Daniel C.

Everyone's been talking about "quiet quitting" and its impact on employers and work environments in the post-covid workplace. But how does this culture of indifference affect minimum standards that you or I should expect as consumers from retailers?

This review of Bear Creek Arsenal and an alarming number of others as well as posted questions on this platform show that we should expect very little. Perhaps nothing at all in terms of customer service standards.

Bear Creek (BCA for short) is a decent sized business with a couple hundred employees and a sprawling warehouse and manufacturing facility. A veteran owned, family grown, North Carolina direct to consumer manufacturer of fire arms. The type of place where you would expect a 'Yes'r' or 'Yes mam' from a down home local.

So this review is more than a review, but an example of how even companies who would seem to have very strong customer oriented cultures have lost their way. Where have all the good businesses gone?

By the way, the second star is because the initial order was sent out in a timely manner. Otherwise this would be a 1 star review. But because they don't coordinate with support tickets or customers, I have had an indefinitely open ended poor experience.

My experience combined with numerous other reviews is that there is a huge management problem and serious customer support problems. Like many other reviewers I've had the same experience re: no one answers the phone, sometimes the voicemail doesn't work, if it does you will not likely get a call back.

I had an issue with my order going to the wrong FFL (found out they were out of business) and immediately contacted BCA in less than 24 hours after order placed. The order was placed on a holiday so I figured it would not be assembled or shipped out for at least a couple of days (I was correct). I also had my replacement FFL dealer email them at their FFL address to update their records and that email referenced my order number. After that weekend I followed up on the phone during regular business hours. I tried multiple times and not only did no one answer, but voicemail didn't work. Finally I was able to get to a customer support voicemail box after trying several times. I left a message. No response that day, nor the following 4.

Finally, FIVE days later, I get an email acknowledging the FFL issue stating that they didn't have the FFL info. My FFL is the largest gun seller in our area and is highly professional / commercial so I know they sent the email when they said they did. Then I got a call saying that the order had gone out. I explained that I had been trying multiple times to get in touch with them to ship it to the correct FFL before it went out but that no one was responsive. I also had the new FFL re-send their license info with my order number again.

So clearly, the shipping and customer support staff aren't working together (assuming customer support is even working at all).

On December 1st, they ordered a FedEx package recall before it could get to the wrong FFL. This is now the tail end of December 10th and I have emailed asking for an update 3 times and have been ignored each time. I reminded them in the last email that the order needed to be updated with the new FFL. The order has still not been updated to reflect the correct shipping address. The original tracking shows that it arrived back at the warehouse 3 days ago. In the very least, a customer should be able expect a response during a 10 day span after multiple attempts to get an answer and have their order updated so as to know that they will eventually get it.

As of now, I have no idea what to expect. Will they some day contact me? When they do will it be someone who doesn't investigate the situation and says, 'oh your order was returned and has been sitting in the warehouse for weeks, what do you want us to do?' Or worse, maybe they just will let it get absorbed into inventory and sold to someone else. How should I know since they won't communicate? And this order was going to be an anniversary present.

You can't run an ecom business like this. Or then again, maybe in this industry you can because the demand for guns is so high that you can afford to just ignore customers. This dynamic does not jive with the culture that BCA tries to portray in their about us content on the site at all. Thus my conclusion that there are serious management issues. In the past, this company would have had to either stop the retail side of the business to only focus on manufacturing to wholesale distribution, or eventually close up shop as experiences like mine continue to pile up and drown their reputation. These days? Maybe not. Sad commentary on business values.

If you haven't purchased from BCA yet, based on my experience, I would have no choice but to recommend spending a little bit more and ordering from someone else. Maybe not everyone is becoming like this in this industry. Maybe Palmetto State answers their phone. Maybe they'll even answer with a courteous, "Yes'r".