http://www.npgmusicclub.c...b_init.php
http://www.npgmusicclub.c...hp?t=17983


Thank You

Sigh - could you help the members out who have, uh...restricted access, and copy and paste some text? I'll be yer best friend.

I am sorry that you have not received your copy of N.E.W.S., Kodjo. I was speaking to friends on this subject and told them this: I have never ordered anything from any of Prince's websites and never will. I would rather be able to walk into a store and physically be able to get the product myself instead of waiting for someone to send it to me when they damn well felt like it.

theblueangel said:

Blue, I would be more than happy to give you my password if you want to go in and look around. Just be good, 'kay?

Stymie, yer cooler than the cucumber I used last night...um, for the salad, yeah, that's what I used it for.

Seriously, you RAWK, grrrl, but you KNEW that. We'll talk...I gotta get back to training in a minute anyway...but yeah, it would be nice to go in and just scope the posts out. Obviously I would behave. Contrary to popular belief, theblueangel is a good boy more often than a bad one.

It's almost our berfday!!!

theblueangel said:

They already deleted that thread.

Heh - I love how quick they are when it comes to deleting shit, but when it comes to ADDING content, it's like they're walking in a pool of molasses (sp?).

Was the thread about something in particular or just the usual?

Stymie...I don't really wanna go crazy but I'm helpless as a pet...when I see that naked body sweat...

I had just read your post on the forum and wanted to add a reply, but I couldn't so I went back to the generale Musicology forum but I couldn't find your post anymore. Now if you click on the link you gave it says the topic does not exist...
I really don't like this...well...

Anyway, here's my resposnse which I could'nt post on the npgmc forum:
I totally agree with you, your words express my feelings towards this situation better than the ones I was trying to put together. You are not alone.

Excuse this really dumb question, but where in the NPGMC do I find the forums/U Tell Us section? (whether they're still there or not, I just never came across them!)

theblueangel said:

NPGMC moderators locked and deleted this...
[This message was edited Tue Jul 29 10:50:50 PDT 2003 by Kodjo]

theblueangel said:

NPGMC moderators locked and deleted this ...

Well, it's nice to see that NPGMC's customer service track record is at least consistent.

To play the devil's advocate for a moment, it could very well be that you'll get your copy today, or tomorrow, or possibly Thursday - whenever Mr. Mailman decides to grace your doorstep with the package. I got my copy last night, which was right under the gun for being "before the stores", but it makes me wonder if it's all up to the postal service now...which, as we all know, is out of NPGMC's control. Yes, they should have sent their last "wave" out sooner, but more importantly, I think they need to do away with the whole "wave" concept altogether and just ship out on a regular basis.

I've learned to abandon all hope when dealing w/ NPGMC - which as a result unfortunately means I've had to lower my enthusiasm for the new products they release.

actually so have i Anxiety. i wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but . . .
anyway this time i figured 1) NEWS would be sold in stores and 2) given NPGMC's track record i'd get it sooner if i waited and simply went and bought it. which is what i'll do. .

I wonder how much of this is just a matter of perception?...

For 'zample:

Let's say that there are 20,000 members in the music club...

And let's say that half of them ordered "NEWS" thru the music club...

That's 10,000 orders to be filled and shipped...

Now...imagine if, say, 100 of those CDs shipped haven't arrived yet, for whatever reason...

For argument's sake, let's also say that around 25% of the people who haven't recieved "NEWS" yet are members of P.org...

That's 25 people posting and complaining...considering how few a percentage of people on P.org actually post with any regularity, that's a lot of people and a lot of posts, all be saying the same thing: that the npgmc isn't running a good business...

But the reality in the situation I described very well may be that only 100 out of 10,000 CDs have not arrived yet...in other words, 1% of the CDs will arrive to members after the store date...and here on P.org (and at the music club), we are reading the complaints of one forth of one percent of those who ordered "NEWS"...would a 1% failure rate really render a business as lousy??...What about a 5% "failure" rate??...Or put another way, would you do business with a company that has a 95% success rate, or would you bypass them and deem them untrustworthy??...

Just for the record, everything I've ordered thru the music club has arrived rather quickly...I'm not sure if I'm just one of the extremely rare people with whom the npgmc gets everything right...or if the (valid) complaints posted on P.org and the npgmc are simply warping my perception of what is truly happening.

Byron said:

Good point. I don't know about numbers at all, but I for one have always (since Crystal Ball) received my orders very quickly. I'm never one of the first few people, but within 10 days of reading about someone getting their order here on the org, I've got mine.

well, my friend and i haven't received our CD's yet, although the order was made on June 19th.

How should we actually feel about it?

warning - that's a rhetoric question. I don't wanna hear what those who have had their dealings with NPGMC ok are likely to say: it's just a mail problem. it's not a mail problem, the CD was shipped last week.

And even if it concerns a handful of people (which is not the case in my belief), they are still members of the club (sic!) and should be treated like any others. Why some people have had it for a month and we here still don't? And why people walk into stores today and can buy it and we don't have the CD?

I don't get it. I simply don't get it.

And what is really frustrating is that we can do nothing about it. Even posting a simple expression of one's feelings gets deleted on NPGMC. Amazing, simply amazing.

no respect. no reliability. no courage to admit they were wrong.

sounds like a kindergarden. The only difference is that we're dealing with grown-ups. Supposedly grown-ups, that is.

it's sad.

it's obvious I should not order the DVD from NPGMC. That's the only constructive thought that has come out of it.
[This message was edited Tue Jul 29 14:01:13 PDT 2003 by agarze]

You went out of your way to post your feelings in a respectful manner, and the lunkhead coward moderators at the club deleted it without response.

