Thread Number: 75707  /  Tag: Modern Automatic Washers
Real Customer Service and Thanks, Thomas Ortega
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Post# 995323   5/27/2018 at 08:46 (2,132 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains)        

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I've praised our Mega clothes spinner here before. We've used it an enormous amount and been happy with it. When a cable snapped last week, we wrote to Thomas to ask about replacement parts.

He responded immediately and a new spinner just arrived on Saturday!

That's customer service.

Wish more manufacturers took that attitude - Força Brasil!





Post# 995352 , Reply# 1   5/27/2018 at 15:21 (2,132 days old) by appnut (TX)        

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Great to hear and a thank you and salute to Thomas. 


Post# 995370 , Reply# 2   5/27/2018 at 18:09 (2,132 days old) by westingguelph ()        
Real Customer Service

Honestly it's dead here in Canada so Mr. Thomas Ortega... All I can say is brilliant and excellent to do that!

Post# 995414 , Reply# 3   5/28/2018 at 02:21 (2,132 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)        

Dear Panthera

Thank you but we have nothing to celebrate.

Here at The Laundry Alternative, we work hard to make our best. It means our products must perform well, they must be safe to use and they must last as much as possible.
Programmed obsolescense is completely forbidden in our company. We don't say that only to convince customers to buy our products, it is truth I live every single day here, discussing tiny details with the company CEO (Corey Tournet), our engineering team and our production. 
Different from dozens of companies that sell those terrible products on Ebay, we really develop our products, we control every step, from the very first sketch to the final product.

For example, my friend Kevin (Revvinkevin) has the final prototype SCAW2GEN in his house. That was the very last unit we made, then it was sacrificed repeating hundreds of tests with all sort of measuring instruments connected to it only to make sure we did it right before I authorized the production manager to give the "green light" on production.

In less than a year on the market, we sold over 10 thousand units.

All our procedures and attitude are thinking on CONSUMER first, for this reason we have the 3-year hassle-free warranty (literally hassle-free as you could see.
Unfortunately you had an issue with your product (By the way an issue we are already aware and related to FedEx and it's "not gentle at all" handling.

We could think of PROFIT first and say "We will ship you a brake cable for free, because we are very generous, now you deal with the hassle to replace the part and you also have to pay for the shipping." The result would be great for the CFO, ok, we would have more profit (no loss) in ONE unit. Would you praise and recommend our company to your friends and relatives? Would you trust us again if we did just the bare minimum required by consumer protection laws? I bet you would hate us forever! How many new customers we would loose? how many units we wouldn't sell?

I said it is sad because everything is wrong in the US market. The Laundry Alternative shouldn't be praised for doing the right thing. Ina  perfect world, all our competitors would do the same, they would have in mind that 100% of whatever machines in the world someday will fail and behing a broken whatever machine there is a customer that trusted our company and invested his or her money trusting it was a good deal and an appliance that was built to last.

Other thing I loved in our company is that The Laundry Alternative is growing fast, but we use technology to continue with that "family company" feel. We are a family company, we don't trust call centers. When somebody calls our toll-free number, the system transfers the call straight to my phone or the CEO's phone. I designed the products, I know every millimetric detail about each one of the products and I can troubleshoot without reading a "canned" text on a computer screen.

Of course it's not always possible to answer all the calls, lots of people complain they reach the voice mail most of the times, but I call back. I also reply all the emails. And I need this intimate contact with the customers because thanks to consumers like you I can know what people want.

The SCAW2GEN was released on the marked a few months ago, and guess what, I'm already finishing the SCAW3GEN project because i realized I could make it even better.

We are now working very hard to extend our warranty. Taking our quality standards to even higher levels and offer a full 7 year "hassle-free" warranty, the same way the 3-year warranty is now. If something goes wrong, we will never try to fix the product, instead, we will always ship a brand new unit at absolutely no cost for the customer, unless the failure is something really silly, like a faulty fill hose that an ordinary customer can replace using no tools or technical knowledge. 

