Neosteel - different owner?

I ordered in april 2022, that was 9 months ago...
And he delivers apparently other customers that ordered many months after me.
At the evidence he 's got my head.
So If I dont get my order in January I will get the case to justice.
RUN AWAY!

 

Daniel from Neosteel.de here.
To hear both sides I would like to show the viewpoint of the manufacturer:

The current owner of Neosteel has died some months ago. He was operating Neosteel.de together with his wife for over 25 years.
I have been talking to them regarding an succession of the company for well over a year before his unexpected death.
After hearing from his death I decided to still take over the company because as an long-time customer of the company I don't want Neosteel to slide into oblivion.

Mrs Mende - apart from being dejected due to her loss - could only help me this much.

I have started with all the suppliers which all have been working for the company for over a decade. After getting used to working in one specific way it is quite difficult to adapt to some new way.

These suppliers are all located quite close to where the Mende Family lives and therefore quality issues have been addressed in an personal manner all the time. That's way more difficult for me since I am living a 4h drive away. This brings up the issue of restocking base materials: There have been situations in which the suppliers ran out of base materials and only noticed me way too late since they weren't expecting to have to report it themselves since Dr. Mende did this all the years by himself when visiting.

I am aware of the high expectation regarding quality the customers have in Neosteel. There still hasn't been a single case of someone receiving an inferior product and me not being able to correct these issues.

The Neosteel you got to know has had quarter an century to evolve in the state it was. I will continue with the same products and quality (albeit currently sometimes not on the first try) and I am looking forward to supporting the community with some fine gear.
The current products will be available in the upcoming years as well, there will be some additional options to choose from.

I will be reading this forum in the future as well, but please don't expect an quick answer here.

You can also reach me via dw@neosteel.de

Regards

Daniel

 

Daniel

Thank you for posting this. It's sad when someone dies. Especially someone supportive of our lifestyle. But it's also great when someone like you steps up and helps a company continue on.

I wish you the best of luck. I hope that you can achieve an exceptional level of quality and service. Many of us love Mature Metal not because of their designs. Personally I think they're a bit long in the tooth. But because they make excellent products at a fair price and provide outstanding service and support.

So if you can do the same it'll be nice to see a full belt maker doing it. We've lost too many full belt makers. So I hope you are very successful not just for that but also for yourself.

 

I also wish Daniel well. However, this is a niche market. We used to manufacture and retail our own line of high fashion latex clothes, “FTBT California,” and had our own bricks-n-mortar retail store that stocked nothing but latex clothes + shoes and boots (Little Shoe Box from London.) That too was a niche market. The business never generated the kind of steady revenue that would allow us to give up our day jobs (we were both highly paid professionals). When cheap-n-cheerful low cost latex clothes made in China started to flood the market ... well the handwriting was on the wall.

 

I'm sorry to hear that you had to shut down. That said, I get it. Niche markets are tough. And in low cost competitors and it can be impossible to stay afloat.
I don't have the answer. But I do know some can make it work. Most don't though. What I do know is excellent customer service helps so much. Conversely, poor service can kill a business or at least it usually did pre Covid as it seems many businesses have used Covid and the related mess to justify poor service.

 

So is neosteel kaput? has anybody gotten any response from any deposits sent in. ? No answer to emails for over 2 months.

 

Why don't you message David above? He said he's the new owner. Be polite, ask what's going on with your order and give the guy a fair chance. From what he posted he seems like he deserves that. Likewise you deserve honest answers and hopefully he will give them to you.

 

The posts above did NOT state or imply that "Neosteel is kaput." Neosteel is clearly NOT KAPUT. There is a post from the current owner that states he will continue to run Neosteel and he looks forward to improving service and addressing production delays.

The company that went out of business was a fetish company of another poster on this thread, and not Neosteel.de.

 

What I do know is excellent customer service helps so much. Conversely, poor service can kill a business … This is so true

 

Thank you Neosteel for taking time to replies and explain some of the difficulties right now to make an excellent product.
We are willing to wait but it is nice that you have been able to give some information as too the lack of information.

we look forward to continue being customer and like when their is communication.,

 

I can testify. I wish I had answers to my emails, And I wish I received an apologize for such a silence. Very very angry. I sincerely regret Mr Mende, at least he communicated and was always very polite. Now I've been refund. I'm going my way. End.

 

I got a response back from Daniel at Neosteel a few weeks ago, and while I agree that communication could be a little better, I can also understand that it's not an easy task to take over the company, help everyone who is waiting, and deal with new orders while learning how to do everything at the same time. It can't be easy.

