Smoke Shop, and have for years.

Let’s face it, there’s plenty of cigar stores and plenty of online sellers as well. However when you call any of those with a problem, frankly, they pale badly when compared to the treatment you receive from Famous.

Case in point, yesterday I placed an order for some of my faves, which Famous notified me were on sale (which they have very often), and so I placed my order. However when the final screen popped up, it said that there were only 5 packs of five still available; having previously entered my request for seven...which it said were in stock. Well, I picked up the phone and called customer support to see what was up, and they explained that two must’ve been sold just prior to my hitting the “order” button.

But then, WITHOUT ME ASKING, my representative, Trisha M., quickly ascertained the issue and started working on a “fix”, rather than tell me that I couldn’t get my discount because my order no longer met the minimum purchase requirement, though through no fault of my own.

Bottom line: she initiated a substitution for the two packs which were now unavailable, offering me actually an upgraded product to my original order, which was now whole, and, at the SAME COST to me.

Problem solved. Famous retained a very pleased 20 year customer, and, made their sale. “Everyone won”! And Trisha did all this without even having to “run it by her supervisor”, which tells me that Famous’ mission statement gives their customer service support staff authority to make wise and customer centric decisions on-the-spot.

Very well done, Trisha M! And, THANK YOU to you, and Famous-Smoke.

Kind...