Great story about customer service!

[Paschale]

Hi everyone,

Far too often, I think we're all prone to complain more than we might talk about how good someone or a company has been to us.  I just had the most incredible customer service experience of my life, and I just had to share it with some other woodworkers.  The gist of the story is that Mini Max is sending me a brand new table for my bandsaw--without me even asking them for one.  

I was in the market for a band saw, and part of what I plan to do with it is to resaw some of the ash that my dad, a buddy, and I milled into lumber.  I recently decided on a Mini Max S16, a new saw in their line up.  It's a step down from their MM16, but it still will be beefy enough to do the kind of resawing I want to do.  It's the first band saw I've owned, and of course, when I received it, I went over it with a fine tooth comb. I was very impressed by the saw, but I had a small concern about the table not being totally flat. I had read extensively about what was important in a band saw, and Lonnie Bird, in THE BAND SAW BOOK states how important a flat table is. I posted a question on a couple of woodworking forums, essentially asking how flat is flat, and if my small discrepancy constituted something worthy of concern. I posted the same question on the Mini Max Users Group on yahoo. A friend who is a professional woodworker and has extensive bandsaw experience also came to look at my saw, and his opinion was that it wasn't something I should worry about too much.

Just so you know, it was .014 inches off in the center, which isn't much--that's basically 1/64 of an inch. Most people who responded to me said not to worry about it too much, that it wouldn't matter, though some did express some concern. All in all, I had pretty much reached the point where I wasn't going to worry about it.

Here's where the story gets amazing! A couple of days ago, I received a phone call from Mini Max. They were calling to offer me a new table. Now, let me be as clear as I can be: I never once called them about my table! This phone call today was a complete surprise to me. Calling me to offer me a new table when I never complained to them? Now THAT'S customer service! All I did was post some questions on the web, simply trying to figure out if I should call them or not, and was leaning towards not worrying about it. The guys at Mini Max must keep tabs on the online forums (especially their user group) regarding their products, and clearly they want their customers happy. They had enough information I guess to figure out who I was, based on when I received the saw, and decided to take care of the situation, a situation which I'd pretty much decided wasn't a situation anyway.

I received a call from one of the techs there at Mini Max, and he had personally checked the new table for flatness for me, and it is flatter than the current table I have. But get this: my table, with a .014" sag is within the manufacturer's tolerances! This is a perfectly acceptable table from the manufacturer's point of view and so Mini Max is under no obligation whatsoever to send me a new table. Yet that's what they're doing, and they're sending it out tomorrow.

I am still in a state of shock. In today's world, I think we tend to expect the worst from businesses, since probably for most of us, we've been burned so many times. After my experience today, all I can say is that Mini Max is without peer when it comes to keeping their customers happy. I knew I was getting a great saw--I just didn't expect to be treated so well after the sale! All I can say is kudos to Mini Max!

[dewwood]

A story to give one hope.

[DanG]

Congrats to Mini Max for doing the right thing!  Not only was it the right thing to do, it was the smart thing, too.  These days, with the internet, happy/unhappy customers can get the word out to the world, at the touch of a button.  It would pay huge dividends to manufacturers if they would just assign someone to peruse the forums where their products may be mentioned, and address these issues as they come up, and to provide "instant" tech support to their customers.

What is recognized as "PR genius" today will be "PR necessity" in the future.

We already have that sort of thing going on, here at THE ForestryForum. Several of our sponsors, as well as some non-sponsors, are active participants here. You can bet I'll look to them first whenever I need a product that they offer.

[CHARLIE]

A couple of guys in my woodturning club bought Mini Maxes and just love them. I've been impressed with them too and someday hope to upgrade my bandsaw. After reading your story, when I do upgrade, it will be a Mini Max. I will always support  and purchase from a manufacturer that cares about their customers.