About us
| Thank you for checking us out
more closely. Mindconnection, LLC has been in business since 1997. We made
it through the dotbomb era, and are here for the
long haul. The bulleted list below serves as a guide to help you quickly find out
what you need to know. Have a great day. |
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Contact us at sales @ mindconnection.com. (remove the spaces).
See below for more info.
Out of respect for our planet, we do not do
faxes. If you are a school purchasing agent, please set an example for
the children you are entrusted with and stop using faxes as well.
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Webmasters:
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We can serve you faster and better if you send an
e-mail to sales @ mindconnection.com
(remove the spaces for that to work) rather than calling. Customers
who e-mail get priority service. We want to help our customers, and have
found that e-mail works far better than the phone.
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| The typical phone
call lasts 20 minutes, and almost never addresses anything not already
answered on the Website. The typical e-mail takes only a minute or two
to answer. So, we can choose between helping 3 customers an hour and
getting nothing else done or helping as many customers as we need to and
still be able to run the business. Thanks for respecting that. |
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yourself time, too, by
e-mailing rather than phoning. |
- To inquire about an order, simply
"Reply to" the e-mailed receipt you received and note at the
top of your e-mail what your concern is. Change the subject line to
something relevant.
- We respond quickly to e-mail (usually within
minutes). We are
slow to return phone calls or check voicemail.
- If you don't get a reply to your e-mail
within a couple of hours, check the address and re-send it.
- If you absolutely, positively must resort to
phoning, then see the info below for best time to call.
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| We do not use
facsimile technology. It came out in 1972 and has been obsolete since
the mid-1990s. If you want our fax number, we don't have one.
Click here for how to
send a Purchase Order. |
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Caution: Never
e-mail your credit card information to anybody.
Caution: Avoid giving credit card information
over the phone. Phones are not secure. Nothing is more
secure than a browser. Our
system provides 128-bit encryption--the safest available.
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AOL users: You will eventually switch
to another e-mail program and wonder why you waited to do so. In the
meantime:
- Always copy and paste the entire body of previous e-mails into any
reply
- Type the new message above the
old
- Do not type in ALL CAPS.
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If you absolutely, positively must resort to
phoning, call 913-831-7483 during regular business hours
(US Central Time, GMT -6), Monday - Friday. We reply to e-mails
seven days a week.
Service provider
sales reps: If you
want our business, do NOT call. If you call, the answer
will absolutely, positively be NO.
If you are Warren Buffet and want to invest a few million, you can call.
Otherwise, don't.
Customers: You will get faster and better service by sending an e-mail than by
calling. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's true. But feel free to
e-mail us with your ph#, time zone, and best time for us to call
you.
- If you call about the status of your order,
we will ask you to e-mail us the receipt e-mailed to you
at time of purchase. We do not aid in phishing scams by giving order information over the
phone.
- If you want to call to place an order because
"I don't want my credit card information to go over the Internet,"
then you are unaware of a basic fact about credit cards.
Click here to read what it is.
- If you're stranded on a tropical island with
no computer and just your GSM phone, then, yeah, we'll be happy to
take your call. Please don't wade into the water while making the
call.
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No, we don't try to automate the phone process:
- We do not use a call center in India. This
means you won't reach "a real person" who will read from a script and leave you steaming.
- But a real person is just that. And there's
only so much "real person" to go around.
- We do not torture our customers with a "Press
9 to repeat the senseless choices" message.
Why your call may not be answered:
- We may be answering e-mails. Customers who
e-mail get priority service.
- We may be on the line with another customer.
We don't put people on
hold unless there's a good reason to. And there seldom
is.
- We may be working on something to help a
customer who e-mailed us for information or assistance.
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| If you've ever been frustrated when e-mailing
a business, read:
e-mailing a business--for results. |
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To save you time, here are the answers to the
most frequently asked phone questions:
- What's the status of my order?. Forward your
confirmation e-mail, with a note at the top asking us to check
on this (and change the subject line accordingly). If you call, we will ask you to e-mail. We do not provide
order information over the phone.
