BamaChips apology to my customers...

Hey guys,

I've just needed to talk to everyone and truly say I'm sorry for the way my business has been over the few months. I wanted to give you a explanation of a few things and let you all know where I've been, what's been going on and why things are the way they are at Bamachips for now. I'm not a person that tells much, if anything, about my personal life, especially on a public forum, so please bear with me here, this is hard for me.

First, it all started when my wife felt neglected because of all the time I was spending on the business and announced that if things didn't change she was going to leave me. To make more time with her I hired a few guys to help but even with that I was still overwhelmed with business. I would work all day either on the phone or dyno and then afterwords come in and start on emails and other projects. We had discussed my time at the business for a bit and she understood the way I was, if I couldn't be a major part of it then I couldn't run it. My point has always been the only way one can control the quality of the work is to do it yourself. Even with the help I had, they didn't understand what I did or truly weren't as interested as much as I was in refining the tunes, especially the automatic's. Most of them were here to do the 9-5 thing and leave. Caleb was by far my best but he had to leave in midsummer to start college.

Then the bottom fell out, she took my son one day and just up and left. We did some arguing on the phone and the legal battle was something else. I got my six year old son back but I was doing a tremendous amount of travel going from dyno day to dyno day. The judge and courts saw it more fitting for her to have him then me. That was a huge blow to me but I do want what's best for my son so, for now, that’s the way it is. I do still see him on weekends and holidays, but I miss him very much.

The sheer exhaustion from dealing with court, lawyers, and the business was tremendous so I hired in another employee that I thought would be the answer because he had worked for me before. The first time he worked for me he just up and left though, so I had talked with him about that and he knew It was on my mind. He did seem to be different and had just been laid off of his job so I figured he'd be a good choice because he was familiar with the software and tuning already. He also had a 2001 Cobra that was on it's last leg with a dead misses on a few cylinders. I agreed to help him with that too. We swapped in a 3v from a 2007 GT and got it all going very nicely. This was using my garage and tools completely, I stuck my neck out for him with a few vendors, Chris@BBR mainly, and got him some prototype parts that were needed for this swap to be done. I paid for most of the parts while we worked out payment either from his paycheck a little at a time or some other things around the shop like computer work and such. Got his car running really well and I thought he would appreciate my effort, but he split faster than spilt milk, taking a few parts and owing me some money. When I got back to doing everything myself again I found missed emails and general bad stuff that he had done. I've had to sell quite a few things and even move out of our office back into my home office to help catch things back up to normal. Unfortunately this includes my prize 05' Roush Mustang but hopefully things will be better again and I'll get another when they do.

Guys, I promise I'm working on catching everything up.

Finally, I had gotten a call in late July from my Mom telling me we needed to talk. I go see her and she tells me that she has breast cancer and has had it for a while. She says that they are talking about surgery and have to start with Chemotherapy beforehand. Each time I go to see her she starts giving me things out of her house like she's expecting the worst. I'm trying to keep her spirits up. She's had a few sessions now and each time I have to go to her place and help her with her life and normal dealings. She and my dad split when I was young and she's never remarried so it's just her, me and my younger sister, who has had her own problems. I've been paying my mom's bills including her internet service so I can answer emails while I'm there from time to time. She's scheduled for surgery soon, I truly hope all goes well so she'll be good for the holidays. Please be sure to support any pink ribbon services, you don’t know how hard it can affect you until it hits you. Our pastor has been very supportive and helped me alot to come to grips with things. I'd appreciate everyone's prayers for my mom and our family.

In short, all these personal problems haven't had any effect on the quality of my products but have had a major impact on my overall quality of service. That's what my business was built on, my customer service. Sure, I may not have a huge building or sell 100's of products, but I always try to treat every customer the way I would want to be treated if I were buying something. I'm truly sorry for the delay in filling orders but even more so the poor customer response I've been giving. I know everyone out there works as hard as I do to support their family and their lives and my business is nothing more than a accessory on an already great product, that is, anything from Ford.

So many of your have been so patient and understanding, even when you didn't know why my service was slipping. All I can say is thank you for your support and that my service will be outstanding again, starting now.

Douglas Studdard