Being an industry
watchdog involves
hearing all the horror
stories of trips gone
awry and unresolved
equipment problems.
Every now and then it’s
refreshing to hear the
good side: a manufacturer
willing to go out of
its way to help a longterm
customer. The
letter we got from Ed
Donohue (Smithsburg MD) a few weeks ago was the sort
of ringing endorsement we like to hear.
Donohue writes that he’s been buying Princeton
Tec’s “Bottom Lights” for years and that he “wound up
with four of them.” Though some of them are more than
fifteen years old, the company has always provided
replacement parts at no charge, so they’re all still going
strong. When another small part on one of his ten-yearold
lights broke recently, he sent the part back to
Princeton Tec with a request for a replacement part.
What he got in the mail a few days later was a little more
than he expected: a brand-new light. Since they no
longer manufactured lights with magnetic switches and
had exhausted their inventory of replacement parts, they
replaced it with a new light with a toggle switch instead.
I don’t expect they always give this kind of service. It
was probably the short anecdote included in Donohue’s
request that did the trick:
“You may have heard the story of the Maryland
farmer who was bragging about his axe. He stated that
the axe had been handed down from his great-great
grandfather and was an example of American frontier
craftsmanship. He said over the years the handle had
been replaced sixteen times and the axe head seven
times and the axe was still almost as good as new. ‘They just
don’t make tools like that anymore!’ he would claim.”
It worked for Donohue, though I don’t know that it
would fly twice in a row. I guess we’ll all have to become
as creative as Donohue so that we can get the same kind
of customer service.
— J. Q.