ANOVOS Productions. Silent Customer Service. Anyone got any ideas?

Hi everyone.

I appologise if if I have posted this in the wrong thread, I'm just looking for some help on a matter Ive been having with Anovos.

Most of you will know Anovos recently did a pre order for their Star Trek Beyond Tunic replica costume, back in July when the pre order stared,
I had a moment of weakness and pre-ordere the tunic (ANOVOS pricing has always put me off s being way too high, but the tunic pricing seem quite reasonable) about a month after I pre order I changed my mind on the order as it was a lot of money for me to be spending which I couldn't really afford. I sent an email to Anovos asking to cancel the pre order and to get a refund on what I paid. To give them credit, the replied almost straight away, sending me to a form to fill in with the usual details (order number, email address, reason for cancelling) I sent that off and then herd nothing for 9 days, I'd sent two messages in that time and the response I got
merely said:

"Our refund process usually takes about 10 business days and we're a little back logged at the moment. Please allow a few more days for it to go through. Thank you for your patience"

Since then again I have her absolutely NOTHING. I received that reply on the 23rd of September (exactly one month ago)
following that reply, I was patient and waited and waited and waited. After 18 days of waiting with no update or refund visible I contacted them again. Got nothing two more messages later and as of me writing this (23/10/16) I have not received any kind of response from anovos other than the automated repl when I post a message on the support ticket site.
Ive sent three messages and even sent a seperate email to their support asking for an update and had nothin back.

so my questions are:
Is this typical of Anovos?

Has anyone had this before?

How long should I leave it before perusing legal action agains them?

Note: I live in the U.K. And paid via my bank card so where do I stand on that as I'm not to sure who to contact seeing as Anovos are silent as the grave.

Thanks for for any advice in advance everyone.

You can always make a claim on your credit card as you have 120 days but contact gotmaul directly on this board and it should get taken care of.


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There are several threads where this exact issue is being addressed. Maybe try to find one?

the Pawn said:

You can always make a claim on your credit card as you have 120 days but contact gotmaul directly on this board and it should get taken care of.


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This. I've yet to purchase anything from Anovos, but it seems they may have bit off more than they can chew. PM gotmaul as Pawn suggests.

Send me a pm with your information. I can escalate it. We've been all hands in deck these past few weeks with all the product coming in before end of year.


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Thanks for the replies everyone.
Just to update you all now, ive had a response from Anovos saying that they will be refunding the money and it should take 2 - 4 Business days to clear. So it looks like everything has been sorted

Just received my shipping notice for my premier line Han Solo Bespin outfit and holster. Whoo Hoo!


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I hate to say it, but it's clear that Anovos' customer service is beyond atrocious. If you read their Facebook page, there are way too many customer complaints - and I'm not talking little nit-noid stuff, but problems with basic customer service issues, such as lack of response from Anovos for weeks on end.

I wanted to do a simple exchange on a Star Trek velour tunic that was too big. I submitted a ticket on 10/13, chatted on 10/24 to find out what was going on, and the ticket got assigned to Fulfillment on 10/26. I'm writing this on 10/28. For something that should have taken 5 minutes, it's been over two weeks. An exchange from one size to another should have been super-simple. Now, I'm worried that the longer Anovos waits, the longer there's a possibility of the size I need being out of stock.

So GotMaul, why have a ticket system if you're not going to use it? I'm curious to know, what is your goal in days to respond to every ticket? Do you instruct your workers to respond to every ticket within 3 days? 5 days? 7 days? For that matter, what are your metrics for your ticket system? What is the average time to initially respond? What is the average time to close a ticket? How many tickets are currently open? What is the average number of days each ticket is open? Do you have a weekly staff meeting where these metrics are discussed and ideas of how to improve your system are generated and implemented?

Here's an idea: when a pre-order product gets to the shipping stage, make customer service to pre-order customers on that product top priority. You know you're going to have sizing issues, so be primed to respond to customer issues. Get the pre-order customers taken care of first - *then* you release the rest of your stock to the general public.

As a reminder, Anovos has had 100% of my money for this pre-order since February! Since you have my money, do I get pushed to the bottom of the priority list? Here's another idea: you should only charge a small portion of the product price at pre-order, the rest at shipment; that way, customers can use the credit card dispute system as leverage. I certainly would be calling my CC company about now if that were the case, but with an 8-month delay, I'm sure there's no point in disputing it now.

