Festo's reaction to recent posts

Dixon Peer

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
169
I wonder if Festo's owners and engineers are listening to those of us who post on this forum.  It seems we get very little feedback regarding our criticisms.  That is not to say that they should be responding to every little thing that goes on here, but I imagine some of them are reading these posts.  So how about it Festo, let's hear from you.
 
Dixon Peer said:
So how about it Festo, let's hear from you.

In English?  All kidding aside, I can think of a few legit reasons why they wouldn't post if they're reading.  I wouldn't take a lack of response for a lack of interest or respect.

Regards,

John
 
Christian pops in from time to time, and I believe has stepped in to resolve a complaint outside of the "contact Festool" parts of the forum, so the U.S. branch is clearly reading and responding.

As someone involved in various non-woodworking products, reading forums is a lot of work, and it's way too easy to step in and muck up both the feel of the forum and end up as the single point of contact for all of the gripes on the web, so I respect that that hasn't happened.

But I also think that talking out the various complaints and issues with the tools is a good thing: You'll either get suggestions for work-arounds from fellow users, and/or someone, be it Festool or a competitor, may pick up some of those engineering suggestions and incorporate those into a product.

Festool is a brand I like and trust, but if a competitor does it better I'm not married to the brand. Seriously considering the Akeda dovetail jig rather than the VS600, for instance...

 
Hello Dixon Peer,

Yes, we are reading most of the posts. The questions in the "Contact Festool" section are the ones we are answering (there are exceptions, see
this post). I agreed with Matthew Schenker a long time ago to be available for questions in the "Contact Festool" section.

Festool does not own the forum. This is your forum and not a company forum. If we took part in every single discussion, it would become a company forum quickly. This is not our intention. This is why we read everything, but stay out of discussions most of the time.

A lot of things that are discussed in this forum lead to changes. We take all the opinions seriously. Sometimes
we can do something about it, sometimes not. But we review and discuss almost everything.

Hope that answers your question.

Christian Oltzscher
Festool USA
 
Christian O. said:
Hello Dixon Peer,

Yes, we are reading most of the posts. The questions in the "Contact Festool" section are the ones we are answering (there are exceptions, see
this post). I agreed with Matthew Schenker a long time ago to be available for questions in the "Contact Festool" section.

Festool does not own the forum. This is your forum and not a company forum. If we took part in every single discussion, it would become a company forum quickly. This is not our intention. This is why we read everything, but stay out of discussions most of the time.

A lot of things that are discussed in this forum lead to changes. We take all the opinions seriously. Sometimes
we can do something about it, sometimes not. But we review and discuss almost everything.

Hope that answers your question.

Christian Oltzscher
Festool USA

It does, and I always thought you were "lurking".  Thanks for the post.
 
Christian O. said:
Hello Dixon Peer,

Yes, we are reading most of the posts. The questions in the "Contact Festool" section are the ones we are answering (there are exceptions, see
this post). I agreed with Matthew Schenker a long time ago to be available for questions in the "Contact Festool" section.

Festool does not own the forum. This is your forum and not a company forum. If we took part in every single discussion, it would become a company forum quickly. This is not our intention. This is why we read everything, but stay out of discussions most of the time.

A lot of things that are discussed in this forum lead to changes. We take all the opinions seriously. Sometimes
we can do something about it, sometimes not. But we review and discuss almost everything.

Hope that answers your question.

Christian Oltzscher
Festool USA

I, for one, do not think manufacturers should become involved in a whole lot of forum talk.  Some forum questions and remarks do have a lot of validity and end up as being very constructive.  There are others that can turn into just plain gripes that will not be resolved by anybody.  those who are designing, producing and selling any product must balance out a whole lot of information and determin exactly what makes sense to add or subtract from the product of discussion.

If a company does not listen, and react, they will soon be out of business.  The prospective customer will eventually react by going somewhere else.  If Festool decided to enter into a forum on a general basis, there would be a whole lot of stuff that would end up being discussed that could possibly be of more help to competitors than to the questioner.  NOT good.

As it is, we can see the value first hand of the Festo pruducts by using them.  We can see the value to the market place of their products by observing how many other manufacturers are coming up with "copies".  They are not coming up with their own "improvements" by becoming involved in answering a lot of forum questions.  go to any other forum and mention FESTOOL.  you will not get very many sensible replies but a whole lot of venom.  I don't think it is to Festools benefit to involve itself in any sort of forum and answer questions that can possibly turn into the same sort of tripe.

They do not need to tip their hand with technical explanations.  They do not need to spend their time replying.  Just design and build.  That is enough for me.

