I recently purchased a cockpit kit from a known vendor for a pretty good chunk of money ($300) and when I received it there was a pretty good amount of damage, like broken and missing pieces. My question is what would most of you think would be a suitable and fair solution? I will try and put up as many options as possible but if you have more suggestions let me know what they are. I am mostly trying to get a bead on what people think the level of customer service should be in order to win your business.

Let me know what everyone thinks, I think this is a fairly common problem in our hobby and want to get a pulse on expectations.

Ian,

Are you saying that this was shipping damage, or that the vendor shipped out a damaged, incomplete kit?

David S

I recently received an ARF that came with an exhaust tube that was damaged in shipment. I called the vendor and he told me to return the damaged one to him and he would send a replacement immediately and credit me the cost to ship the damaged pipe to him.

That made me happy!

Bob

I had a new canopy sent to me from Als hobbies and it arrived damaged, I phoned Ali and a new one arrived the next day, no return and we will see what we can do, no paying out for postage, just an instant responce and a new one arrived, that is customer service and he has lived up to it ever since.

Mike

I am assuming it is shipping damage Dave, but I can't confirm that as I wasn't there when it was packed . I don't think a manufacturer would ship out something with this amount of damage, at least I hope they wouldn't.

I see that 7 people voted for the first option, which is perfectly doable. I guess my concern with that option is, and maybe its just me, but I already paid $40 for shipping. Shipping that was sub-standard obviously. Should I be expected to pay $40 again to ship damaged goods back and then possibly another $40 to ship a new one back to me? That would be up to $120 in shipping, almost half the cost of the cockpit!!

No what you should expect is instant responce to your delema, did you phone the vendor and tell them what has happend?

Mike

I voted for option three which would be the right thing for the vendor to do.

Mike, I have received a response from the vendor for a solution and they gave me 2 options which are both up there. I wasn't terribly pleased with either so I suggested another option. Unfortunately it is now pretty much Chinese New Year so I wont see my issue resolved till February I am sure.

Good feedback so far gents, keep em coming. I would like to think that polls such as this help to better inform the vendors of how they can win customers. Some already do this but its my hope that the majority becomes standard.

Just to throw this out there as to how Dreamworks would handle this situation:

Since the product was damaged in shipping, a replacement would be sent immediately (or ASAP if not in stock) and a claim would be filed with the shipping agent for the damage. This is not your issue, it is ours...however; we may require you to provide some details of the damage to the carrier to assist with our claim. Most likely, the product would not come back to us unless we could repair the item to new condition, the shipping agent then owns the "damaged" product.

Thanks for the drop in Todd, that's exactly how I know you would have handled it. If I would have seen his offered on your website you would have been my first choice, no doubt.

I say " None of the above ".... I say beat the hell out of the UPS man !!!![X(] Especially if you have video of him throwing over the fence, like they are known to do !!!!! Did you sign for it damaged ?? Or was it left on the porch ????




Danno

Not an unreasonable responce.

Mike

Not UPS, EMS via USPS and the funny thing is the box was in perfect condition. No signs of damage on the outside that I saw.