Tumi Warranty Repair

[opus7600]

I'm not going to come right out and call it a scam, but I'll happily put that word in here so it turns up in Google.

 

August 2007: Bought Tumi T-Tech backpack.

Sometime late 2010: Noticed fraying on shoulder strap. Determined it was not going to cause structural damage, ignored it.

May 2011: Main compartment zipper begins to separate from fabric. Sent in for repair.

 

I received email yesterday instructing me to call them. I did that, and was informed that my backpack couldn't be repaired, and my choices were to get it back as is, or to buy a new bag for 40% off MSRP. I am underwhelmed.

 

First, the damage I mentioned was really quite minor. The zipper separation was not so bad that I couldn't use the bag - maybe a total length of .5 inches so far, and it seemed to be holding around the edges for now. The strap damage was purely cosmetic from what I could see. If they can't repair that, what can they actually repair?

 

Second, they're saying the life expectancy of a $200 backpack is not even 4 years? They should be profoundly embarrassed to admit that. My parents bought me an Eddie Bauer backpack in Middle School that lasted me through High School. I assure you that bag didn't cost $200, even adjusting for inflation.

 

A quick search online shows that this experience is not unique. Several other customers have been underwhelmed by TUMI's commitment to customer satisfaction on repairs. I wish I had done that legwork before I bought the bag, but honestly I would have been very unlikely to expect to care about repair service. I mean, it's a $200 backpack. I should hope some of the money left over after branding and advertising goes into manufacturing quality.

 

I'm left with two unsavory options:

1) Get the bag back, hunt for a tailor who can fix it, and pay for that myself.

2) Pay them 60% of retail for a bag that will fall apart in 3.5 years.

This is customer service at its worst. I thought I'd be getting a bag as good as new for the cost of shipping. Instead I've been bagless for over a week, and there is no option that leaves me with a working bag without additional outlay of funds.

 

I can assure you I will not be choosing #2. TUMI will never see another cent of my money.

[MicheleB]

I really like Tumi's older products. Your experience is noted for my future purchases.

[inkypete]

Almost bought a Tumi bag on a recent trip to Singapore. Remember the sales person saying "you won't be buying another bag for a long time". Their presentation was all about quality. Still looking to buy but Tumi is off my list now. You judge a company by the way they stand behind their products. Tumi clearly don't!

[watch_art]

I've got a swiss army bag that an employer bought me as a going away present when I quit work to go back to college back in 2005. I've still go that bag and everything on it is perfect. all the zippers and latches and whatever else still are perfect. I still carry it to school now (as a teacher) and if I ever needed another bag, I'd quickly drop $100 to get one of these. it's like brand new, but dirty. I love this thing. Maybe the next bag you get will be swiss gear?

[opus7600]

Swiss Army is a contender. I'm thinking about a Tom Bihn Synapse right now, unless somebody has a horror story to share about them.

[opus7600]

The final injustice in this tale: I haven't yet unsubscribed from TUMI's email list, and today I got email about their semi-annual sale. Discounts up to 40% off. So basically, their warranty repair offer was, "You let us keep your very slightly damaged backpack, and we'll let you have sale prices 5 days early."

[RobbW]

Tell them their offer is unacceptable, and post a link to this thread.

 

In the future: Briggs & Riley--my B&R luggage is far superior to my wife's TUMI. Not even close.

[pelman]

Eagle Creek, Briggs and Riley and Victorinox (not all lines) have excellent lifetime warranties and are well worth the price.

[opus7600]

My final update got eaten by the FPN outage, so here goes again.

 

The emailed sale peeved me off enough to write to TUMI via their website to tell them basically the same story I had told you, not asking for anything, just explaining how I felt mistreated and did not plan on buying any other TUMI goods.

 

On Friday, I received a call from TUMI customer service, explaining first that the repair and sales departments didn't have anything to do with one another, really, so the timing wasn't intentional, it just happened. Nonetheless, the did understand how that would have upset me and they did feel bad about the situation, and were prepared to alter their offer from 40% off a new bag to the full retail value of my old bag in credit. I stammered a bit and asked if my old bag was still a current model, and it turns out it is, and now I have one (backordered) for me.

