It appears that Howard Tong the likely mastermind of Newegg’s awesome marketing and customer experience has left Newegg and has joined USAutoparts.com as COO (as per his Linkedin profile).
I noticed this today after I was having communication difficulties with a Newegg order and tried to reach out to him and was highly surprised to find he had left the company. It will be quite interesting to see if Newegg’s service level suffers now that he has departed.
Howard if you’re reading this, I wish you the best of luck in your new role and please drop me your new contact information when you have a moment…
I can’t speak on much else that has happened in the last year and a half, but customer service at New Egg has proven itself to be the absolute worst in the industry.
The preferred account service definately drew me in as Mr. Tong’s press release stated it was doing for other customers when it was first released.
My order for a $200 gift card somehow turned into a $1000 PC order. One complaint I had about this order was the fact that the nice people of New Egg take absolutely no pride in the industry that they work in. They resource their service department out to call centers where the team involved knows absolutely nothing about computers. They try to absolve themselves of this burden by forcing their customers to call hundreds of different vendor websites for compatability questions.
Letting this issue go, black Friday came and went with many new deals making their way to the page after old ones sold out. I made 3 purchases on Black Friday, 1 in the AM for around $200, 1 at around noon for $35, and a final purchase around 4pm for $300. The $300 purchased was denied. I had been approved for $6500, so the limit was not an issue.
It turned out that the multiple purchases set off a fraud alert due. When I called New Egg they informed me of this and told me to call preferred services. However preferred services would be closed until Monday. The order, can be left on hold I am told for a maximum of 5 days, so waiting for the weekend to pass is not an issue.
Today, Monday, I called preferred services. They stated that it will take an additional 5-7 business days to “research” my account. They also stated that a supervisor will not speak to me about my issues, nor will New Egg preferred accounts speak to New Egg to help me resolve my issue. When I asked who I could write or speak to in complaint of this, they told me that they do not know. They are a call center and are not told any information about who runs the company they work for or what manner of recourse a customer can go through to get taken care of.
I am just writing this to warn potential customers, if you don’t want the headache, it might be worth it to shop TigerDirect or Frys.com. I know I am canceling my orders today.
I am simply heart broken reading your experience. Even though I am a co-founder of Newegg, I am not the majority shareholder. I still own a part of Newegg and love the company; I wrote the business plan in 2000 and we launched in 2001. I helped build that company from scratch with the philosophy to have the best online experience possible. My blood sweat and tears were in making that company the best for customers.
But in the end, things happen (as you experienced) which made my decision to leave Newegg and start again, on my own, in control, the right way. No more issues dealing with fighting the other partners to do whats right for the customer.
I started http://www.autoshepherd.com selling auto parts online. And I will expand to other areas as well.
I truly hope that Newegg can remember its roots and core, and return to greatness. I wish them all the best.
Howard Tong
Co-founder Newegg.com
Currently Founder and CEO of AutoShepherd.com