I am really, really mad at how Kenro handles their customer service for OMAS pens.

I have an NOS Paragon in the Arctic Green celluloid. The pens facets don't exactly line up when the cap is on. It kind of bothers me but I thought it can be easily settled by OMAS.

Well, beforehand I had contacted John Mottishaw as I would rather pay him correct the fault than send it to Kenro. I know that if John does something it will be airtight. Yet unfortunately, he said that this should be addressed with OMAS.

So I contacted Kenro and they promised to forward the email with the description of my problem to OMAS. This was over a month ago. While the Kenro representatives are good at responding with nondescript emails like: "I am sure we'll have an answer from OMAS by tomorrow" they don't know too much about the pens themselves and just function as intermediaries.

Well, time went by, and OMAS would miraculously never answer any questions. I wrote Kenro a weekly email in order to inquire about the state of my inquiry (in fact, I contacted them once a week for four weeks in a row). They would always respond with: "We will resend the request as we haven't heard from them". Then I wrote them that I will call OMAS on the phone if I don't get an answer. Kenro wrote back that they will resend the request and if they don't hear from OMAS, THEY will call them for me. This was twelve days ago and, of course, they never called OMAS. So they are making big promises that they don't stick to.

Please imagine! All I wanted to know was if it were possible to correct the facet lineup (and maybe change the gold trim to silver trim, and for this additional service I offered payment as this would have to do nothing with the warranty)! 30 days and not an answer!

I highly suspect that Kenro and OMAS do not communicate well. To me as someone from outside it leaves a very peculiar taste in my mouth.

In a very honest and polite email I told the Kenro guys to please feel freed of making any inquiry for me as this was not effective. I also told them that I will contact Marco Novelli in Rome in order to find the right person at OMAS whom I could email directly. I furthermore told them that their $20 shipping fee is ridiculous for owners of brand-new OMAS pens that have to go back to Italy (because of leaking and the like). Last but not least I told them that they might be able to learn from Chartpak how good customer service should be handled. And I also told them that I will send all my pens to OMAS directly from now on... (which is even cheaper than paying postage to Kenro plus the $20 handling fee).
I paid $16 for a pen that I shipped recently to OMAS.

I couched my last email to Kenro really carefully and in a constructive and helpful fashion but I never got a reply and do not expect to get one in the future. I am massively disappointed by them as they cannot provide any service in my eyes except for shipping pens to Italy for me. And you know what? I can ship the pens to OMAS myself if they need repair.

I want to have knowledgeable people for customer service. As far as I know they aren't even able to perform simple repairs at Kenro. They cannot change a nib nor can they reseal a section. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I am sure Kenro is friendly when you contact them, but so is the random person on the street who greets me. What I need as a customer is more than just friendliness. Especially with such expensive pens I want to see action!

I agree with you 100%. Your fustration hits a chord with me, not with OMAS and their represenitive as in your post, but rather customer service in general. Very few companies even know we, the customer, exist after a purchase. So little of their budget is spent on customer service, I guess there's none left after they spent it all trying to suck us in.

I'm so sorry to hear sbout such things happening.My experiences with them were pleasant,informative and quick.Maybe it was the rep from Kenro that needs to be taken to task.Or maybe an email to the president of Kenro will remedy this.I had to send my Roma back and listed the experience here on FPN.All went well.No fee either as it was a new pen.

Hope it gets resolved.

JD

I would appreciate your keeping us posted on what happens. I give considerable weight to the experiences of other customers when making purchases of my own. Thus, I like to be an informed buyer.

Same here.

Isn't OMAS one of those "high end" brands where you're only supposed to buy and service through an "authorized dealer?" I've seen this with some other things over the years where the factory, distributors, and importers have a policy of blowing off end users.

+1

I thought i would chime in again.I know large companies can be difficult to navigate.Is it possible that Kenro has someone new on this or maybe inexperienced?Would another salesperson take care of this?
Being a salesman myself,i know some of my compatriots don't have equal amounts of service drive.I guess i'm trying to be positive here and hope that one person's inadequacy doesn't ruin the reputation of a decent organization.As i stated above,i had good success with them and hope this is an anomaly.We know the old adage about 1 satisfied customer tells 10 friends and a dissatisfied one tells 30.
And since Kenro is THE North American dealer,maybe a larger amount of emails would help.

JD

Thanks for all of your comments. I will keep you posted but I will not contact Kenro any more. They have not responded to my criticism (which was reasonably formulated) and that's their decision. I will deal with Italy directly. I don't have time to waste on writing emails to people who don't care.

I've sent different pens to Kenro before when I was still thinking that they actually have a little workshop in Mineola. However, they don't even do the most simple forms of repair (the ones that even I can do myself now). I don't need a mail forwarder. I need some service.
Mr. Lowe at Kenro (the person I contacted) is very polite and nice but wasn't able to get an answer.
I as the customer feel kind of fooled if I have to contact someone who is supposed to contact someonoe else but cannot accomplish that. It just doesn't make any sense to me as things get lost in this chain of people who contact the next one down the line.

Furthermore, I am a huge fan of the old OMAS pens. I am not a fan of their general accessibility (or lack thereof) nor of their new hideous assortment (that is kissing goodbye to the piston fill system and most of the traditional celluloids). If the old pens weren't that beautiful I wouldn't bother with this company. Sorry to sound so harsh!

I am sorry to hear of your experience. I sent Kenro a Gentleman Sailor with the plastic above the threads cracked. They responded within days that they got it and would need to ship it to Italy and didn't have parts, however I may have had to query them first to ask if they received the pen. I got the pen back probably within the next 5 weeks which I thought was reasonable. No leaks so far. These days I don't expect much customer service and the customer has to do much more to hold people accountable.

I confess that I think it is a little odd that they could not give you an answer within a month. It seems like Omas should be able to write Kenro back within a week and give you an answer.

From the posts you have made it sounds like you have had a real bad run of luck with several pen companies and ebay sellers and warranty shops and distributors and brick and mortar merchants.

I hope the future brings you better experiences and you get your Omas fixed. Good luck.

From the consumers side of things, good customer service used to be the standard. Now it is the Holy Grail. Every company in the world now, save a few, conduct themselves in the manner of already having your money, and CS is a half hearted attempt at damage control. Hope things work out for you.

I'm with you Dupont as regards the old style Omas pens.The newer models don't inspire me much at all except a few of the nibs.The Bologna nib is a beauty and i would like it on my paragon.The older models are far and away THE best and among the best italian pens made.

I truly hope things get better.Maybe my good experience with Kenro was a fluke.Sure hope not.

JD

I am very surprised by this, as I have found Kenro to very good to deal with. Danny Lowe has always answered my emails and followed up on my pens that were returned to Italy.

I was so impressed that my company purchased a bunch of pens as corporate gifts from Kenro and I know my marketing manager was also impressed with their service.

I have an Omas Arco (old style) that does not line up and I will be sending it back to have this looked after, as it drives me crazy to see the facets not line up properly.

bummer deal.

I just spoke to Joel Blumberg, the President of Kenro, who I had very good dealings with many years ago over another issue. He told me that even Italy cannot correct this problem. Oh well, we are stuck with our misaligned pens. He said that the old Paragons frequently came in like this.

Thats sad to hear but did he explained why there was no answer after a month ?
The issue is not about the actual pen rather then the "Customer Service".