Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Thank you to Andy Goldfine

I was slightly premature when I said I was finally going to have a little more time.  Once more I dove headfirst into rewriting a training program for our instructors.  These things tend to be a little consuming!  The Director simply looks at me with an evil grin on his face.  I ask him why he lets me bite off so much at once without giving me any sort of warning what I'm getting in to.  All he says in reply is "You know you like it."

Last weekend was the proof in the pudding for this project and I'm pleased to say it's both successful and behind me!

Before we delve into riding with seriousness of purpose but with a light touch I wanted to use this post to publicly thank Andy Goldfine, the mastermind behind Aerostich.   His riding gear is still the best I've ever used.  Andy has proven once more that their customer service is second to none, as well.

Somewhere around a year and a half ago I replaced my Roadcrafter.  The old one was getting pretty worn.  Sometime during the twelve years I was using it I sent the suit in for a spiffing up.  It was getting time to think about it again.  Instead, I opted for purchasing new riding gear.  There had been several updates over the years and it seemed a good time to make a purchase.

It was nice to have a new 'Stich.  Once the break-in process was over, of course!  There was a lingering problem with the inner liner of the pants, though.  Always at the worse moments the liner material would get caught in the zipper.  The frequency with which it happened increased.  I sent the pants back to Aerostich for repairs.  Turns out I was a month past the warranty period.  A pleasant fellow from the factory called me to say they would honor the warranty, anyway.  Great!

Only problem is that the situation remained the same when the pants came back.  The issue was at the left knee.  It got to the point where 9 times out of 10, no matter what I did, the liner would jam up the zipper.  I had reached the point where I wasn't going to wear them anymore. Katie told me in no uncertain terms that, as entertaining as it was watching me hop around on one leg, she was tired of hearing me turn the air blue.  I dug out the old ones again and Katie removed her ear plugs.

 
In the meantime I sent a note to Andy and explained the problem.  I know it was somewhat presumptious on my part to think he would take time to worry about my issue with the zipper.  Come to think of it, a lot of my life issues seem to have a zipper involved in them somewhere.  Oh well, those are stories for another venue.

A reply to my note showed up in my inbox.  Andy had taken time to personally respond.  We exchanged a couple of messages about the problem with the Roadcrafter pants.  As a result Andy sent an email to me and copied some of his folks instructing me to send the pants to his attention.  Andy told his crew to put the package on his desk when it showed up.  So I sent the pants in as directed.  There was silence for a week or two then I got a message telling me the pants were on their way back to me.

The zipper problem has been fully resolved.  There was a "no-charge" invoice with no explanation.  When I later asked Andy he replied that he saw right away that the pants had been assembled incorrectly.  Andy directed the crew to take them apart and replace the liner completely.  Like I say, things are great, now.

So I hearby offer a public thank you to Andy for taking care of me.  It is so impressive that the guy at the top of the food chain still cares enough about his customers to personally ensure that issues get resolved.  Things just happen in the manufacturing process.  This was a simply one of those things.  The real measure of a company is what they do about the glitches.  Andy Goldfine is at the top of the excellence list for taking care of customers.

Thank you so much, Sir!!

Miles and smiles,

Dan

11 comments:

Trobairitz said...

Hooray for great customer service. it is nice to hear of a company that stands behind their product and fixes issues even after the warranty has run.

Oh and I agree that you do thrive on all that activity. I believe you'd go positively stagnant with out it...... :-)

RichardM said...

I've heard nothing but good regarding Aerostitch and their customer service. One of these days...

Anonymous said...

The one problem I have with Aerostitch is the things I want are always out of stock ;) hopes the link works.

http://www.aerostich.com/a-to-b-utilities/special-products?limit=all


Old F

Anonymous said...

Have friends who are now wearing their third or fourth Aerostich, both the one and two piece versions. Wonderful invention. And so practical.
However as with 99.9 percent of
the clothing for motorcycling and a whole lot of other things, Fitting me is not possible; which is one reason I wore leather all the time. Then too none of the motorcycles ere manufactured to fit not just tall people but massive tall people.

And my current ride is a Honda Ridgeline truck, without the navigations system. And yes the left front seat was removed and modfied to give me at least another four inches of leg room.

Dar said...

Customer service that is great goes a long way in today's world.

david said...

Awesome irondad!

I can report the exact same story for my ride pants, zip was a problem, and they fixed it twice and modified the whole thing the second time, free.

Gear is so important, nice to see a good attitude from the makers, all over the world it seems :)
www.xkulcha.com
If you want have a looksee :)

peace irondad

Gail Hatch said...

it's great to pass along good tales of good service. If only Aerostitch would come out with a woman's line of clothes...

irondad said...

Responding to Gail's comment:

Andy tells me that Aerostich added women's graded sizes earlier this year.

yee haw!

Take care,

Dan

Jason said...

Sorry for the unrelated comment but... Do you know what happened to the better motorcycling blog? http://bettermotorcycling.wordpress.com/ I know it was inactive for a long time but the content was priceless.

Thanks,

Jason

armoredveh said...

Dan, beautifully written. I'm the editor of the Iron Butt Magazine and would like to talk to you about contributing an article. Please email me at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

Bill Shaw (shaw@ironbutt.com)

armoredveh said...

Dan, beautifully written. I'm the editor of the Iron Butt Magazine. Please send me a note about possibly contributing to our magazine. Thank you. Bill Shaw (shaw@ironbutt.com)