And another comparison……
I recently bought a pair of walking boots at £195. Second outing I noticed the sole - that is designed to be replaceable- was lifting on the inner edges of each boot.
I emailed the company, they refunded me in full and told me to either keep the boots or bin them.
Ernie1 Situations like this are not common. I can recollect 3 instances in the last 20 months, where the roasters were excellent.
1: Two KGs went MIA. They were untracked RM. The seller refunded. I purchased 3 KGs after that. I paid a bit extra to get them delivered by DPD instead.
2: One roaster sent 2 × 1 KG pack with no roast date. They just had a serial number. I called them. They apologised, told me they were roasted a month before sending out. Offered a replacement or a refund. I accepted neither, as the coffee was ok. I never purchased anything from them.
3: Recently, I had issues on a few 250g packs from one of the popular roasters. Every one of them under weighed by about 15g - 18gs. I emailed them with the evidence. They apologised, offered a full refund as a gesture of good will and thank you for bringing the problem to their attention. I always liked their coffee. I did not take a full refund. I turned it down. Instead, they sent me a token refund of 20%. They never explained what went wrong, but advised me they will fix their machinery.
While it is entirely fair if one were to take the offered refund, some times drawing a line does put a smile on the roaster’s face, especially under very difficult circumstances. 🙂
Still no reply but I’ve just pulled a few shots with the unsealed beans.
Wasn’t a difficult comparison as I had the same coffee from a sealed bag. It’s slightly older but has been airtight since purchase.
The unsealed coffee 100% tastes worse. It tastes exactly like I’d expect staled coffee to taste.
thats a shame
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
Well you’ve given the benefit of the doubt, time to request a replacement or refund I think
@Ernie1 , they are Scarpa Mescalito , now with a wee dod of glue on each sole 👍
Nice. As I understand it, the glue on replaceable soles like these occasionally doesn’t cure properly and the workroom won’t actually know because the shoe moves down the production line faster than they can check.
It’s a fairly common occurrence apparently. Still, far better than a non-replaceable sole!
I just called them and they were full of apologies and are sending out a replacement.
As above, I wonder if their web CS is contracted out because the service I got on the phone just now was fantastic.
Ernie1 Very happy that you have a resolution to this situation.
The possibility that the web customer service is contracted out is very real, as is the possibility that the web CS isn’t authorized to provide a replacement for a faulty product.
Just a note since the quality of customer service has come up in this thread, in another thread I asked a question about seasoning burrs on a new grinder, and Jake from @CrownandCanvas offered to send me stale coffee beans for the price of shipping. Turns out that isn’t practical, as I’m in the US and shipping costs are silly high for something like this. But the fact that Jake and his operation were willing to take the time to do something like this that nets zero profit (arguably, it’s a cost item for them in that someone would have to take the time to package and send it out to me) is an indication of excellent customer service.
My thanks to Jake and his staff for taking the time and effort to look into this for me.
wilburpan Very kind of you for the mention!
Always happy to help where I can, I’m just sorry that the 3.5k miles between us made this more difficult than I originally expected! 😂 Thanks again!
Ernie1 I just called them and they were full of apologies and are sending out a replacement.
I guess the moral of that is that direct contact is worth the effort.
I’ve long believed, and acted on, the notion that customer service is a very good indicator of the quality of a company, and that I can read FAR more into how they handle a problem than often is implied by the problem itself. More than a few times over the years I’ve blacklisted a company over customer service, even if the product itself is usually fine. Or conversely, stuck with a company that have provided good customer service, even if I paid a price premium for doing so.
Which leads to the lesson for businesses - it’s fairly hard to gain a good reputation, and it takes time and effort. It’s pretty easy, especially in these web-connected days to lose a good reputation, and very difficult indeed to lose a bad reputation once you’ve ‘earned’ it. In fact, it can be impossible to shift a bad reputation, not least because many customers will simply move on, and never give you another thought. Or chance. I operate on the “fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me” principle.
As a side note, I do have some sympathy for those operating small or medium businesses. However much the owners care (and some don’t), and however much they sweated blood and tears building a business, some employees just won’t give a …. fig. It’s probably the biggest single challenge facing a business that’s grown beyond “work from a spare bedroom” scale - employing people. Not only are the administration and legal aspects a collossal pain in the butt, and they truly are, but they can do oh so much damage, very fast indeed, if they don’t care.
Kudos to CrownandCanvas for the “stale beans” offer. That is the kind f thing that leads me to feel like trying them, next time I order coffee.
Ernie1 I’ve always thought this about Onyx coffee too, their packaging is always gorgeous but by the time you get it here its just so damn expensive.
It’s hard enough to get coffee to our UK customers at the moment nevermind getting anything from the USA 😂
Went to the Origin roastery a couple of times this week and doesn’t look like I needed to worry about air-tightness after all 😅
They can’t be filling orders from containers and shipping…Jesus I thought that practice stopped almost 2 decades ago!
That looks like it is for customers who come to the roastery shop, customers do want a way to use less packaging so they can bring their own containers and fill them or reuse bags. It has reduced in popularity after the pandemic but I do see it occasionally
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
Yeah to be fair it’s efficient for in-store customers and the warehouse handles all the outgoing beans I’d imagine.
It’s an impressive space and a huge operation.
I also had one of the best made coffees I’ve ever had while I was there, really really well made.
