$2500 vs $9500, bungled then handled

So I talked to a couple different water treatment companies and have gotten a wide range of numbers.  The first company sold whole house RO units for $4900 but they highly recommended getting on the monthly maintenance plan with that system which dings you for another $79 a month.  For that everything in the system is covered as long as you are paying that monthly ransom. I had another company come out today and they quoted me $6500 for the same system with similar monthly maintenance, sheesh.  However, the first company I talked to also offered me a second, much less expensive option.

They sell a non-RO sulfur removal system that is about half the cost of a RO unit.  They told me they have installed a TON of them out in our area and they work great.  They don’t have any steel tanks to rust out and they only utilize the well pump to push water through the system instead of the auxiliary, power sucking, air injection pump we currently have on our system.

I told the guy that the TOP concern we had was no longer having pale yellow water from tannins.  He assured me this system would absolutely address that problem.

The guys that came out to the house today and gave me the $6500 figure seemed like they stepped right off the set of Deliverance.  I could see why they chose a career in water equipment installation as opposed to anything involving communication skills.  I think I had to ask them four different times what it would cost before I actually got a number.

In contrast the rep from the other company was great.  He was friendly, knowledgeable and was recommended to me by my neighbor across the street who had his water system installed by them.

When I went over some of the numbers there was a huge contrast.  With either RO system when you add in monthly maintenance costs, in three years I will have spent either $8000 or as much as $9500 if I went with the higher estimate.  The sulfur removal system costs $2500 and has a three year warranty. (our current stuff only had 1 year)

So at the end of three years I could literally throw out my sulfur removal system, buy a new one and still be a minimum of three grand ahead.  The reality is the system will more than likely last at least double that amount of time.

After talking to Ali she agreed that financially it isn’t even in the same ballpark.  Her big thing is she wants to be able to take a bath and not feel like she is in a tub of diluted urine.

I called back the first place today and said we are going with the sulfur removal system.  It is scheduled to get installed Friday.  I am trusting that my gut feeling is right, the guy seemed totally on the level and not a bullshitter.  The fact that my neighbor recommended this place makes me feel even more secure.

A month or so ago I took responsibility for obtaining some new branded shelters for the running club.  We use these pop up tents at our events to cover the registration, chip and timing tables.  The tents we had were close to a decade old and looked like they were pulled out of a dumpster at this point.

I contacted EZ-Up and made arrangements to have four new custom shelters made.  Part of the requirements for the order was I had to provide them with a vectorized version of our logo to use.   I had to really jump through some hoops until I came up with a logo that met their requirements.  Evidently a vectorized graphic is able to be re-sized as large as you want without losing any clarity or resolution.

After sending him the logo we have just been patiently waiting for the shelters to arrive which they finally did yesterday.  I had 4 huge boxes and one smaller box stacked in front of our garage door.

After changing my clothes I wanted to open one up and set it up to take a picture.  As I opened up the first box I said “You have to be kidding me…”    The text that is embedded into the logo was all mutated and morphed.

From my work in getting the right logo I recognized this as what happens when you try to apply a “trace” function in Adobe Illustrator to a jpeg file.  Evidently whomever did the production work used the wrong file when creating the graphic for the tent.

I was frustrated and flabbergasted.  I didn’t understand how this could get through quality control.  It should be obvious to anyone that this isn’t how the logo was supposed to look.  Ali and I still went ahead and set one shelter up and took a picture of it to show the board of directors.  From a distance the f up was much less of an eyesore but it bothered me all the same.

I left a message for my sales rep via phone and email letting him know of the problem.  I also sent out an email to the board of directors.  As I saw it there were two possible resolutions.

One was we could just keep the shelters, deal with the mutant letters since they aren’t all that noticeable when the tent is up and ask for a sizable credit to the order for their mistake. Second, we send the covers back and wait for them to send us a new set with the correct logo in place.  This option would mean we would have to wait several more weeks for a finished product.

The response I got back from the board was pretty much 50/50, half saying get a discount and keep them, half saying we want it done right.  Well the answer I got back from my sales rep was better than either option in my book.

He said not only would he send us four tops with the correct logo, he said we should just keep the messed up ones.  He said we can use them temporarily until the good ones show up and after that keep them as spares for the future.  Well that sounded just about perfect to me.  I thanked him for handling it so well.  I went into it thinking I might have some sort of fight on my hands.

It is so rare nowadays to have a customer service issue handled beyond your level of expectation.