Deep Thoughts #4 – Something for the Dog Days of Summer: The Further Adventures of a Fishing Consumer.

It takes some work to be a good consumer.

Over the past three weeks, perhaps because my trout fishing has trickled liked the creeks and rivers and I have not switched gears to the Jersey Shore during these excessive heat warnings and South winds, I have put the customer service of three companies to the test; and while two of them did exceptionally well, they all did okay this time.  Too many consumers feel funny returning something to the store, but if no one calls out companies on faulty products or bad dinners or botched take-out orders, then where is the incentive for businesses to change?  My wife takes things back with no shame, and I admire her for it.  If expensive, Whole Foods chicken is packaged and supposed to be good to sell until July 17, and it smells bad in our fridge on July 15, then it should go back, not in the trash for the raccoons to find after distributing the packaging all over our lawn.  The return trip and the wait in line at customer service, not to mention filing away receipts, are an inconvenience, sure, and we all lead busy lives, but someone has to do it, and I am glad my wife does—and not just because it saves us money.  She has a 10 dollar gift card waiting at the local taco place because they forgot to put salsa (on a taco, god forbid!) which she didn’t discover until she got home.  On the menu she brought home for me, the first ingredient listed for the particular taco she ordered was, you guessed it, “black bean and corn salsa.”  She really just called to let the manager know that food was going out incorrectly, but I will help her eat 10 bucks worth of taco if they are buying and she’s sharing… 

25 years!

In May of this year, I shared that my 8’3” 3wt rod broke under pretty normal fishing circumstances.  I also shared that I had a debate on a fly fishing forum about returning LL Bean waders several times, in effect holding them to their 100% Satisfaction promise, which to me is a personal metric not one dictated by how long someone else thinks a pair of waders or, in this case, wading boots should last (3 years, even for 500 dollar Simms, seems to be okay for some guys based on several posts I read, but that does not, pardon me, fly with this guy).  Satisfaction is inherently a personal thing, no?  I have also talked about Rapala pretty often, often enough, perhaps, that you are tired of hearing about it.  Ward sends me links to cheap lots on eBay, while I search for the fitting replacement that will end my dependence.  Sure, I could chunk streamers in high water, but I still like a spinning rod from time to time, and I feel that a spinning rod is the right tool for chucking meat.  If you are throwing a 4 inch, articulated streamer made of all synthetic materials, well, you may not really be fly fishing anymore and, therefore, don’t hate my short rod game and my hard baits :)  

So, let’s start with LL Bean, for whom I am a loyal customer, due in no small part to the 100% Satisfaction motto, (mostly) quality products, and free shipping.  Compared to REI and Orvis and EMS, their outdoor clothing is priced well and holds up well too.  I have had bad products, though, and I have returned them with no questions asked.  With a receipt, I have received an exchange or full purchase refund several times over the years.  With no receipt, I have been given store credit or exchanges.  Yes, the retail prices no doubt make allowances for free shipping and for the loss generated by such a generous return policy, but most consumers don’t take advantage of the warranty, so I think they are doing okay up there in Freeport, ME and a mall near you.  

100% Satisfaction

I bought a pair of wading boots from Beans mainly because they were exceptionally comfortable and were the first generation of sticky rubber and limited seams boots designed to curtail the spread of invasive organisms (even came with a brush that I sometimes hear bouncing around in the back of the ‘Ru).  Well, the first pair lasted half a season before the drain-hole grommets popped out and both sets of laces broke.  The studs, which added 30 dollars to the price of the boots, were next to go.  Furthermore, the boots never, ever fully dried, so I am not sure how that would have helped curtail any water-borne organisms.  I returned the boots, but because they were so damn comfortable, I agreed to exchange for the second generation of the same boots (on sale, which at LL Bean usually means not long for the shelves, on borrowed time, you dig?).  This second pair came apart at the soles after 2 seasons of being in the rotation but not my only wading boot.  I tried Shoe Goo for a month, but that too did not hold up in water for too long.  LL Bean no longer sells these boots, which from my long experience with the company means I was not alone in my complaints about the product.  If something is causing the company to lose money and, perhaps, face, it tends to remove them from circulation, which is what should happen, although plenty of wrong color choices, faulty thread counts, and leaky seamless wader designs still bring in some money through the bargain outlets, virtual and brick-and-mortar; so, again, I think they are doing okay in Freeport.