Another quickee story that might be a little appropriate to add to my above reply:

I was doing a complicated footing/foundation project that required expertise above and beyond the usual engineering for a small residential house foundation.  I was running into a new problem to solve each day.  I was not an engineer and neither the owner nor the builder had wanted to hire an engineer for the job. (This was back in the late 50's and the house was a somewhat typical 2 story colonial.  Once the foundation was completed, the carpentry would be staight forward copy cat ticky tacky boxy construction.)  As i aproached a particularly difficult problem, the owner showed up.  At that point, i was discussing the problem with my crew and trying to come up with the best solution possible.

The owner started asking questions, none of which i had a positive answer to.  I struggled with the first couple of replies, but realised i was getting into deep water and could only convey my own indecifness.  i finally went into a very long explanation during which i said absolutely nothing. (an excellent political type desertation) I just talked around in circles and made it so confusing, i don't think the smartest engineer could have figured out what i had said.  When i felt i had everybody totally confused, i looked at my foreman and told him to unload the big truck and meet me at another job in one hour.  i hopped into my truck and left.  The owner was just standing there with his jaw hanging.

When my crew showed up at second job, the foreman was laughing.  He told me that as i drove out, the owner had asked, "What did he say?"

foreman replied, "I don't really know."

I laughed and said, "That was exactly what I wanted to hear."

An hour or so later, we all went back to first job.  By that time, we all had a better idea of how we wanted to advance.  We got to work and eventually poured the concrete.  in the meantime, we never saw the owner again until the lumber was being constructed on top of the foundation.  the foundation came out dead on level and square and the house is still standing.  ::)

Question: do we really need that sort of info from Festool?  I don't think so.  I think they are doing a good (make the Great) job and the clues are that somewhere along the way, they are listening to somebody.
Tinker
 
Tinker, you have made some good points, and my reason for starting this thread was to get reactions from folks on the forum.  So far, so good.
 
I think we should take Christian O.'s post to heart.  Festool excels at engineering and producing great tools.  But through both avenues like this forum and interaction with many professionals who use the tools regularly, Festool seems to have a unique listening relationship with its end users.  I was just trying to imagine a response like Christian's from Bill Gates on a Microsoft forum, for example.  Something special here we should appreciate, it seems to me.
 
To extend this...  Has a senior executive of Bosch or Dewalt ever posted something like on their user forums?  Hmm...  Do they even have forums?  Do they even listen to their customers?

Regards,

Dan.

p.s. The answer is "Yes, I have a pretty negative opinion of many tool companies."

 
I overheard on some sitcom last night, (my kids were watching).. the 2 things the internet is used for is complaining and porn.

As soon as this forum becomes a place to complain and then expect a responce from festool, I am so out of here.
 
As an only related aside, I find the bitching about the quality of the manuals and how we have to depend on the PDFs by Jerry Work et al somewhere between "slightly amusing" and "annoying"...

I'm not sure what financial arrangements there are between Festool and Jerry Work, John Lucas, Gary Nichols, et al, but those manuals exist, on the web, and you can browse 'em at your leisure before you buy the tools. I'm looking for a few tools right now, and I really wish other vendors had manuals of that quality level on the web, easily available.
 
[Gold chains hanging down to bellybutton, with Quiana shirt open to same, fast cars, faster women, smoke and mirrors Marketing rant to follow]

From a marketing standpoint, listening in while participating infrequently, is the absolute best feedback a company can get. Festool get to hear unvarnished opinions from highly proficient users along with questions from noobs without the self-consciousness of any other feedback mechanism. I would kill to have this type of forum in my industry. What it really helps to clarify and quantify, are the needs, the problems, and the aspirations of the target market. This stuff is gold. I spend a great deal of my time just trying to figure out what my company can do to assist my customers, and it is horribly difficult. The best question I've been able to come up with is, "What keeps you up at night?" The accuracy of the response assumes that they know that information, that they remember, that they are willing to discuss it and that they are honest; none of which are a given. Half of the battle of effective marketing is really knowing your customer. Because of the difficulty of that half, it effectively assumes the equivalent of 90% of the battle. Once I know this information the rest is almost easy, peasy. When you flip a house, they say you make your money when you buy it, all the rest is effective follow through. I think that effective marketing is done with accurate research, all the rest is effective follow through.

[rant over, removing stick from sore area, you may now return to your regularly scheduled discussions]

Greg B.
 
As soon as this forum becomes a place to complain and then expect a responce from festool, I am so out of here.

The above lifted from a post...