 

I feel a little bribed, and a little validated. It's confusing. I mean, they wouldn't have done the same for me if the timing hadn't just been that coincidental, and I do still feel that their initial offer was unfair. However, they did make effort in the end to make me feel good about being a TUMI customer. I'm not sure what the moral of the story might be other than "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

Edited May 30, 2011 by opus7600

[stacybean]

I had a less satisfactory experience with a PacSafe daypack that needed a repair after the two year warranty expired. I was simply out of luck because they do not have any repair facilities. I won't purchase any more of their products . They did not offer any discount on a replacement product. My new pack is from Tom Bihn.

[mer6]

North Face for life man. My brother and I both own North Face backpacks (I can't remember what they're called), and they've got lifetime warranties. If they break/tear/whatever, you just pay for shipping and they fix it and in ~a month they send it back good as new. Between us, we've ripped 3 shoulder straps out and once we did so at the hip (it took the whole hip-belt apparatus off of that side and tore). The packs can be covered in mud, scratched, whatever, and they'll fix it.

 

Loyalty: they have mine.

Edited June 1, 2011 by mer6

[BarryLee]

I purchased a Hartmann Belting Leather bag about twenty years ago and it is still going strong. The patina on the leather simply makes it that much better. So, at least take a look and see what they have to offer.

[opus7600]

My Tom Bihn Synapse arrived on Tuesday, and I've used it for three days now. It's deceptively spacious, and it has enough pockets to satisfy my need for organization. The shoulder straps aren't quite right, but I'm hoping they just need a break-in period to mold to my somewhat rounded shape. Of course, I now have a new TUMI bag coming, identical to the old one, so that's my backup option.

 

Thanks for the suggestions on other bags. I looked at The North Face, but didn't see quite what I wanted. Hartmann's backpack looks great, but that's a little out of my price range for a bag. Granted, amortized over 20 years, it's not so much, but if I had $700 in hand right now, I'd be buying one of the new-old Omas Paragons, not another backpack.

[Anne-Sophie]

My Tom Bihn Synapse arrived on Tuesday, and I've used it for three days now. It's deceptively spacious, and it has enough pockets to satisfy my need for organization. The shoulder straps aren't quite right, but I'm hoping they just need a break-in period to mold to my somewhat rounded shape. Of course, I now have a new TUMI bag coming, identical to the old one, so that's my backup option.

 

Thanks for the suggestions on other bags. I looked at The North Face, but didn't see quite what I wanted. Hartmann's backpack looks great, but that's a little out of my price range for a bag. Granted, amortized over 20 years, it's not so much, but if I had $700 in hand right now, I'd be buying one of the new-old Omas Paragons, not another backpack.

 

 

What color did you get?

 

I do not own a Synapse, yet but I own other Tom Bihn bags and accessories including a couple of Brain Bags, their bigger backpack.

 

It will take a little bit of time for you to find the perfect fit for the straps, just experiment with the length of each one. Once you find the perfect strap fit, the bag will be kind of molding into your back.

 

I have owned my first Brain Bag since 06, looks like new!

 

 

 

I also bought a TUMI suit bag many years ago and it became defective almost immediately. I use it as a wardrobe at home.

[opus7600]

I chose "Conifer". And yes, the straps have now softened up and feel better than when the bag first arrived.

[flight878]

Perhaps I jumped into this discussion too late, but if you need a reliable bag, go for Victorinox Swiss Army. I accidentally ripped off one of the straps on my SA backpack during university (perhaps too many textbooks). I took the bag to a dealer (not the one I bought it from) who sent it to Victorinox for repair. The bag was replaced for a brand new one and all I had to pay for was a nominal shipping fee.

[PJohnP]

I feel a little bribed, and a little validated. It's confusing. I mean, they wouldn't have done the same for me if the timing hadn't just been that coincidental, and I do still feel that their initial offer was unfair. However, they did make effort in the end to make me feel good about being a TUMI customer. I'm not sure what the moral of the story might be other than "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

 

There's a little life-lesson here, and that's not said condescendingly at all...

 

Life is full of negotiations, some smaller, some larger, and in most cases, the first offer that you're given isn't the final offer. In cases like the one that you've outlined, I usually take a calm slow breath, then say with equal calmness, "That does not work for me." No yelling, no cursing, just a straight refutation of the initial offer. Sometimes I'll have to "elevate" the complaint and speak with a supervisor, occasionally I've run all of the way up to a vice-president of the company (happened with a major cellphone company in fact).

 

Does this always work ?

