Jessem Specials

After multiple emails back and forth i stood my ground and finally have a refund for the top. They refused to send me return shipping and suggested i trash it.
I had bought their motor and slides as well. And due to this pathetic customer service ordeal did not want to use any jessem products so I will be returning them @ my cost. I finally have an RMA# after wasting a significant amount of time. I hate to return products but this went south in so many different ways. I want to cut my losses share my learning experience and move on. Guess it's still not done till i receive a refund for the other items i am yet to ship back at my cost to Canada! My experience with Lee Valley (Canadian comp) has been superb!. In summary Jessem may make decent products but their service is so painful and i will never use their products period. I have my 1400 for now which is just brilliant.Thank you guys.
 
[member=53591]Blues[/member] , I agree. I haven't found anyone who can beat Lee Valley's customer service. They are an absolute pleasure to deal with.
 
Hi All...  happy to inform that i have a complete and full refund of the entire order.

[member=70011]edwarmr[/member] [member=65062]DynaGlide[/member] ..
I did forward the entire cs email thread to Darrin Smith (thanks edwarmr) as i was hitting a wall and sent him a note explaining the situation. Apparently he informed their VP sales Justin Perdu to look into the matter. And what a difference it made! Justin read the entire thread recognized the problem in CS and sent me a note acknowledging my frustration, apologized and thanked me for bringing it to their attention. He also instructed accounting to issue me a full refund and that i did not have to bother sending these items back. In doing so they  have made things right, my faith is restored and i will not hesitate to become their customer again. Surely their CS needs attention but overall values are intact. As a return gesture I do plan to order their top of the line router table package.

Festool or not (in this case "not"), this forum is such a joy to be a part off. So many people share their knowledge, contacts and suggest work arounds like none other. Love being a part of it. Thank you my friends 😊. It ends well.
 
Always good to hear a happy ending. I don’t own any Jessem products personally, but I have to say that the CS I’ve always received from every tool or accessory manufacturer I do use, has always been stellar - with a special shout-out to Hilti UK. Just how they manage to get a courier to pick up a broken 15-year-old tool from my jobsite at midday on Monday within two hours of my call, have the local rep drop me a loaner by mid-afternoon, get my tool to their national repair centre in Scotland for Tuesday morning, fix it using OEM parts off the shelf (this is a 15-year-old tool, remember), service it, lubricate it, clean it, and get it back to my jobsite by 9am Wednesday morning is logistically staggering. The rep then shows up to collect the loaner, apologises for the inconvenience, and gives me a nice Hilti-branded beanie hat for my trouble. Their service offering isn’t cheap, but I’m happy to pay top dollar for something which is so seamlessly good. When these tools finally reach the end of their lives, they’ll all be replaced like-for-like with zero hesitation.

“Service is the silent salesman. Never a truer word spoken.
 
woodbutcherbower said:
Always good to hear a happy ending. I don’t own any Jessem products personally, but I have to say that the CS I’ve always received from every tool or accessory manufacturer I do use, has always been stellar - with a special shout-out to Hilti UK. Just how they manage to get a courier to pick up a broken 15-year-old tool from my jobsite at midday on Monday within two hours of my call, have the local rep drop me a loaner by mid-afternoon, get my tool to their national repair centre in Scotland for Tuesday morning, fix it using OEM parts off the shelf (this is a 15-year-old tool, remember), clean it, and get it back to my jobsite by 9am Wednesday morning is logistically staggering. The rep then shows up to collect the loaner, apologises for the inconvenience, and gives me a nice Hilti-branded beanie hat for my trouble. Their service isn’t cheap, but I’m always happy to  pay top dollar for something which is so seamlessly good. When these tools finally reach the end of their lives, they’ll all be replaced like-for-like with zero hesitation.

“Service is the silent salesman”. Never a truer word spoken.
Click to expand...
[member=75780]woodbutcherbower[/member] absolutely agreed.

Had a similar experience with my 10" makita lxt mitersaw. It was just out of warranty and died. Called Makita. No questions asked, a band new replacement was at my doorstep 2nd day morning and my defective saw was was picked up. They have me as a customer for life.
 
woodbutcherbower said:
Always good to hear a happy ending.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to let them off so easy. All I wanted was an apology that what they advertised and what they sent were not the same thing and that they would do better in the future. That's it. Maybe I should have been clearer to them but I gave them every opportunity to do so and frankly, I shouldn't have to tell them that. Apparently I'm one of those customers that isn't too good at understanding the difference between a top marketed as having holes separate and away from where they should be and the one shipped out with overlapping holes. What an empty apology. To reiterate, I was completely fine ordering what was pictured on their website. Zero issues with what was shown. Happy to received a discounted top, had it been what was shown.

Oh and since he asked, please don't e-mail the original address for Darrin as it just forwards to him.

" Good Morning Matthew,

I received your email this morning regarding the festool thread. I do apologize for your discontent with the factory second mast-r-top that you received. We offered up these tops for just over $100 because of the initial wrong hole positions made by our supplier. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the tops except the underside. The hole placements circled line up perfectly with a stand, fence brackets and digital readout. We disclosed this on our page and even showed an image of what the top will look like.

Phenolic is already an expensive material and a brand new top is $269. So we thought some customers wouldnt have an issue with the additional holes on the underside if it saves them significant money. Obviously with the guys not understanding this issue at time of purchase the news is spreading throughout the festool chat. We will ultimately scrap all the remaining tops instead of giving people who couldnt afford a brand new phenolic top a substantial discount. We didnt realize this would have been an issue at time of offering these and I truly apologize for the inconvenience.

I do appreciate you bringing this to our attention as it shows me that customers are only looking for high quality woodworking products and we will only provide that moving forward.