I don't think it's a place to complain and expect a response from Festo personnel necessarily.  I was curious, when I started the thread, to see if I would get a response from someone at the company as an indication that they were following this forum and hopefully listening in on (or reading in, if you will) the discussions that go on here.  I believe a lot of what's written here can prove very helpful for Festo actually.
 
 From a quality engineering/assurance standpoint I think the greatest asset a company can have is a "knowledgeable and well-informed customer". Obviously Festool does as this forum can attest. Festool employees do not dominate the discussion, nor should they.
  However, knowledgeable and well-informed customers have their own responsiblity. An example, some initial usage/accuracy problems with the Domino. Christian replied that none of the affected tools had been returned to Festool for inspection and evaluation.
 A company cannot reasonably be expected to correct a problem (real or imagined) if they cannot compare the product to the quality standards established for it. If anyone has a problem with a Festool product they should FIRST contact the Festool service department and accurately describe what the problem is; if so requested they should return the product (allowing for a replacement) and allow Festool to address the problem. If and when that problem is resolved then it is appropriate to post that information here.
 For what it is worth.  John
 
Lifted from John's post:

" A company cannot reasonably be expected to correct a problem (real or imagined) if they cannot compare the product to the quality standards established for it. If anyone has a problem with a Festool product they should FIRST contact the Festool service department and accurately describe what the problem is; if so requested they should return the product (allowing for a replacement) and allow Festool to address the problem. If and when that problem is resolved then it is appropriate to post that information here.
  For what it is worth.  John"

For what it's worth, I sent my Domino back to Festool in Indiana for what I believed to be a problem with the cross-stops not registering properly.  I think I explained  my perception of the problem clearly enough, and the repair people probably checked the alignment of the machine and so on.  But, the cross-stops still don't work to my satisfaction, so I'll just use the pencil going forward.  There are a number of folks that frequent this forum that think the cross-stops work the way they're supposed to  :D.
 
Before this becomes another cross-stops thread, I'd like to respond to Tinker's comment about Festool people discussing engineering. Sure, I don't think they should spend tons of time to describe all the engineering that goes in to a tool, but much of what I like about Festool products is that they do have a good idea of both the technical challenges of tool construction and the heuristic qualities of the tools in the field.

As an engineer myself (albeit software) I do find it very interesting when some of the technical reasoning behind an engineering decision is shared. For example, I'd like to know what the UL specifically cites as a major reason they won't approve the CMS for use in the states (my guess is the clip to hold the saw switch in the "on" position).

Of course, Festool employees need not spend too much time reading every post or responding frequently - this is a user forum after all. They do seem to have a good balance of lurk vs. comment. I would certainly recommend to any Festool employee reading this that they update the FestoolUSA website, though. We should be more frequently referencing that site on FOG, and it seems like it is the other way around. For example, just try to figure out if the routing aid 492037 works with the OF 1400 on the FestoolUSA site. They shouldn't have all those empty tabs ("benefits", "specifications" etc.) on their product pages. If they aren't in use, they shouldn't appear. But they should be in use...

Ok, now I'm just complaining about their website. I do like that I can find out if the routing aid works with the OF 1400 on FOG. Thanks Brice :)
 
Sean,

In a previous post, I had mentioned that I will be working on a complete re-design of the Festool USA website.  I encourage the forum members to start a thread, if warranted, with ideas and comments about the existing website.  Although, I will say that I have already compiled a rather extensive critique of the existing website and have grand plans for the re-design. 

I agree that the Festool USA website should be the resource on the web for Festool product information and that is my vision for the new and improved site.  I think you will see a glimpse of that depth of content with the micro sites developed for the three new tools which will be announced on March 1st.  The site re-design is my top priority.

Trust that I agree with your assessment and as demonstrated by other employees, we are listening (and acting) on your feedback as a group.

Shane Holland
Festool USA
 
Somewhere along the way, i seemed to have missed something here.

At the beginning of this discussion, I had understood we were discussing whether Festool was taking into consideration the thoughts from this site, The FOG.  This site, lest we all forget, is the brainchild, from conception til now, and I expect, well beyond of Matthew Schenker.  I suspect he has had some considerable help from some friends and most certainly from those of us here on the FOG who have followed his personal requests for direction.

somehow, we have, as often the case, gotten sidetracked to make it seem like the whole conversation is about the official Festool website.

I am probably one of the very worst offender when it comes to directing a thread to OFF TOPIC, a habit for which i appologise, but offer no promises it won't happen again, probably often.  I do just want to point out here that for whatever feedback there is getting back to Festool from this source, we ALL owe a sincere debt of grattitude to Matthew.

(My rant for the day)
Tinker
 
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