Festool (UK) service for those a little naive

[dibnah]

Hi

Firstly I liked to say thank you for all the positive contribution on this site, Its a shame my first post is not going to be so great. However it might hopefully serve to enlighten those a little naive like me with the sort of service you could well receive form Festool UK and its associates.

I have recently moved from the UK to New Zealand with a heap of Festool tool purchase prior to a move from an approved Festool dealer. The tools along with my household goods where professional relocated in a sealed shipping container delivered door to door. The Festool dealer new all about my relocation plans and assured me that the tools would be covered under warranty in New Zealand.

To be doubly sure of the warranty I approached Festool UK and was also assured of this and quote from an email correspondence:

[ REMOVED PRIVATE EMAIL per forum rules - Shane ]

I hope you can imagine my frustration when now in New Zealand I am told:

[ REMOVED PRIVATE EMAIL per forum rules - Shane ]

To date I have lost time and money with tools being down and a lot of faith in Festool and its idea of partnership and all inclusive service.
If Festool think that I am going to start sending faulty tools around the world to minimize downtime  they have got another thing coming after the written assurance they have given me prior to my purchases. However what is by far the most painful part of all of this is the after sales service you get or don't get and I now feel that I wish I had never bothered. I'm still in the dark months after raising the issue, emails just aren't responded to.

Where do I go from here? I'm not a lawyer but know you guys in the states are well represented by them, any ideas would be warmly received. I did notice that a Festool UK employee joined this forum recently so I sent him a PM, Its was a couple of days  but I heard  back from him and we have had a pleasent exchange but whilst he wants to wait again for an response from Festool HQ in German, on reflection I feel this matter is best out the the public domain..( with all respect Phil I didn't get the phone call from Germany)

Again its really great reading all the positive stuff said on here, however anyone can manufacture and retail tools, its the service you receive when there is a problem that I measure. I mean what do Festool mean by All-inculsive service? Down here in New Zealand if you get an email returned in under a month from a Festool representative you are lucky. I have a chain of emails a mile long. I have made international phone calls and to date seven representatives from Festool have been involved. Hopefully Phil is going to come good. But like I have said to him I feel my interests  will be better protected under UK Consumer Law rather than any news out of Festool HQ Germany.

The message of this story is please don't get sucked in by their PR. Those guys that make the Fesoot videos, question their motivation. Why are they doing it? Those 'offical' Youtube festool videos promoting their All-inclusive service, apart from making me physically ill, from my perspective are just a load of wash with nothing behind them to back them up. When I shortly return to the UK there will be my physical presents at  Festool UK doors, whilst down here in New Zealand I'm just an unresponded email. There is very little presence here, even their official Festool NZ site was pulled months ago by Germany I have been informed. "Difficult to deal with" was a quote I took away with me after meeting with a local dealer. Festool are still enforcing their prices through dealers in New Zealand despite the trouble they got into in Europe regarding this, I understand that UK dealers are now permitted a little discretion.

I'm so sorry for the rant, but this is really my last stance against them until I return to the UK. I am just a working family man with three young children, trying to make a living whilst fighting clear misrepresentation by Festool and its associates who  provided me a false assertion with regards to my warranty. I invested in what I thought were good tools yet their the Domino XL cut just 6 mortises before it malfunctioned. (I have a video if anyone is interested). I remain confident that there is an opportunity for Festool to resolve this but in the mean time any advice would be warmly received.

Kind regards Dibnah

 

[Alan m]

welcome to the fog.
im sure phil will  explain the uk side of it.
maybe shane can help. he seem to be able to help  internationally

 

[roblg3]

WOW!  I am sorry to hear these troubles....Nothing can replace lost time.  I hope I never have these issues, but it seems to me that Mr. Mraz and his superior(s) especially should be directed to the explicit guarantee stated in the email.  Unfortunately that becomes a legal matter and involves the courts.  If nothing else, thanks for posting and hopefully it will help your situation!