Come on, man, get your company's act together. This isn't rocket science....

Racer-X, if you want a refund, let me know and I will get ANOVOS to refund you your money. What would you prefer?


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What I would like is for Anovos to treat their customers with respect and in good faith, but the evidence is to the contrary - just read through their visitor posts on Facebook. There are way too many "Anovos hasn't even responded to me" comments. This is clearly a systematic problem that this company needs to fix for all customers, not just the individual squeaky wheels who complain on the RPF.

Yes, I agree with you, but if you want a refund and are not getting a response from them, I will contact them on your behalf (I am a lawyer, they know me well) and I will get you a refund. So do you want a refund or do you want to wait on the product when it becomes available. I have a lot on order with them and I have chosen to wait for the product because they are the only company left that is starting to deliver product. But its within your rights to get a full refund.


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Racer_X said:

I hate to say it, but it's clear that Anovos' customer service is beyond atrocious. If you read their Facebook page, there are way too many customer complaints - and I'm not talking little nit-noid stuff, but problems with basic customer service issues, such as lack of response from Anovos for weeks on end.

I wanted to do a simple exchange on a Star Trek velour tunic that was too big. I submitted a ticket on 10/13, chatted on 10/24 to find out what was going on, and the ticket got assigned to Fulfillment on 10/26. I'm writing this on 10/28. For something that should have taken 5 minutes, it's been over two weeks. An exchange from one size to another should have been super-simple. Now, I'm worried that the longer Anovos waits, the longer there's a possibility of the size I need being out of stock.

So GotMaul, why have a ticket system if you're not going to use it? I'm curious to know, what is your goal in days to respond to every ticket? Do you instruct your workers to respond to every ticket within 3 days? 5 days? 7 days? For that matter, what are your metrics for your ticket system? What is the average time to initially respond? What is the average time to close a ticket? How many tickets are currently open? What is the average number of days each ticket is open? Do you have a weekly staff meeting where these metrics are discussed and ideas of how to improve your system are generated and implemented?

Here's an idea: when a pre-order product gets to the shipping stage, make customer service to pre-order customers on that product top priority. You know you're going to have sizing issues, so be primed to respond to customer issues. Get the pre-order customers taken care of first - *then* you release the rest of your stock to the general public.

As a reminder, Anovos has had 100% of my money for this pre-order since February! Since you have my money, do I get pushed to the bottom of the priority list? Here's another idea: you should only charge a small portion of the product price at pre-order, the rest at shipment; that way, customers can use the credit card dispute system as leverage. I certainly would be calling my CC company about now if that were the case, but with an 8-month delay, I'm sure there's no point in disputing it now.

Come on, man, get your company's act together. This isn't rocket science....

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This is a huge problem with Anovos. Ive been waiting for over a month for something they had listed in stock. I even asked before I purchased what kind of a delay there might be before my costume shipped. I was told about a week. Over a month later, I am still waiting. I have received nothing but lip service from them. As of yesterday, my costume was in a box and ready to ship, for over a week now. Prior, it was held up because they were out of boxes. They really need to get their act together.....

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Got Maul said:

If you want a refund or are having issue with an existing ticket, please email me directly with your information : joe@anovos.com

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How about your company just gets its act together and deliver product as was stated. its not that difficult.

Sure, ANOVOS is experiencing some serious growing pains. There's no denying that. Some aspects of their model need some evaluation and changes need to be made. For everyone saying "it's not that difficult!" have you ever run a licensed business connected to one of the largest brands in the world? I assure you it's not that easy. And for those calling for "metrics", they're a private company and don't owe anyone that information.

Socksollager said:

This is a huge problem with Anovos. Ive been waiting for over a month for something they had listed in stock. I even asked before I purchased what kind of a delay there might be before my costume shipped. I was told about a week. Over a month later, I am still waiting. I have received nothing but lip service from them. As of yesterday, my costume was in a box and ready to ship, for over a week now. Prior, it was held up because they were out of boxes. They really need to get their act together.....

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How about your company just gets its act together and deliver product as was stated. its not that difficult.