We went back and forth a bit. I had some issues with my belt, and now he is going above and beyond to fix it for me even though I said it wasn't necessary. I know this means I am going to have to wait even longer, but I have to give him my respect for making things right.

 

If the main issue is suppliers running out of materials and their quality issues, I would think that while the suppliers sort out those issues and production is waiting there would be time to respond to emails from customers asking when their delayed deliveries will arrive. It's understandable that in those cases it's hard to give an exact estimate because it can be mostly up to the suppliers, but any estimate, explanation or any other communication would be better than nothing.

 

Have you ever run a business, let alone one you took over from someone else?
I ask not to be rude but to make the point that there are many things going on that most don't understand.

So yes you're right, there are many things that a business owner SHOULD do. And many are simple, but when you add them all up they can be overwhelming.

I you look at my post above. I'm not defending or attacking him. Rather I wish him the best and hope he can rebuild and make this business a huge success, my commen though is to point out he probably has a ton of work many don't realize. So cutting him some slack is in order,

That said, what I've just posted shouldn't be an excuse, and He should be working hard to fix things and to communicate with customers in a timely manner as soon as possible. Even if it's a short note saying what's going on and when to expect an update.

 

I have and I always respond to customers within hours no matter what the situation is. Perhaps that's why it's hard for me to understand or accept the current situation. I would happily wait a little longer if I was told there is a delay because of some good reason. But that's just my preference and there are many other ways to run a business for sure and I can accept that some people choose to run their businesses in a different way. But I still believe a customer support response time of several weeks/months is not acceptable.

Either way, I agree with you and I also hope all the best for the new owner and company. I hope the situation will get better, issues will be solved and everyone who is waiting will eventually be happy with their orders.

 

Before payment he answeared all my emails within 48h. After the payment there has been no respond to my emails in several months..

 

You got me beat. My rule was a business day max. So while I usually was like you and replied as soon as I could there were times when we were doing things that were a higher priority and not every email got a response within a few hours. (Major software upgrades, server crashes, etc).

That said, I think we agree, there are reasonable times and then there aren't. We may disagree on what it is, but I'm sure we can agree, that after a certain point, say a business day or two things are getting into unacceptable. And by a week or so they're outright wrong!

 

Yokes.
As I just posted in my other response. I can see not replying in a day or two. But beyond that it's unacceptable. Months is just wrong.

 

This has been my experience too. I'm planning to get a refund soon if the belt is not delivered and emails are not answered. If either of those happens then I'd be satisfied, but right now there is no proof that the belt has been in production at all after several months.

 

My August order is in shipment now to me, agree communication has been slow, however, I generally hear back after a week or two. Sounds like it is a general challenge of taking over a business combined with supply issues dealing with single person operations. Will post another update once the belt arrives.

 

@waldimir As you can see from the posts above a week or two to get back to customers isn't acceptable to most of people. Please don't take that as an attack but as a major area to improve. I'm saying it as above I sincerely wished you well and success. And I still want that for you, hence this post.

Having run several businesses, I get how hard it is, but getting back to customers quickly is so important. Conversely, seeing stuff like what I quoted, hurts your business as many folks don't want to see that you're so slow to reply with your customers. I'm not in the market for a belt right now, but if I were I'd either wait and see if you improve your customer communication, or I'd go someplace else.

Now I have no clue as to what you're dealing with. But if you want to succeed in this business, this is an "easy fix". Yes I get I might not be as easy as it seems, but compared to many issues it should be a priority and one that won't cost you much except for time and a little effort.

 

And at least in my case, instead of receiving a response after 1-2 weeks we're talking about no response at all after 10-20 weeks. At this point I would be relatively happy even with the former, although in general even that is unacceptably long.

I do agree that spending a moment to communicate with customers would make the situation significantly better and right now we aren't sure what all the time is spent working on instead. But at least someone seems to be receiving their belt soon so that's a somewhat positive sign of progress.

 

I just registered to add my personal view. Yes, communication wasn't super fast but always friendly and helpful. His situation seems overwhelming but it already improved over the last weeks as some of you confirmed. My order came with the same quality as before, so I cannot complain at all about that.
I am sure your stuff will eventually arrive.

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think I read on another forum that some people living locally in germany or wherever it is managed to get their belt within 2 months from measuring. He's probably prioritizing local orders if that's the case. Any any case he's picking up the game and if he hasn't picked up a new assistant yet, he's probably doing quite well especially when you consider the strong interest in chastity belts these days compared to the past.