 

[Phil Beckley]

Hi
  As discussed during our communication over the past week or so you will be contacted as promised.
RG
Phil

[ Edited to remove long quote - Shane ]

 

[dibnah]

welcome to the fog.
im sure phil will  explain the uk side of it.
maybe shane can help. he seem to be able to help  internationally

Thanks Alan but to date I have had no explanation from Phil despite our PM discussions over the last week or so. He has however deferred this matter to his colleagues in Germany and I am advised by him to wait for a response. :-\

 

[dibnah]

WOW!  I am sorry to hear these troubles....Nothing can replace lost time.  I hope I never have these issues, but it seems to me that Mr. Mraz and his superior(s) especially should be directed to the explicit guarantee stated in the email.  Unfortunately that becomes a legal matter and involves the courts.  If nothing else, thanks for posting and hopefully it will help your situation!

I am indeed hopeful that posting this might well help my situation and may and better inform others. However I would have thought that having the response from a festool representative that I do with regards to my warranty, this would not still be on going.

 

[dibnah]

Hi
  As discussed during our communication over the past week or so you will be contacted as promised.
RG
Phil

Thanks Phil I have now received the call and have the reassurance that things will shortly start moving in the right direction for me.  I am not sure if this forum was responsible or not for the promised contact but it was mention by your colleague. I will update you when I get more information. Kind regard.

[ edited to remove long quote - Shane ]

 

[sancho57]

I cant really comment about the service you received from Festool NZ. I think its the Hosts Nations Festool policy that you are having difficulty with and not the UK.

As far as binging Phil into it and making this some how his responsibility isnt really fair. He can only do so much as this is really out of his AOR (Area of Responsibility) and is going out of his way helping you.

When I moved from the States to the UK, I asked if my warranty would be honored here in the UK. I was told by Festool US that no they wouldnt be.

I found that to be untrue as Festool UK has helped me a few times as I mentioned in another thread on this subj of service.

No offense intended but it could be your approach to Festool NZ that may have caused some of your issue. I dont know how you approached Festool NZ. I only have your side of the story.

When I approach people who work in service I am polite, nice, and fully recognize that they have no responsibility to help me as my issue is out of their AOR. If they decide to help me out it is because they are going over and above.

Shane can help me with this, but my impression is each of the Festools NZ, US, UK are separate companies that can have their own internal policies as long as they meet the basic requirements of the Company over reaching policy which in this case is all inclusive service for product which are purchased in their AOR from them.

Another example is I cannot purchase Festool Products from the US and have them shipped over ere to the UK. Even though they are in most cases less expensive then here in the UK. If I do it infringes on Festool UKs sales.

I think you understand where Im going with this.

Posting about Phil contacting Germany for you ad not answering as fast as you like, then coming here isnt really heping your case.

This is just my opinion , really none of my business but posting this on a public forum isnt helping your case. So take it or leave
it.

 

[Wuffles]

I'm glad he made it public. I'd do exactly the same if I'd already checked before moving half way around the World too.

[ REMOVED PRIVATE EMAIL per forum rules - Shane ]

According to the OP, that came from Festool UK. So how is this nothing to do with Festool UK?

I personally (and it's none of my business either) think he's well within his rights.

 

[Kev]

I see a danger here ... There's a real likelihood that the original email response could have been the result of someone acting beyond their responsibility level and getting it very wrong.

We've all seen the topic of international warranty coming up on this forum and the responses from Festool have been consistent ... local purchase = local warranty only.

Now that you have made this public, Festool cannot quietly deal with your issue. If they were to now publicly deal with your international warranty problem they'd have to do it for everyone.

Also to be very picky, the text from the email you say you received from Festool UK does not actually state how warranty work will be addressed or expressly state that you will not need to ship it back to the UK for repair. Imagine if you took a tool to NZ that hadn't yet been on the market in NZ ... what would you really expect them to do.

I'm not criticising here - just making observations.

At best if a Festool UK employee wrongly informed you, the compensation you'd be most likely to receive is service and repair cost made good by Festool UK. I can't see Festool Germany stepping in and adjusting policy on this.

If you were to go down a legal pathway to deal with this you would effectively freeze any Festool service facility out of dealing with you and invoke the Festool legal team. Can't imagine that being a satisfying outcome either.

Just another thing ... Have you had further contact from the original author of the communication that mislead you?

 

[Pixel]

To register with Festool UK you must give a UK address and this is the point of collection and return, if you move to another country then you must notify them of your change of address, non EU countries cannot be entered.

 

[Wuffles]

Just another thing ... Have you had further contact from the original author of the communication that mislead you?

I'd take an educated guess on that.

