Another Rhetorical Question

[Smitty37]

First, I will not identify the customer involved and I will ask that he/she not reply to this post. The customer knows what I did. I just want to see what others would have done.

I received an email asking me if I could supply replacement parts for a particular kit....telling me there were 7 kits and the "NIB" was bad on all 7 (Plating issue). After some investigation it turned out the kits in question were purchased in March 2011 and I had stopped offering the kit in the plating later in 2011. The customer of course, asked for some relief.

The question is. If you were a vendor, What would you have done?

 

[sbell111]

That's like the warranty issue for a pen that you made years ago, but don't produce anymore because the kits are no longer made.

If I had similar nibs of the same quality on hand, I would likely send those out, but I wouldn't send spendy upgrade nibs to them for free. If I was still using the vendor that I bought the old kits from, I'd probably contact them to see if they could get me the nibs that I needed and add them to my next order.

It might even be worth it to me to reach out to other suppliers (or kit horders like me) to see if anyone has some of these nibs that they'd work a trade for.

If I was unable to source comparable nibs for the customer at a reasonable cost, I would probably offer some sort of credit or refund. A partial credit would be ideal.

Are you going to tell us how you handled it?

 

[TonyL]

Sent via PM

 

[mredburn]

I would offer a store credit either for a partial part of the original cost or full credit depending on the status of the customer.

 

[lorbay]

If this just happened and they had not said anything from 2011 till now I would say too bad so sad. I would likely give them a deal on something else though.
Lin

 

[sbell111]

If this just happened and they had not said anything from 2011 till now I would say too bad so sad. I would likely give them a deal on something else though.
Lin

I have loads of kits that are far older than that so I can see how someone might not discover the issue quickly.

 

[Smitty37]

If this just happened and they had not said anything from 2011 till now I would say too bad so sad. I would likely give them a deal on something else though.
Lin

I have loads of kits that are far older than that so I can see how someone might not discover the issue quickly.

A word to the wise Steve. Inspect them when they arrive. Many vendors, including some pretty small shops, have a stated 7, 14 or 30 day return policy and if you hold them longer than that they will refuse to do anything.

 

[Smitty37]

What did I do.

I would imagine that most of you probably figured out for yourselves that I didn't turn the customer away. I gave a full refund for all of his remaining kits and took his word for how many kits were involved. I did give the refund in the form of a store credit which the customer is happy with - he is still a customer and buys from me fairly frequently.

Interestlngly enough the kits were Le Roi's and when they were first introduced they had Gold Tn/Black To plating with the black titanium really black. I had no issues with the first batch ordered but there were plating issues with the 2nd batch of these kits I ordered with scrap rates at the factory running higher than 60%. The manufacturer stopped making the black titanium black and started making it the same forumla used by other makers...when they did that I switched to black chrome. That was a little later in 2011 or perhaps early 2012. Since that time I have entirely replaced the Le Roi with the Le Roi V2 so I could not have sent replacement parts even if I still had the finish because the tubes are different diameter.

 

[sbell111]

If this just happened and they had not said anything from 2011 till now I would say too bad so sad. I would likely give them a deal on something else though.
Lin

I have loads of kits that are far older than that so I can see how someone might not discover the issue quickly.

A word to the wise Steve. Inspect them when they arrive. Many vendors, including some pretty small shops, have a stated 7, 14 or 30 day return policy and if you hold them longer than that they will refuse to do anything.

That's good advice. That being said, if I find something wrong with a kit or blank that I bought years ago, I just chalk it up.

 

[duncsuss]

I have loads of kits that are far older than that so I can see how someone might not discover the issue quickly.

A word to the wise Steve. Inspect them when they arrive. Many vendors, including some pretty small shops, have a stated 7, 14 or 30 day return policy and if you hold them longer than that they will refuse to do anything.

That's good advice. That being said, if I find something wrong with a kit or blank that I bought years ago, I just chalk it up.

I'm another one who'll have to start inspecting kits as they arrive -- though I've never had any difficulty on the couple of occasions there have been issues with my kits, even though I bought them many months (perhaps over a year) earlier. The vendors' customer service reps (sometimes the same person as the company owner ) have always taken care of me.

That said, one of these wouldn't have been obvious even if I had looked at the kits -- the nib section was very slightly oversized, just enough that it would not push into the lower barrel. I guess I could have sanded it down, but an email to the vendor got a very quick reply and a replacement part arrived in just a couple of days.

 

[Smitty37]

I have loads of kits that are far older than that so I can see how someone might not discover the issue quickly.

A word to the wise Steve. Inspect them when they arrive. Many vendors, including some pretty small shops, have a stated 7, 14 or 30 day return policy and if you hold them longer than that they will refuse to do anything.

That's good advice. That being said, if I find something wrong with a kit or blank that I bought years ago, I just chalk it up.

I'm another one who'll have to start inspecting kits as they arrive -- though I've never had any difficulty on the couple of occasions there have been issues with my kits, even though I bought them many months (perhaps over a year) earlier. The vendors' customer service reps (sometimes the same person as the company owner ) have always taken care of me.

That said, one of these wouldn't have been obvious even if I had looked at the kits -- the nib section was very slightly oversized, just enough that it would not push into the lower barrel. I guess I could have sanded it down, but an email to the vendor got a very quick reply and a replacement part arrived in just a couple of days.

About 80 to 85 per cent of the problems reported back to me from my customers involve missing or damaged parts. Which are easily seen.

Of course there are some problems that will only show up when assembling the kit (bad transmissions is the most common) but most of them will show in a quick visual inspection,

 

[Smitty37]

Another reason to inspect

Many of the small vendors here are buying kits from a foreign source. I often sell in Preproduction sales myself. Shipping from overseas is expensive running as much as 40 cents or more per kit.

When someone reports a bad kit to us, we go to our supplier and they often replace the kit in our next order. They do not sell to us with a lifetime warranty so we need to report losses as soon as we can or they won't honor the loss.

The case that I mentioned is a case in point, if those kits had been reported immediately I would have gotten reimbursed by the manufacturer but after 3 years I had to eat the entire cost myself.

 

[sbell111]

You're a good man, Charlie Brown.