Alt-berg boots end refurbishment due to arsehole customers
Discussion
i think people need to be realistic about these boots and the company. they offer a service not many of their competitors do, on boots that very rarely need it. if you are so tight that you expect a pair of boots to last 6 plus years and not need to replace them, you dont deserve to be wearing them and should just stick to byuing a pair of cheap ass magnums.
these boots are built to last in a robust environment where they are used frequently and put up with a disgusting amount of abuse. if you expect them to last 6 years plus and not need to buy a new pair then quite frankly you are ridiculous. nothing lasts forever.
i also feel sure that their T&C's reflect everything with this issue perfectly, and if people took the time to read this then they would have a clearer idea of what is actually covered in a refurb.
basically what needs to be taken away from this is, people are tight and stoopid, and expect too much for free.
these boots are built to last in a robust environment where they are used frequently and put up with a disgusting amount of abuse. if you expect them to last 6 years plus and not need to buy a new pair then quite frankly you are ridiculous. nothing lasts forever.
i also feel sure that their T&C's reflect everything with this issue perfectly, and if people took the time to read this then they would have a clearer idea of what is actually covered in a refurb.
basically what needs to be taken away from this is, people are tight and stoopid, and expect too much for free.
I've got 3 pairs, each used in varying conditions and all 5+ years old. The lightest pair, which I wear most, have been fully refurbed. These took about a year to break back in, but now they're like slippers and I expect to see another 3-4 years use out of them. Superb, high quality, products,
A mere £150-£200 for a pair of boots that can be expected to last 5+ years represents a fantastic bargain in the first place. A £100ish full refurb that, as far as I was concerned, did make them good as new, is an even greater bargain.
It's a tragedy that a few tossers have driven Altberg to this decision. I can only hope that whoever it was is now at the receiving end of similar customer complaints at their own place of business...
A mere £150-£200 for a pair of boots that can be expected to last 5+ years represents a fantastic bargain in the first place. A £100ish full refurb that, as far as I was concerned, did make them good as new, is an even greater bargain.
It's a tragedy that a few tossers have driven Altberg to this decision. I can only hope that whoever it was is now at the receiving end of similar customer complaints at their own place of business...
It's a sad state we live in when someone is offering a good service and people try to abuse it so much. Everyone knows refurbished means its not new and it sounds like alt berg do the best to get them back to looking as good as they can
Disastrous said:
Confusing; if it takes 60% more work to refurb them and people were still complaining, surely it would be easier to just replace them with new news at the same cost? Or am I missing something?
Sad situation but I'm not a fan of emails like that.
Someone may correct me here but yes it would seem cheaper to replace them for new but I think the costs they are working on are more like labour costs as oppose to materials cost, so technically the refurb is cheaper if you deduct man hours.Sad situation but I'm not a fan of emails like that.
guardsman said:
i think people need to be realistic about these boots and the company. they offer a service not many of their competitors do, on boots that very rarely need it. if you are so tight that you expect a pair of boots to last 6 plus years and not need to replace them, you dont deserve to be wearing them and should just stick to byuing a pair of cheap ass magnums.
these boots are built to last in a robust environment where they are used frequently and put up with a disgusting amount of abuse. if you expect them to last 6 years plus and not need to buy a new pair then quite frankly you are ridiculous. nothing lasts forever.
i also feel sure that their T&C's reflect everything with this issue perfectly, and if people took the time to read this then they would have a clearer idea of what is actually covered in a refurb.
basically what needs to be taken away from this is, people are tight and stoopid, and expect too much for free.
What bilge.these boots are built to last in a robust environment where they are used frequently and put up with a disgusting amount of abuse. if you expect them to last 6 years plus and not need to buy a new pair then quite frankly you are ridiculous. nothing lasts forever.
i also feel sure that their T&C's reflect everything with this issue perfectly, and if people took the time to read this then they would have a clearer idea of what is actually covered in a refurb.
basically what needs to be taken away from this is, people are tight and stoopid, and expect too much for free.