Who's being disrespectful here? How hypocritical can one organization be?

Anxiety said:

Ehm, let's see: friends of mine here in Rome who've ordered "N.E.W.S." one or two days after me did receive their copy last week I ordered my cds on the 19th in the morning and all I got last week was the e-mail telling me they would ship my cd promptly which got me almost yelling "WHAT???" like 'you still haven't shipped it?'...
It's not the mail service, btw they're not using the regular mail service. They're just not able, I guess. It would have been a decent situation if the cds had arrived all around in 2 to 3 weeks or so... with them you don't know when you'll be blessed to receive it. All I know is that :
1- they managed to spoil a birthday surprise I had planned (my fault actually: learn not to rely on NPGMC)
2- I'm leaving for my holydays next week like on the 6th/7th: will I receive my copy on time? I thought I would as I ordered it already over a month ago!
3- They had problems sending out both ONA and ONA Live!... shouldn't you learn from the past?

Agarze said:

100% correct.

theblueangel said:

It's also very childish...

I'm perplexed...

Byron said:

You are doing misinformation... are you an employee at the Park ?

Just for the record too...NOTHING Ive ordered from teh club has EVER arrived quickly and somethings from year 1 still havent.

You see there shouldnt be a fuck-up percentage and,if there is, they should learn how to sort it out. People in year 1 said "give it chance,its new,it'll work out"...well 3 years have passed now and they are still making the same problems for themselves.

The trouble is that NPGMC has TOO MUCH of Prince in it (his mentality I mean) it beleives that it is untouchable and cant except any words that arent 1000% worshipping (hence the deletion of U TELL US or the fact that if you have any issues to mention tehy wont let you say them in the Chatroom ...or is that just in my case!).

You cant runa business with blinkers on and you certainly cant run a longterm successful business by taking money of people and tehn turning round and saying "well, we didnt actully say we would give you anything"...that may well be but nobody really signed up thinking they would get nothing except religious prattle, censorship and some samples so that you can make your own damn songs cuz Prince cant be arsed.

Byron said:

Byron, I personally would not do business with a company that has a five percent failure rate. I give folks one chance to fuck up and I'm gone. I go into stores and if I am not satsified with the service I receive, I never go back. Ever. Same for restaurants, movie theaters, etc. There are too many online companies that get it right everytime. I don't think your numbers are a fair representation, no disrespect. For every person that has an issue here, that one may represent one hundred. Some people don't air their disappointments at all. Also, word of mouth kills business. Just from hearing other folks horror stories, there is no way I would order anything from them.

Actually, a guy at Mucictoday told me they were on back order from the initial release of aprox. 3,500 CDs.

That's not a lot of CDs and could be pressed in a short time, unless the focus was on fullfilling the retail shipments over the members. Huh?

No biggie, I got mine. Listened to it. It's cool. Love the package design.

For the record, I've never had any problems with delivery from NPGMC.

I, too, have never had a serious problem with any shipments from the beginning of 800Newfunk. Customer Service has been good at times, rough other times, but in the end, I got everything I paid for in a semi-reasonable amount of time (didn't go through the CB thing). 1 package was damaged on arrival, but the item was not harmed. No harm, no foul...

While clearly not the mecca of customer service, overall, it has been a average/good business relationship. I've had worse, I've had better...

Is it worth the drama? For me, no.

Some people never learn.

Glad I didn't join the club this year... I'm always in the 0.25% of club members that get their shipments about 3 months late. I'll buy stuff in stores from now on.

Still, I hope the club next year is good enough to join...

I'm staying out of the censorship issues related to paid memberships to a promotional website, if you want to share something about anything related to Prince.. this is the place and not NPGMC. but I must say that i'm happy to see that many music lovers find alternate ways to obtain the music after they first went through nightmare situations when friends lend a helping hand.

Obviously, they have a legal right to delete anything they want from their website. That doesn't mean it's not arrogant and disrespectful of them, though.

The org remains the only place for any true discussion of Prince and his music.

stymie said:

Here's the thing, tho, stymie...you already have...you already do...a 5% "failure" rate is astonishingly normal for all businesses...there are many well-known businesses which would kill to have a 95% customer satisfaction rate goin' for them...


There aren't any online companies that get it right everytime...there are only online companies that get it right everytime for you...besides, when that day does come where they "fuck up", you'll easily forget all the perfection they've given you and never use them again...so "always getting it right" is actually irrelevant in your case since all their perfections will be forgotten the very first time they screw up...


That's the point I was making, tho...that nobody knows the success/failure rate of the npgmc...that it's most likely an issue of perception than one of reality...while not every person who has an issue here will voice it, neither will every person here who doesn't have an issue voice their satisfaction. In fact, those who are satisfied with their npgmc purchasing experience are probably 10 times more likely to remain silent than those who have complaints...so should any of us feel that complaint posts on a message board are an accurate gage for determining whether or not a business is doing well or not?...

My main point was that we shouldn't be so quick to use P.org posts as evidence of anything beyond there are some club members who are disatisfied, and have decided to voice that dissatisfaction on a message board site...



I agree with you there...ironically, tho, I went ahead and did business with the npgmc over the past 3 years anyway...and like I said, never once ran into anything that would even come close to a negative experience (unlike some that I have with Amazon...)...So while I understand (and even agreed in the beginning) with your decision to not do business with the music club, I went ahead and "took the chance" and ended up with nothing but positive...What does that prove?...Nothing...Then again, bad experiences don't prove anything, either. Like I said in my original post, the complaints are indeed valid...but I question whether or not they alone tell us anything.

doriel1979 said:

If I've misrepresented anything, please show me the accurate facts and correct me...