We also love to think out of the box. Something that our competitors forgot how to do. Have you noticed that no matter what brand, washing machines nowadays all use the same beaten path? It doesn't satisfy the stock market investors when a company spends money CREATING. Why create? let's just use something similar to our competitor, change one or other thing to prevent being sued for violating patents. It's easier than have an old school designer building the very first prototype using clay and epoxy. We do that here, I do that, it's MY work to create, it's MY work to make good products and coordinate everything with other designers and the engineers to make sure the final result will be much more than "acceptable" if I fail, i will drag down the whole company with me. It's a horrible responsibility, but luckily i am not alone, I have a great team with me.

By the way, the company is not Brazilian. The Laundry Alternative is 100% American. Coincidently I was born in Brazil and the other coincidence is that one of our production plants is in Brazil. (We also have a plant in China and a new partner in England) We are also negotiating an old appliance manufacturer plant here in the US, so we can remodel and modernize that plant to move our warehouse from New Hampshire and finally shut down the Chinese plant and transfer our production to the USA, generating more jobs for our people.


Spoiler alert:

HATL washers (i said washersssss) coming soon.


Post# 995415 , Reply# 4   5/28/2018 at 05:13 (2,132 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))        

arbilab's profile picture

sad because everything is wrong in the US market 

Plus, plus, plus.  Across ALL business genres.  I won't clutter the thread with elaboration.  Besides, everyone here already has a perspective on this.

 

Um abraço, Thomas.


Post# 995421 , Reply# 5   5/28/2018 at 08:31 (2,131 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains)        
Like you approach, Thomas

panthera's profile picture

Recently, I had a very rare experience - a callback for a 'mistake' my company made.

I sincerely didn't believe it - it was the sort of thing which is as close to impossible as may be. BUT - I went out, personally, with one of the best plumbers in Wyoming.

At my cost.

The customer had left the door open for us, we went in, found that the problem wasn't the result of something we'd done or not done (wasn't even in the same area of the house!). Called the customer, explained things.

Fixed it.

Drove back home.

One week later, had three new contracts on my desk because the customer had told every single person he knew that we actually cared.

And, I do. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be doing this at my age. Would I make more money in the short-term by sticking to the letter-of-the-law?

Yup. 

Would I sleep well at night?

Nope.

I appreciate your products, I appreciate you!

Oh, and, yes, the new unit's package came in pristine condition. I recollect the first one had some serious cuts and large dents, as if dropped or thrown. It sure didn't reflect well on the freight forwarders, even though your packaging had protected the spinner.




This post was last edited 05/28/2018 at 09:08
Post# 995432 , Reply# 6   5/28/2018 at 10:24 (2,131 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)        

"It sure didn't reflect well on the freight forwarders, even though your packaging had protected the spinner."

LOL!

At the cost of over 1000s of boxes, and probably 20 or 30 full spin dryers destroyed in drop, roll, vibration and crash tests.

And until today some units arrive in pieces. IDK what FedEx does, maybe it's that "Mr. krusher" they have at their distribution centers.




Post# 995436 , Reply# 7   5/28/2018 at 11:58 (2,131 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)        
westingguelph

We're also in Canada.

I even force myself to use my horrible French to interact with some Canadian customers when their first contact is in French.

Sometimes I have to use mimmics, smoke signals, whatever, but I always manage to make them understand I'm here to help and they always have a solution for watever issue in under 24 hours.

The good thing is, as I'm forcing myself to use my french, it is getting better so, thanks to some canadian customer I'm having an opportunity to learn more day after day.


Post# 995454 , Reply# 8   5/28/2018 at 14:35 (2,131 days old) by Pierreandreply4 (St-Bruno de montarville (province of quebec) canada)        
i would say the problem here in canada is this

pierreandreply4's profile picture
I would say the biggest problem here in Canada is that repairs service push toward appliance replacement take this for example if you had 2000$ saved up for something special like a vacation you had plan on for months would you went to spend these plan savings on a new appliance or go on your vacation and when your back from vacation try and have your actual appliance repair if I would of known of the site back in 2004 2005 when my mom and I still had or direct drive inglis superbII washer I would of suggest to my mom we try and have it repair sometime the best option and always the first that what I think now is always try to have the appliance repaired before thnking replacement, I aploigize in advance for the example I am using but sometime you never know some repair place depending on who you call still do repairs


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