Terribly poor quality of Vanguard CAP uniform items - anyone noticed?

[Eclipse]

... it shouldn't be up to CAP members to find the problems and complain about them.  If it was the entire batch, then they've got an internal quality control problem that needs to be fixed.  You would hope that someone is actually taking a look at the product they buy before filling orders with it.

I wholly agree, but sadly, reactive customer service seems to be the mantra in most companies these days.

Even when the company (any company) is 100% responsive and contrite, it is a failing of every link in the production chain when a
defective or inferior quality product reaches the customer.  In a lot of cases it is another area "shareholder value" was placed before
"customer satisfaction", and the QC/QA department was shuttered or reduced.

It is also fairly common for most companies these days to rely on the fact that most customers are complacent and will accept "good enough",
so they play the odds on quality, and then let their customers do their QA for them.

Then those companies which are "social" get to play both sides of the fence - use their customers as the QA, respond immediately
when people whine on FB, Twitter, or "other", and instead of looking like junk merchants, they look like heroes, when in fact if no
one whined, the problem would never be mentioned publicly.

It's an outstanding model until the company hacks off the wrong person one too many times, or breaks somebody with a poor product.

[zonaman]

I have placed a number orders to Vanguard for my squadron. Every time the orders have arrived within 5-6 business days and  the quality is great. On one of the orders they even sent me a couple of free CAP calendars. They were really nice and very well made, all the pictures were old CAP pictures from the 40's and 50's.

My understanding is that there is two different Vanguards. East coast and West Coast. They even have different numbers to call when you place an order. I found out when placing my first order to them. The lady said I needed to call their other office and was given the number. I don't know if it is still that way.

[Spaceman3750]

I have placed a number orders to Vanguard for my squadron. Every time the orders have arrived within 5-6 business days and  the quality is great. On one of the orders they even sent me a couple of free CAP calendars. They were really nice and very well made, all the pictures were old CAP pictures from the 40's and 50's.

My understanding is that there is two different Vanguards. East coast and West Coast. They even have different numbers to call when you place an order. I found out when placing my first order to them. The lady said I needed to call their other office and was given the number. I don't know if it is still that way.

All CAP orders are filled out of the east coast facility.

[zonaman]

All CAP orders are filled out of the east coast facility.

That explains that.

I still got great service and products.

[Eclipse]

Order placed, online, July 24th.  44 Items, including a custom item (blazer nameplate), that purports 5-7 day lead time.

Shipping notification July 27th.

Received, July 29th (Today). Full order shipped including the custom nameplate.

All items correct, no apparent quality issues.

10% coupon and shipping would have been free except I wanted the FedEx Ground.

Hard to find anything in the above to complain about.

[gregma]

As a followup to my bad quality patches.  I got a very nicely written reply from Vanguard about my EMT patches.  They apologized and recognized the problem.  They have removed all remaining patches from stock as they all were sub-par.  They will be replacing the patches once they get more stock in that look better.  Looks like they do recognize problems once they are pointed out.  Now to see if they follow through!

Greg

3 weeks later and still nothing from Vanguard.  Follow up email sent...

Greg

[Майор Хаткевич]

If it's anything like our manufacturing process, to spool up an item out of stock takes about 2-4 weeks, depending on the shop load. We also only have about 150 items.

[shlebz]

when buying everything for my mitchell, in the comments box i asked if they could ship as fast as possible (while still recieving the free shipping from spending soo much) and by-golly after about 2 days i had a box waiting on my front porch! the quality was good, and everything that i have ordered that was bad i sent back and recieved a new one with little--->no hassle.  ill admit their prioces are kinda high, but overall i dont mind it. But i must say i do indeed miss the hockshop :[