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I have been with ANOVOS from the beginning on most items when they did the tier one pricing. I have ordered a lot from them and it's a running joke that if I asked for a refund the company on all my items then they would go under. I will say if you are not happy at all, then get your money back and not deal with the stress of waiting. It's not worth it. Life is too short.

Anovos is having production issues, customer service issues, and growing pains as a company. But I do see them changing and fixing issues. I will vouch that every item I have received was in the end worth the wait. The Premier Bespin Han and Luke outfits are awesome and beyond my expectations. The same can be said for all the Star Trek items. I'm just now receiving the Imperial collection and will let everyone know my reviews.

But for anyone who can't stand the long wait, I know for sure that they will refund your money.


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the Pawn said:

I have been with ANOVOS from the beginning on most items when they did the tier one pricing. I have ordered a lot from them and it's a running joke that if I asked for a refund the company on all my items then they would go under. I will say if you are not happy at all, then get your money back and not deal with the stress of waiting. It's not worth it. Life is too short.

Anovos is having production issues, customer service issues, and growing pains as a company. But I do see them changing and fixing issues. I will vouch that every item I have received was in the end worth the wait. The Premier Bespin Han and Luke outfits are awesome and beyond my expectations. The same can be said for all the Star Trek items. I'm just now receiving the Imperial collection and will let everyone know my reviews.

But for anyone who can't stand the long wait, I know for sure that they will refund your money.


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Heres my thing, i don't want a refund. I want what I ordered, The thing I am upset with is that nowhere in their page do they tell you it'll be a ridiculously long wait. Before I placed my order, I asked them How long of a wait it would be. They told me about a week. % weeks later, I still have nothing. I come from a company that does what it says and says what it does. I am not used to this level of disrespectful customer service. If they would just be more up front about things, They could avoid most of these complaints. I am a new customer, I am not doubting the quality in any way, I just dont like having this much money hanging out there, with nothing to show for it but a bunch of lies.

Socksollager said:

Heres my thing, i don't want a refund. I want what I ordered, The thing I am upset with is that nowhere in their page do they tell you it'll be a ridiculously long wait. Before I placed my order, I asked them How long of a wait it would be. They told me about a week. % weeks later, I still have nothing. I come from a company that does what it says and says what it does. I am not used to this level of disrespectful customer service. If they would just be more up front about things, They could avoid most of these complaints. I am a new customer, I am not doubting the quality in any way, I just dont like having this much money hanging out there, with nothing to show for it but a bunch of lies.

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I completely understand. But over the years I have come to know the company and they are now delivering product to a lot of people at this point in time. You can always ask for a refund and then re-order your item when the product comes in stock and that way you don't have any money tied up in the company. But just like me and everyone else was waited a lot longer than you for a product, you will just have to put up with the wait and delays or try to find someone else to make your prop replica. I know it sucks, but there's only Efx and ANOVOS left that is selling licensed Star Wars and Star Trek products. I just made the conscious decision to wait it out. As they say, to each their own.

Geaux Cubs!!!


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But how can people ask for refunds when Anovos doesn't respond to customer's open tickets? And excusing Anovos for "growing pains" is extremely silly. Anovos has been in existence since 2009! That's 7 years ago; how many years of growing pains does a company need?

Regarding metrics, I really don't care what the answers are, but I asked those questions to illustrate that there are some basic customer service questions a company should be asking themselves, and that they should be dissatisfied when the answers are not reaching an acceptable goal. Based on the number of people with similar problems here, on Facebook, etc, it's clear that Anovos is doing poorly with their customer service process. Look at the end of this post for some comments from their Facebook page I copied. Holy moly! And this is just what people have posted in the last few weeks.

As for GotMaul's offer to contact him directly, I don't understand this. What he's advocating here is that if you're an RFP member, email him and you'll get to the front of the line. But what about all the people who aren't RFP members who have opened tickets in good faith? When will they get to the front of the line? And honestly, it's not the place in line that's the issue; it's the speed at which the line is taken care of.

Anovos, you already have a customer support system, so you should use it! Instead of dealing with emails, which is just robbing Peter to pay Paul, go to your Online Ticket System, review the earliest ticket, resolve it, then move on to the next ticket. Rinse and repeat. Get your open tickets down to zero. Geeze, this is not that difficult! But hey, what do I know; I've never "run a licensed business connected to one of the largest brands in the world". On the other hand, I am an aerospace engineer and rocket scientist, so I think I would have a few of the brain cells necessary to figure out a way to get my company's act together ASAP.