To register with Festool UK you must give a UK address and this is the point of collection and return, if you move to another country then you must notify them of your change of address, non EU countries cannot be entered.

Isn't that what the OP did - or at least thought he'd done through Festool UK?

 

[Pixel]

Just another thing ... Have you had further contact from the original author of the communication that mislead you?

I'd take an educated guess on that.

To register with Festool UK you must give a UK address and this is the point of collection and return, if you move to another country then you must notify them of your change of address, non EU countries cannot be entered.

Isn't that what the OP did - or at least thought he'd done through Festool UK?

Yes he has registered BUT he can only change his address to one within the EU as this is the point of collection and return for warranty work

 

[Wuffles]

Just another thing ... Have you had further contact from the original author of the communication that mislead you?

I'd take an educated guess on that.

To register with Festool UK you must give a UK address and this is the point of collection and return, if you move to another country then you must notify them of your change of address, non EU countries cannot be entered.

Isn't that what the OP did - or at least thought he'd done through Festool UK?

Yes he has registered BUT he can only change his address to one within the EU as this is the point of collection and return for warranty work

In reality yes, but that's not what happens according to the email from the chap in marketing in Festool UK is it. Reminds me of a Bill Hicks clip about marketing.

 

[ajones]

Micheal Mraz is a marketing assistant and comes across a someone who wants to help.But my opinion is that he has probably given you the wrong information.

he drove the generator vehicle for last years truck tour

I hope you get this sorted ok just out of interest have you had many warranty issues? as you say you moved recently but it would appear you have had more than one breakdown.

 

[Wuffles]

Micheal Mraz is a marketing assistant and comes across a someone who wants to help.But my opinion is that he has probably given you the wrong information.

And clang, the penny drops. All makes sense now.

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

This is outside of my realm of responsibility but I do have a little something to say about the matter.

Remember that sometimes things take time to sort out. If the customer was told that they were working on sorting it out, he should have been patient in my opinion. Had he not gotten the result he wanted, then he could have voiced his dissatisfaction here. But using the forum to try to "influence" the situation was in poor form.

Also, it's against our forum rules to publicly share private communications, such as emails.

Shane

 

[Stone Message]

I have met Micheal Mraz and he is a thoroughly nice young man. He works hard and he has been very helpful to me on many occasions when I have needed information about equipment that I have been reviewing. I would not like to see any criticism of him in a public forum that he is probably not allowed to contribute to and hence cannot defend himself.

I have been to countless shows and seen just how hard the Festool UK people work. Okay, they can sometimes take a while to get things done but that is a reflection of their manning levels not their commitment to support their customers.

I agree with Ron (Jobsworth) and think it such a pity that the OP took the line that he did.

Peter

edited...

I have just seen Shane's post which crossed with mine. I agree with him absolutely.

 

[jimbo51]

I think it would be helpful if the OP listed some dates for various points in this situation. I saw mention of February in one comment. I understand that people should be patient in these situations, but if he has been communicating with Festool since February, I can understand why he might feel that he was being ignored. Should he have waited a full year to see if Festool would do anything? If being patient gets no action, why not try taking the case to the internet.

This looks like a case of poor communication of the part of Festool UK. Nothing incorrect was said, but it is obvious how the OP might have thought that the warranty would be handled in New Zealand. If the warranty issue had been clearly explained initially, the OP would have had the option to sell his tools in the UK and then buy again in NZ. He would have had to spend more, but at least he would be more likely to have a Domino that could be repaired quickly.

 

[ajones]

I have met Micheal Mraz and he is a thoroughly nice young man. He works hard and he has been very helpful to me on many occasions when I have needed information about equipment that I have been reviewing. I would not like to see any criticism of him in a public forum that he is probably not allowed to contribute to and hence cannot defend himself.

I hope are not saying that my post is in anyway negative or critical as this was not my intention - I was just pointing out his position in the company and that he is a helpful chap.

I have been to countless shows and seen just how hard the Festool UK people work. Okay, they can sometimes take a while to get things done but that is a reflection of their manning levels not their commitment to support their customers.

What you say about manning levels reinforces my opinion; the Festool push for market share and the increase in sales have left Festool understaffed and unable to cope with the increase in traffic, which obviously has a impact on their commitment to support their customers.

[ Edited to fix quotes - Shane ]