If you have read my blog before, or met me in person you know: I travel a lot. You may even say that I probably like to travel a lot. Just take a sample flight path I have taken a couple of weeks ago below.
One of the side effects of travelling a lot is a certain pickiness. You have your preferred routes, your preferred lounges, your preferred seats on a plane and yes you will grow to love or hate your travel gear. Today’s blog is about that: my travel gear and how a little bit of service turned a terrible mess into a great experience. An experience I want to write about. As I do work in the digital marketing domain, I believe that these stories of great customer service are important. So much so that I think they define a brand. You can market all you want – if you cannot deliver on your brand promises and fail to fulfil – you are destined to fail in the long run.
Before I start though, let me put a big disclaimer here: I do not gain any benefits from writing about the products I mention. This review is coming straight from the POV of a happy customer.
So let’s look at my favourite gear: my bag(s). You can probably spend hours and hours of research on travel bags and different types and styles. However, travelling in style is not just ‘nice’ – for a frequent flyer it can become an important part of the routine. My bag of choice is from QWSTION. The Swiss brand has a perfect brand motto, which I would like to quote: “OUR ANSWERS – We believe a good answer is the result of the right question, and to find those answers we question the norm of how things are designed and made. We thrive on finding original solutions that are sustainable, to create those essentials that will be useful everyday. The Swiss modernist design heritage has influenced our collection, making continuous development and improvement our focus. Our Bags and products are developed in Zürich, in our own prototyping workshop. This allows to test new ideas and unique constructions in a very early stage of the product development, resulting in more refined products. Manufacturing is conducted with highest ethical and environmental standards both in Asia and EU.”
The 3 Day Travel Bag is my ‘weapon’ of choice.
“Pack smart, travel light: this bag on wheels fits everything you need for a long weekend. It transforms easily to a trolley case via the telescopic handle. Your trusty travel companion also meets the carry-on luggage requirements of most airlines. Stop worrying about what to pack, start enjoying your getaway.”
It has an amazing amount of space for a carry-on. Robust to withstand hundreds of flights. The most exiting part though is that you can also buy a matching office bag to go with it. Making it a very stylish duo. I have never been asked about where I have bought a bag before – until I started travelling with this combination.
As with every great product you use a lot – I fly almost every week – there is the usual wear and tear though. Generally that is no problem, unless it affects the handle. This is what happened to me. For whatever reason, I was unable to close down the handle back into the back of the bag. It got stuck. Quite annoying, when you think about it. Try to store a bag with a stuck handle on a flight – believe me: it was messy and a bit chaotic.
Opening up the bag handle at home I found the error: a piece of plastic within the handle is supposed to press down springs that retract the little pins used to hold the handle in place. The piece had a crack. So when pressing down on the handle – it simply did not work.
By the time this happened to me, I was way beyond any warranty. It may be described as a product defect, but let’s be honest: I used my bag on a weekly basis – and the manufacturer is out of Switzerland (and I reside in Melbourne). This is basically where my story begins. The story I want to tell you about amazing customer service. Despite my little expectations, QWSTION has been able to not only deliver, but deliver in style.
I started by writing a quick note to the email address on their website. Their response was: “[…] thank you for your kind mail and we are sorry to hear about your Qwstion bag. We strive to provide durable, long-lasting and functional bags which is why all of our bags are quality tested by TÜV Rheinland in Germany. It’s an ongoing process to keep improving our standards and we pursue it with great passion. In order to assess if your case fits within our warranty policy we will need one picture showing the entire bag and one showing the defekt [clearly German speakers] as well as a digital copy of your proof of purchase. If you no longer have your receipt we would also accept other forms of proof of purchase such as a cc or bank statement. If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to ask.”
I traveled with this bag for 4 years. I had no idea where my receipt was. I took a picture from the bag and the broken handle and sent it back to them with a short explanation of why I am unable to retrieve the ‘proof of purchase’.
It took a couple of days to hear back from the brand. Their note was amazing: “Thank you for your email, sorry for my delayed response I was waiting on a reply from our design team. They have now created a repair manual just for you so you can replace the handle of your 3-Day bag. We will send the handle to you today using FedEx.”
Let me summarise: QWSTION came back to me with not just a brand new handle via FedEx – they also created a brand new ‘repair manual’ for me. In case you are interested, have a look: 180503_QWSTION_3-DAY_TRAVEL_BAG_HANDLE_EXCHANGE_MANUAL
Instead of throwing away my favourite bag, I am using it again now. I keep being asked about where I got the bags from and I may have sent one or two colleagues to buy QWSTION bags over the years already (you know who you are).
In a world drowning in everybody’s marketing efforts it becomes harder to have a defining brand message, or deliver on all of your brand promises. It is refreshing to see that simple, but great customer service can deliver great customer experiences. The service QWSTION has provided left a lasting impression and I can highly recommend them.
In case you want to read a little bit more about the business impacts of great customer service, I can suggest this great repository: https://www.helpscout.net/75-customer-service-facts-quotes-statistics
“It’s very logical: There is proven ROI in doing whatever you can to turn your customers into advocates for your brand or business. The way to create advocates is to offer superior customer service.” – Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy
And me? I am very tempted to get my next bag: QWSTION + PETER KRUDER DJ PACK
All images © QWSTION
