Customer services

[Sir Topham Hatt]

We all know how important it is to all of us when we we spend all our spare time and money, often more, on our favourite hobby, that the few suppliers we rely on to sell us good quality products and support services.  Yeah, you guessed it, l was recently less than impressed with our 'pals' at Bachmann.  

 

Those that remember me might recall my epic build thread reflecting my love of Blue Pullmans that was  based on complete rebuilds of Triang types to become 6 and 8 coach accurate midland and western types, using DCC and then sound.  This preceded the Bachmann models which, as soon as l could afford one, l purchased.  This was about 6 years ago.

 

Last week l stumbled across a deal Rails were doing on a Bachmann Midland Pullman 'Special Collectors Edition'.  It arrived by courier and, it has to be said, fair took my breath away.  It included a number of special extras and the usual bits bags of detailing parts, including below the buffer beam horn sets and lamp disks.  It was at this point that l realised these detail parts had been missing from my previously purchased full yellow ended 6 car set.  How did l miss that!

 

Not to worry.  Bachmann's phone number was to hand and a quick call would surely resolve the matter, even though they might ask me for postage?

 

They didn't.  The service department wanted me to (re)purchase the tiny plastic mouldings which came in two plastic bags for £10 per bag plus £5 postage.  £25 in all.  A long conversation followed which escalated through two futher service department and customer services staff after which it was escalated internally to management which resulted in a phone call back where a member of their team stood firm.  £25 or nothing for 20 pence worth plastic sent by royal mail.

 

I have now sourced the parts from other suppliers for coppers and Bachmann have lost a long loyal customer who has spent thousand s of pounds on their products over the years.

 

Now to me that demonstrates incredible incompetence on their part.  Had they asked for a pound or two l would happily have paid despite the problem of missing parts being 100% their fault (yes, l know, if l had studied their paperwork l might have noticed at the time) and that, by the way, was their excuse.  It was out of warranty.

 

So, what do you think?  Was l expecting too much or was Bachmann's response perfectly reasonable?  How would you have felt if it were you?  Remember, nothing broke or wore out, it was simply missing!

[AY Mod]

9 minutes ago, Sir Topham Hatt said:

So, what do you think?

 

I think RMweb is not TripAdvisor.

 

Expecting redress 6 years later is a bit much. The instructions would have referenced detailing parts and action should have been taken then.