I will make sure we issue you a full credit on your order Monday. Please keep the top and use it however you choose.

If you could also update the forums that Darrin no longer manages the day to day operations as he has recently retired and all his emails are redirected to me if there are any further questions or concerns regarding our products or quality.

Justin Perdu
Vice President
JessEm Tool Company"
 
[scratch chin] [scratch chin]

We will ultimately scrap all the remaining tops instead of giving people who couldnt afford a brand new phenolic top a substantial discount.

 
Geez, the nerve of this Justin guy. Customers are expecting to receive products that are of the quality represented in the product information and photographs, factory seconds or not.

When the quality of your factory seconds varies, one should sell them as individual items with different prices and/or ratings along with photographing the specific defects of each item. It takes more work but at least you're being honest with your customers. Showcasing the best product of the lot then shipping products that are inferior to the presented product is dishonest.

And then, this Justin guy decides to lay a passive-aggressive guilt trip on those whose expectations of a second hand product exceeded the reality of what they received. Wow.

 
Blues said:
Hi All...  happy to inform that i have a complete and full refund of the entire order.

[member=70011]edwarmr[/member] [member=65062]DynaGlide[/member] ..
I did forward the entire cs email thread to Darrin Smith (thanks edwarmr) as i was hitting a wall and sent him a note explaining the situation. Apparently he informed their VP sales Justin Perdu to look into the matter. And what a difference it made! Justin read the entire thread recognized the problem in CS and sent me a note acknowledging my frustration, apologized and thanked me for bringing it to their attention. He also instructed accounting to issue me a full refund and that i did not have to bother sending these items back. In doing so they  have made things right, my faith is restored and i will not hesitate to become their customer again. Surely their CS needs attention but overall values are intact. As a return gesture I do plan to order their top of the line router table package.

Festool or not (in this case "not"), this forum is such a joy to be a part off. So many people share their knowledge, contacts and suggest work arounds like none other. Love being a part of it. Thank you my friends 😊. It ends well.
Click to expand...

You're welcome! I'm glad things worked out for you :) Hopefully Justin can have a talk with their customer service rep and get her to change her attitude when dealing with future customers. One bad apple can truly give a bad name to the entire company and the customer service person clearly plays a huge role in how Jessem is viewed.
 
DynaGlide said:
woodbutcherbower said:
Always good to hear a happy ending.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to let them off so easy. All I wanted was an apology that what they advertised and what they sent were not the same thing and that they would do better in the future. That's it. Maybe I should have been clearer to them but I gave them every opportunity to do so and frankly, I shouldn't have to tell them that. Apparently I'm one of those customers that isn't too good at understanding the difference between a top marketed as having holes separate and away from where they should be and the one shipped out with overlapping holes. What an empty apology. To reiterate, I was completely fine ordering what was pictured on their website. Zero issues with what was shown. Happy to received a discounted top, had it been what was shown.

Oh and since he asked, please don't e-mail the original address for Darrin as it just forwards to him.

" Good Morning Matthew,

I received your email this morning regarding the festool thread. I do apologize for your discontent with the factory second mast-r-top that you received. We offered up these tops for just over $100 because of the initial wrong hole positions made by our supplier. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the tops except the underside. The hole placements circled line up perfectly with a stand, fence brackets and digital readout. We disclosed this on our page and even showed an image of what the top will look like.

Phenolic is already an expensive material and a brand new top is $269. So we thought some customers wouldnt have an issue with the additional holes on the underside if it saves them significant money. Obviously with the guys not understanding this issue at time of purchase the news is spreading throughout the festool chat. We will ultimately scrap all the remaining tops instead of giving people who couldnt afford a brand new phenolic top a substantial discount. We didnt realize this would have been an issue at time of offering these and I truly apologize for the inconvenience.

I do appreciate you bringing this to our attention as it shows me that customers are only looking for high quality woodworking products and we will only provide that moving forward.

I will make sure we issue you a full credit on your order Monday. Please keep the top and use it however you choose.

If you could also update the forums that Darrin no longer manages the day to day operations as he has recently retired and all his emails are redirected to me if there are any further questions or concerns regarding our products or quality.

Justin Perdu
Vice President
JessEm Tool Company"
Click to expand...

[member=65062]DynaGlide[/member]

Honestly I would be frustrated at that response too. I agree with [member=75283]4nthony[/member] that Justin's comment was kind of passive aggressive. I think it's nice he refunded you but I would probably email him back just to clear things up and let him know that none of you had a problem with the top pictured in the listing. The problem was you had overlapping holes so the threads wouldn't fully engage. Also I would suggest to him as [member=75283]4nthony[/member] said that they post each of their factory seconds separately with pictures. He shouldn't accuse his customers of being too picky in a backhanded way. His company just needs to be more transparent with what they are giving to their customers and back their product.
 
I agree with [member=75283]4nthony[/member] that if there was such a wide variation in the individual 'seconds' they
should have had unique listings and pricing that reflects the condition of that individual item.
 
"The fish rots from the head."

The passive-aggressive tone in the e-mailed response matches almost word-for-word with the response from the CS rep that initially handled the complaint.  I wouldn't go into an interaction with this company believing that they are looking to coach their reps and improve their quality of service.

As I mentioned before, I see it in other organizations as well.  Sometimes you have a bad apple in a Customer Service department who mouths off to a client or gets sarcastic with them, but often that happens because that's what they see modeled from their leadership team.

One way to understand if your own organization may be this way is how you talk about your clients internally.  Are you constantly mocking and/or bad-mouthing clients to your peers, even just in commiseration? If so, you may be on the slippery slope to letting that attitude inform your day-to-day interactions with clients, even the "good" ones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top