- How much is it? Prices are
on the Website.
- Is it stock? Yes, it is.
Exception: it's marked "pre-order."
Sometimes, a stockout occurs before we
can remove the product--but this rarely happens. If it does, we will let you know ASAP
and put the order and the charge on hold.
- Did it ship? We need your order
information so we can look into this. If you call to ask this
question, we're going to ask you to reply to one of your three
confirmation e-mails. Save time by skipping the call.
- When can I expect it to arrive?
The Website provides various shipping options and
you can pick the one that best suits your needs. Order fulfillment
is same day, if the order is made
before noon Central time. Orders are not filled on weekends and
holidays. Orders placed during peak shopping times, such as just
before Christmas, will encounter delays. Exception: Products that are electronic downloads.
Obviously, these "ship" pretty fast!
Our favorite:
- Why all these charges COD?
This question always come from Canadian
customers. Answer: You have a bloated government and the
money to pay for it doesn't grow on trees. Instead, your government
inflicts you with ghastly fees for the "crime" of buying from your
neighbors to the south. Yeah, you're being robbed. But it's your
government that's doing the robbery--not FedEx or us. You might want
to take a look at eBay and notice all of the "No shipping to Canada"
notices. Please stop blaming USA merchants for this problem. Only
Canadian citizens can fix the Canadian government. Sure, that's a
big job. But you're a great people. Get going on that!
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Most callers just want to know
there's a real person at the company they are about to send money to.
Yes, there's a real person here and we've been in business online since
1997.
Ever wonder why companies bury their
phone numbers? There are many reasons. Here are some:
- About 70% of calls involve asking how much
something costs. The price is on the Website. Companies are bombarded with calls that just don't
make sense and handling those is why it's so hard for people who
need to call to get through.
- Service reps can filter issues by importance and call the
customers who really do need help over the phone but who would
otherwise wait an eternity on hold. A very visible phone number
means those important calls can't be handled in a timely
manner--you're going to be tortured with elevator music or stupid
advertisements while you wait forever on hold, or your call will be
shuttled to someone who is just plain clueless. Have you "been
there, done that?"
- Calls are enormously resource-intensive. Just do the math--how
many half-hour calls a day can a company handle, before service
suffers or prices go up? That's15 calls per staffer per day, assuming the two breaks
required by law. This adds to
the cost of every product and service.
- It's simply not as effective for the customer. If you send an
e-mail, you are much more likely to pose a precise question someone
can answer intelligently. Well, at least your question can be
precise....
- E-mail creates a record, phone calls don't. With the record, a
company rep can follow up very easily. This makes for a better
customer experience.
Why will e-mail work better for you?
- E-mailing saves you time. Instead of waiting while someone
on the phone looks things up, you just send your question or
comment off and then open an e-mail to read the response.
- You have a record. Why give that up? And, you don't have to
take notes while someone is talking to you!
- You get a response that is far more orderly and detailed
than a verbal one is.
- You don't wait on hold, and you don't get shuttled to a call
center in India.
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Relative merits |
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Email (preferred by dentists, 10 to 1 or
whatever that is):
- Upside: Your e-mail client is quick for you to
use, and it keeps a record of your communication.
- Downside: You will send your e-mail from
your e-mail server through probably 30 hops to our e-mail server. It
might get lost (so if we don't reply, contact us again).
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Phone:
- Upside: It appears to be quick.
- Downside: There is no record of your
communication. Also, we won't have had time to
research your question and will probably ask you to e-mail us
information so we can e-mail you a reply, anyhow.
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E-mail is, 99.9999% of the time, the fastest way to get good
answers. But if you can't get
to your e-mail, then feel free to call (we call people, too). We'll help you the best we can,
which is usually pretty darn good. |
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E-mail tip: You can get the best answer to an order inquiry when you send
your order info (e.g., reply to the confirmation e-mail and type your
question or concern at the top). |
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