Rogue Wallet Replaces Entire Batch of Bad Wallets, Stuns Customer
Posted by joeWhat do you think of a company that replaces its products before you even ask? Well that is what Rogue Wallet did. Check out this story over at the Consumerist blog, “Rogue Wallet Replaces Entire Batch of Bad Wallets, Stuns Customer,” (September 15, 2010). What are the costs and benefits of this type of move? Is this a smart move? Too much customer service?
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Customer service, Promotion, Publicity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This customer service move by Rogue Wallets is definitely one you don’t see very often. Perhaps some customers didn’t see any deterioration in the wallets they purchased but since this customer’s wallet was wearing down, it can be assumed that he wasn’t the only one. I think it’s a great move for the company’s image but it maybe prove to be too costly down the road.
September 23rd, 2010 at 5:27 pmIn this situation I think that the costs will b outweighed by the benefits. The company by owing up to the poor material that the previous wallets were made out of and replacing them has now gained a customer for life. When a customer receives great customer service from a company they will continue to return because they know the company cares. there is no such thing as too much customer service. Great customer service not only allows a company keep old returning customers but those customers then tell 10 people that will now by the companies product because they know they will be treated right if a problem occurs. This cycle continues to roll over and the company gains. However, this type of customer service wouldn’t be sustainable if the company keeps having manufacturing error and has to replace multiple products.
September 26th, 2010 at 5:53 pmI am a little stunned just reading this article. It’s pretty unheard of that a comany would go to such lengths to make sure their customers continue to buy from them. Of course its important for all companies to retain customers, but Rogue Wallet went pretty far in assuming that by not replacing the wallets they would lose out on future business. In reality, many of the wallets purchased were probably gifts (as wallets are a common gift for men) and it might be fair to assume that those who acutally used the wallets could have another brand preference and were never planning on being a future customer.
October 13th, 2010 at 8:48 pmOn the other hand, those who actually picked the wallet out because of its aesthetics and functionality were probably very disappointed when it began to fall apart and were considering never buying from Rogue Wallets again.
The choice of the company to replace all wallets sold was pretty extreme and the costs were probably very high. I think they could have gone about it differently, maybe by mailing customers to follow up and see if they were unhappy with the wallet’s performance first. This would also be costly but probably not quite as much.
The article does not reveil the selling price of the wallet or the overall cost that is incurred to produce each wallet. However, assuming that the company sees a high profit margin on the product, it is probable that this is a smart move by Rogue Wallet. A customer service gesture such as this is rare to see from any company. Therefore, news of the company is likely to spread from the customers who received a new wallet, free of charge. Since much of business is spread by word of mouth, Rogue is likely to sell a higher number of wallets after issuing these new wallets to their current customes.
December 5th, 2010 at 3:05 pmIts company like this that make their customer service a priority and keep their customers coming back. Because they took the issue into their own hands and sent out a new item to replace the defected item, they have gone above and beyond. I was very surprised by this article though. I have never heard of something like this before, and I really admire the company for fixing their issue. As many of the consumers were probably satisfied with this company, they most likely will increase the number of customers they have because their already existing customers are satisfied and their customer service is outstanding.
November 29th, 2011 at 8:19 amWhat are the costs and benefits of this type of move? The cost benefit to the consumer is they don’t have to replace a possible aging wallet, to the producer this was a costly endeavor. Possibly very expensive to provide the shipping and new product to a customer, especially to customers who hadn’t stated they had a problem.
December 1st, 2011 at 2:10 pmIs this a smart move? I think it is unheard of but is awesome and it would be great if more corporations were able to own their failures.
Is this too much customer service? Absolutely no, they have generated a wealth of goodwill with the public who is loyal to them and now to groups of people who read “The Consumerist”. I personally want to check them out and see it I also need a new wallet. So this could potentially generate lots of new business, because people want to do business with a company that cares about the product they produce and will take care of the consumer.
This is service after the sale that goes beyond a 1-800 number. AWESOME!