A refreshingly sassy and very competent sales person at a retail store took my return of an online purchase for a full refund, no questions asked, saving me the return shipping costs (and I bought a pair of pants on sale), and the replacement Korkers boots I bought from LL Bean.com, which will also be honored by the 100% satisfaction promise, mind you, were delivered in two days, which did not inconvenience my fishing time in the least (the store in KOP is just minutes from Valley, you see).  Did I like that I got lemon boots?  No?  Do I like the Korkers?  Yes, so far.  Will I continue to buy gear from LL Bean.  Mos def, yo.  Mos def.

Another good one.

On to Cabela’s, who also scored high this month.  I thought the rod I broke was out of warranty, because my research online had the current warranty at 1 year.  However, another reason that I love my wife is that she is organized.  She had stowed the warranty card for said rod with other important paperwork which, after a short search and recovery, revealed that the rod had a 25 year warranty!  Yay, you know?  The rod broke at the tip during a normal backcast situation and was not stepped on, run over, or slammed in the hatch of the Subaru.  I packed the rod in the original tube and packaging in which it was delivered, attached a short note, the warranty card, and the receipt, and in less than 2 weeks I received a shipping notice in my email informing me that I should expect a replacement in the mail by a certain date.  I may have mentioned that I really liked this rod, a LSi in a unique length well suited to dry fly and midges on small creeks, and I was sad that I broke it, especially when I had to land a 20 inch wild brown on my 6’ 6” 3 wt at Valley last month, so imagine how happy I was to receive the rod in the mail, the latest version with better guides to boot and retailing for about 200 bucks (not what I paid).  Now if it would just cool off and rain, I could fish with it…  Will I buy another Cabela’s rod?  Yep.  I was honest about my treatment of the product, and the service folks could clearly see how that the break involved no foul play, I suppose, so I had two good customer service experiences in a short time.  Yay, you know?

The response is softening.

Finally, we come to Normark/Rapala, my sometimes nemesis.   I love how effective the Countdown plugs in sizes 1 to 5 are for trout, but I hate that they break way too often under normal fishing circumstances, sometimes right out of the box.  The company and fishermen differ with what constitutes normal conditions, I believe, as evidenced by the verbiage of a previous letter I photographed and saved, but the message is softening (so start sending them more, dammit!).  This time I packed up 6 broken plugs from this spring for which I remembered to save receipts, and I sent them to customer service, more on principle than expecting any results.  The last time I sent about 8 plugs with receipts, and I received them all back with the letter basically blaming me for mistreating the plugs.  Well, this time I got 4 broken ones back in the mail, but I also received two replacements.  For these two, the service folks deemed faulty workmanship played a part in the plug’s demise.  To boot, the letter shared more about how they determine how the plug may have broken: like bent hooks, scratched paint, cracked bodies, things that would indicate that the plug had done battle with rocks and/or pliers, I suppose.  That is a much better approach than saying I, the consumer, fished them on the bottom or smacked them on the surface to remove grass (I learned not to do that the first year I started using them).  Anyway, I shelled out a lot of money on Rapala CD 3s and CD 5s this winter, and many times before that, and Countdowns cost anywhere from 7 to 9 bucks depending on sales and offers (and eBay lots) but I did get two back, which is something, you know, for the effort.  So I got that going me…  (Insert whatever movie line you please here.)  

The first was very accusatory.

Listen, if you use these plugs, maybe even because I sold you on them (!) save your receipts and pay the $1.75 to send them back in a padded envelope or something.  The return form is easy to find on the Rapala website.  The only way Normark/Rapala will come around and try to improve the plastic lips of these plugs (or use the old material that broke a lot less often) is if they start seeing more of them returned and/or the bottom line is somehow affected.  The same goes for any product selling at top dollar that does not perform to your liking and your liking alone.  Satisfaction implies a personal comfort with the product not consensus.  Also, don’t forget to try Dynamic Lures HD trout (thanks Kenny!) if you like plugs for trout.  I have also seen a guy in Croatia or Serbia making wire-through wooden trout plugs, including a 1.5 inch jointed one (!) and selling them on Etsy.  His are 8 bucks, too, but handmade!  I will be getting a couple soon for fall and winter fishing.  I am not doing much but sitting in the pool or the central air until it cools off, though.  These dog days are harder for me than those short, frigid winter days.