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Facebook Messages:

11/2 - Hi, I did not get a response from your support for more than two weeks now
11/31 - I was still waiting - and having contacted the online help three times - each time being told my helmet was marked as ready to ship - I find out today the helmets will not be shipping out until Q1 2017
10/28 - 08/20/2016 - filed support ticket…. 09/06/2016 - received response….
10/28 - Today is officially a month since I ordered my Han Solo costume from Anovos. It's been slated to ship, Pretty much all week
10/27 - Any news on my return authorization request? My original ticket was submitted on Sept 10th. Over 6 weeks with no response?
10/27 - In August this year I purchased a Nebula dress for my daughter at the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek convention in Vega. It is many weeks now and I have not received my dress. All attempts to contact the company by email end in an automated response about 'tickets'.
10/26 - Your live chat support is a joke. Submitted a ticket (915899) Aug 8th and my part still hasn't shipped. Over the past 3 weeks live chat told me it would ship, "soon", "tomorrow", and "today".
10/26 - So my request to exchange or at this point is still un-answered. This has been going on since Sept 10th. I have checked on it weekly with ZERO response. I finally gave up on an exchange afilled out the Return Authorization on October 12th. No response.
10/24 - I have been trying to get in touch with customer service unsuccessfully. Any suggestions?
10/24 - Who can I contact about my order? I created a ticket that has been ignored.
10/21 - STILL haven't received my Vader helmet ordered 12/1/14, and your website is down. I've been INCREDIBLY patient. That patience is wearing quite thin.
10/19 - This company is a huge fraud. I order a simple dress at the 50th Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas August 6 with a promise of a two week delivery. It's now Oct 19 they can't track the item and told me month ago it will be delivered soon. Trying to get ahold of anyone is impossible and when you do no one has answers.
10/19 - I have been trying to get someone to reply to me for two months now. I have tried to get up at 5am as I am in Australia to contact your on line support team only got through once and that was two months ago haven't seen anyone on since then.
10/18 - Hi Its been 2 months since I've submitted my ticket. And now almost a month from the last a representative has talked to me.
10/16 - Hey I haven't had a response on my ticket for a long time.

RacerX, I am sorry you feel this way. Everyday we improve and we are doing our best. As witnessed here, we've made quite the strides but growing companies can't accomplish perfection overnight, but we will keep striving. To give you some stats and perspective, when we first came into licensing, we were about three people. in 2015, our business grew by about 450% or so ...we grew our team to over 10 and suddenly the face of the company of changed overnight. So, I'd say having to deal with that kind of spike over the past year and some months and still delivering is not bad, not great, but am just thankful to start seeing smiling fans as we get a huge glut of product out. The same can be said about our customer service which went from one person to five. They are the newest group to the company and are learning, but so far I have been very proud of their growth as they handle over 1000 requests a week of complaints, sales, returns and exchanges. This doesn't mean they aren't perfect, but they will get there and there are still some cracks in the system as you have seen.

This doesn't negate the fact that I apologize for your experience. Even though you don't want me to, I will escalate this...because as I said, there are still cracks in the system.

As indicated prior, I have no issues refunding your order and would be sad to lose you. There have been delays and again, I apologize for the expediency of which our customer service is getting to you. With regard to your order, your Han Solo order, that was ordered in September. I understand we are delayed, we have more coming, but the priority went to the people who waited over a year for this item and I think its clear why we give them priority. As far as your Trek Dress, we are still in approval stages and packaging for this. We intend to get this out once we can put it in a box. With regard to your Vader helmet, we had them come in and as you can see we are shipping. We have another shipment coming in and intend to meet all order at that point.

Joe

Socksollager said:

, . I am a new customer, I am not doubting the quality in any way, I just dont like having this much money hanging out there, with nothing to show for it but a bunch of lies.

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So you don't want a refund even though you have this much money out with risk. I get that you were misquoted for shipping timeline and your order is about a month old now....and I apologize for that...but it was a mistaken misquote. If the time out is a risk to you then why not just take the refund ? I am very confused with your statements of 1. Wanting the product, 2. stating the risk of money being out, 3. But in the face of an obvious solution, you don't want to take it.