Cascade Designs

[Joseph Ainsworth]

I had a neoair that through a series of unfortunate events had about an inch long gash in it. I tried to patch it but to no avail, so I called up Cascade Designs. I explained to them what happened and said it was clearly user error, but wanted to see if they could fix it. The guys said to send it over, and since I didn't want to put my credit card info in the box, that they would just call me when they got the pad and handle things that way.
Well fast forward two weeks, I was starting to get worried I hadn't heard from them yet, and I get a package pack from cascade. I'm thinking great, they didn't even take a look at it because there wasn't any info inside or something, just shipped it back. I open it up, and what do I find? A brand new neo air, free of charge. Called them up, to make sure everything was ok with the charges and the rep said they had slipped up with the credit card info, so to just forget about it.
So not only do I have a new pad, it was free.
Big Kudos to Cascade Designs.

[Ken Thompson]

Nice! How goes it with your Big Agnes tent?

[Joseph Ainsworth]

James just emailed me actually. Looks like everything is finished up and he's sending it back to me in a few days, the inner should get here around the same time from Big Agnes. It seems I'll get it'll all come together just in time for a yo-yo of the lost coast early next month.

[EndoftheTrail]

Not to rain on your parade, Joseph, but that's sloppy office process and hardly worthy of a kudos to Cascade Designs.

But regardless, you got lucky, and that's a good thing. Enjoy your new Neoair pad! :)

[Roger Caffin]

Hi ben

> but that's sloppy office process and hardly worthy of a kudos to Cascade Designs.

I am going to disagree with you here. I suggest that they knew exactly what they were doing, and have charged the replacement to marketing. The NeoAir is expensive (at retail), and there has been some negative PR over it, so they need to drive sales. Good customer service is one of the best viral marketing techniques around.

cheers

[EndoftheTrail]

Roger – You are devious and twisted. But you might be right. :)

[Anonymous]

Also disagree with Ben. That's CD just taking care of the customer. I had the same experience with them and an old Prolite.

Could it be better, sure. The end result is the most important aspect of the transaction.

[Donald Browning]

I had one of the first available NeoAir's and it seemed to lose inflation during the night, which I chalked up to my hot breath cooling. Well, it progressively got worse. Sent it in to CD, and presto, a new one, better than before, doesn't leak at all.
Don
PS Also had a Reactor stove that crapped out on me (wouldn't light, I'm guessing some obstruction in the gas line)……CD sent a new one

[Jerry Adams]

I have a Garmin 60CSx GPS.

Works great, but

The back cover broke. I asked them about it. I consider it defective because there's sort of a flimsy piece there, but I broke it.

They wanted $30 for a replacement cover. I just rigged something up with tape and epoxy.

I now badmouth them occasionally and will probably get a DeLorme the next time.

I think Cascade Design has a better policy.

[Ross Bleakney]

I agree with Roger. The higher up the chain you guy, the more likely you are to encounter someone who will say "stop wasting our time and send the guy a new one". It is possible that someone lower down didn't know what to do (initially) or got to busy to deal with it. Once he or she started talking, the answer became pretty obvious.

It makes sense. Even though they are made in Seattle (where labor costs are relatively high) I'm sure the production cost (per item) is pretty low. The material costs are bound to be low, and they probably have things designed so that not much labor is needed to crank one out. It's not quite to the level of software, but the design, engineering, marketing and support costs greatly outweigh the production costs.

This is in great contrast to car manufacturing. If you buy a lemon, you will inevitably have to pay some money if something goes bad after the warranty expires. This happened to me. After about 40,000 miles, the engine head cracked. I forget exactly how we settled on things, but they basically met me half way. It was still expensive, and cost both of us a lot of money, but that was inevitable. Engineering costs are significant, but material and labor costs are a much bigger part of the cost of a car.

[Terry Trimble]

In large corporations the new mantra in this Deposable world we live in. It cheaper to give you a new one instead of using 30 to 40 minutes of man power hours to repair a pad that cost CD $25.00{Guess} to manufacture, When it only takes 5 minute for a shipping clerk to put a new one in the return box.

Just think about it when was the last time you had a small ticket item repaired by a manufacture verse just sending you a new one. Some companies are so guilty of the just replace it mantra they will replace gear totally trashed and 5 years olds no questions asked with a new one instead of fixing it to make the customer happy.

[Paul Gibson]

Having worked in retail outdoor gear for a couple years I would say that Cascade replacing a piece of damaged gear is normal for them. Back in those days of working at that shop we would send in things for warranty and or repair and they would consistently send out a replacement.

But don't think that they just take it all and throw damaged goods in the land fill….most of it is repaired and sold off one way or another from what I hear.

[EndoftheTrail]

"[M]ost of it is repaired and sold off one way or another from what I hear."

Wish we know where. I bet lots of other retailers do the same — lightly damaged but expertly repaired items, last year's models, etc., etc. Where does one go to buy things like a refurbished 5 megapixel camera on the cheap, if that's all one needs? I know of half.com but their prices are generally unimpressive. Anyone?

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Ben

> Roger – You are devious and twisted. But you might be right. :)
Thank you!
:-)

cheers

[Bob Gross]

"Where does one go to buy things like a refurbished 5 megapixel camera on the cheap, if that's all one needs?"

I don't know of any dependable place.

The problem scenario goes like this. Customer buys a $400 camera from a big box store. Customer drops it or does something unexpected to it, and then it doesn't work exactly right all the time. Sometimes it is only that the customer did some special user setting, because he was too stupid to understand, and nobody quite knows how to put it back to "stock" condition. Customer brings it back to the store, and they settle with another camera of some type. Now, what is that store going to do with the used camera? If it was a hugely expensive camera, the manufacturer probably has a factory repair center that can refurbish it. More typically with a less-expensive model, the used camera is sent in, and a substitute camera is sent back out for a fee. In that case, the used camera is probably decent since it is the factory repair center that blessed it. However, sometimes everybody is too cheap to get the factory repair job done on it, so the store guy simply tries a couple of snapshots, and it seems to be OK at that cursory level, and then the camera is placed back into packaging and sold at a deep discount, sold as an "open box." In fact, it should be sold as "used."

So, when you are buying a used camera, most of the time you really don't know what you are getting. Lots of people will buy used cameras only from friends whom they trust.

–B.G.–

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