What needs to be taken away from this dinosaur of a thread is that more businesses should be acutely aware of PR and the marketing message they convey, and not have a hissy fit into someone's inbox in response to a pretty simple enquiry. Professionalism would cost them nothing in this instance, and if nothing else it afforded them the opportunity to capitalise on the withdrawn service by incentivising or promoting sales of new replacement items. Instead they chose to write a War & Peace rivalling whine-fest about it, and deliver it directly to their customer base. Which is stupidity, irrespective of the intentions behind the e-mail.
Customers can be frustrating. Projecting your frustrations on to customers is a fine way of ushering them to the doors of your competitor.
rcsyoung said:
This. And to illustrate the point - I worked in retail many years ago and we sold a range of boots including the big Sidi off road things.
An older guy came in and started browsing - after 5 minutes I asked him if he wanted any help and he flat out ignored me like I didn't exist. You get w
kers everywhere so I just left him to it. He came up about ten minutes later carrying the Sidi and said "size 9" - no please, thank you, nothing. "Size 9".
Through gritted teeth I get him the boot. He tried it on in silence. I asked him if it fitted, still nothing. I gave up and left him to it. Another 15 minutes went by, he bought the boots - in silence obviously - and that was that...or so we thought.
That night it rained hard and the next morning he came back in the door and said "these leak" and my boss said "Yes, they're made of leather and stitched together and all the holes mean that it leaks. There's no waterproofing membrane so they will leak, they are not waterproof".
Customer - "He said they were." - pointing to me.
My boss - "No he didn't"
Customer - "Yes he did"
Rinse repeat.
After about 20 minutes of this lying bd calling us liars and most other names under the sun, to my undying gratitude and admiration my boss turned round to him and said "why don't you fk off and die".
"I'll take you to court" said our new favourite customer and we shrugged our shoulders and he left with steam coming out of his ears and wet feet.
He took us to court.
We went there with the importers, manufacturer letters, boot specs, advertising - everything stating "NOT WATERPROOF".
We lost.
The judge said that because the customer thought that they were waterproof they should have been...can you believe that?
About three months later the guy came back and tried to buy a pair of panniers saying "no hard feelings".
Again my boss was a hero "You called us liars in court, lied about what we said and have the bare faced audacity to come in here and say 'no hard feelings'? No - go and buy your panniers somewhere else."
"I'll take you to court"
"That's your answer to everything isn't it? fk Off."
Who'd be a retailer?
Seriously, give me the details of this guy, I fancy knocking the sAn older guy came in and started browsing - after 5 minutes I asked him if he wanted any help and he flat out ignored me like I didn't exist. You get w
kers everywhere so I just left him to it. He came up about ten minutes later carrying the Sidi and said "size 9" - no please, thank you, nothing. "Size 9".Through gritted teeth I get him the boot. He tried it on in silence. I asked him if it fitted, still nothing. I gave up and left him to it. Another 15 minutes went by, he bought the boots - in silence obviously - and that was that...or so we thought.
That night it rained hard and the next morning he came back in the door and said "these leak" and my boss said "Yes, they're made of leather and stitched together and all the holes mean that it leaks. There's no waterproofing membrane so they will leak, they are not waterproof".
Customer - "He said they were." - pointing to me.
My boss - "No he didn't"
Customer - "Yes he did"
Rinse repeat.
After about 20 minutes of this lying b
d calling us liars and most other names under the sun, to my undying gratitude and admiration my boss turned round to him and said "why don't you fk off and die"."I'll take you to court" said our new favourite customer and we shrugged our shoulders and he left with steam coming out of his ears and wet feet.
He took us to court.
We went there with the importers, manufacturer letters, boot specs, advertising - everything stating "NOT WATERPROOF".
We lost.
The judge said that because the customer thought that they were waterproof they should have been...can you believe that?
About three months later the guy came back and tried to buy a pair of panniers saying "no hard feelings".
Again my boss was a hero "You called us liars in court, lied about what we said and have the bare faced audacity to come in here and say 'no hard feelings'? No - go and buy your panniers somewhere else."
"I'll take you to court"
"That's your answer to everything isn't it? f
k Off."Who'd be a retailer?
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