 

No. It works about 80% of the time, roughly four out of five cases, and in those "wins", I do not always get all that I've asked for from the company. On the other hand, I'm well ahead of the initial offer roughly 80% of the time, and I probably get all of what I (reasonably, not greedily) ask for maybe 50% or 60% of the time. That makes it very worthwhile asking. Or, as an old friend from NYC used to opine, "If you don't ask, you don't get !"

 

One thing that I do find is that "win-win" negotiating is, for the largest part, the most rewarding. I've had discussions and negotiations with Tumi for repairs - I have a fair bit of their luggage and bags systems - and when I've posed the point that I've been a long-time customer who has praised their goods to other customers, but I'm disappointed in this specific item that needs repair, they've been more cooperative. It perhaps requires a few extra minutes of careful discussion to finesse the repair, but it's been worth it. Tumi counts heavily on satisfied and happy customers, so it's almost always a "win" for them to keep a possible disgruntled customer from disparaging their brand (although that should almost never be an overt part of the negotiation - it's implied when you tell them that you're "disappointed and unhappy").

 

The first offer usually isn't the final offer.

 

Life is negotiation.

 

 

 

 

John P.

 

 

P.S. I heartily and strongly recommend a book by Herb Cohen called You Can Negotiate Anything. The examples in the book are a bit dated - it came out in the 'seventies, after all - but it's likely the best primer on negotiation that you can find.

[opus7600]

Life is full of negotiations, some smaller, some larger, and in most cases, the first offer that you're given isn't the final offer.

 

I completely understand your point, but in my opinion, running your company so that a customer can *negotiate* to a position they find satisfying is NOT good customer service. If I pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a bag, I expect you're gonna bend over backwards to please me. If I've got to work you like a dentist pulling a tooth every time I need help, then the cost of the bag isn't JUST the hundreds I've already spent, it the TIME I spend negotiating with you. Money I've got, time not so much.

[PJohnP]

I completely understand your point, but in my opinion, running your company so that a customer can *negotiate* to a position they find satisfying is NOT good customer service. If I pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a bag, I expect you're gonna bend over backwards to please me. If I've got to work you like a dentist pulling a tooth every time I need help, then the cost of the bag isn't JUST the hundreds I've already spent, it the TIME I spend negotiating with you. Money I've got, time not so much.

 

I have no disagreements with you whatsoever on this. Companies, at least, well managed companies with an eye to future sales, should make the customer experience as smooth and good as possible.

 

However, there's a German term, zeitgeist, literally, "the spirit of the time", that applies very strongly to the degradation of the customer experience in North American these days. Companies are looking to the net profit of this perhaps the next quarter, but no further, and they see customer service as an area where costs can be cut dramatically. The automated voice systems, the messages of "your wait will be fifty-five minutes", and the generally surly approach of working strictly from a script put in front of the oxymoronically named "customer service" agents, all of these things are deliberately intended to make the customer drop any issues or complaints, while also keeping personnel costs low. Make no mistake, policies like the "automated-phone-tree", scripts with no flexibility, and the pernicious idea of "breakage" (i.e., deny a preset number/percentage of repairs/rebates/replacements regardless of the issues for the customer to minimise the costs of customer service)are all consciously determined business plans by these companies, hence my use of the term zeitgeist.

 

About the only rational choice for the consumer in these sorts of cases is to negotiate strongly and effectively, which was the point of the earlier post to you. I don't have to like it, and you very obviously don't either, but that's the choice that we're offered - negotiate or allow the company to dump us.

 

Now, there are still some good experiences to be had for customers, even if smaller in number.

 

I recently needed to replace the earcups on my Bose QuietComfort2 headphones. The headphones, which I've had for a good part of a decade, are used by me on every business trip and in many hotels, but after this long were starting to shed flakes of "warm leatherette" from the earcups, and also to the point, were not under warranty any longer. When I called Bose, the service rep was extremely pleasant, and took the time to point out that I could upgrade to the newer improved technology headphones for a price that was not so hugely above my replacing the earcups. No pressure, no hard-sell, just the comment that this was an available option for me. He was so calm and good about this, providing some straightforward information, that I decided to make the upgrade, "trading in" my existing set. Win-win for both sides, as they have another sale/upgrade, I have a new and very-much-improved set of noise reduction headphones at an extremely attractive price, and I'm willing to tell others about the positive experience.

 

There are still a fair number of win-win negotiations out there for us, but the number is sadly declining.

 

 

 

 

John P.