Kryptonite tubular lock exchange

Zoot Katz wrote:
|| Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:41:08 GMT,
|| , Thad O
|| wrote:
||
|||| Well, I for one am impressed with their response.... Waiting a
|||| month
|||| is a drag, but I don't know if they could do much better
|||| considering
|||| that the new products were just coming out now anyway....
||||
||| What I would like to know is who pays for postage to send the locks
||| to
||| Kryptonite? Could make it not worh it.
||
|| Had you read the page linked in his original message it would have
|| informed you:
|| " Kryptonite will pay the postage for all exchanges."
||
||
http://www.kryptonitelock.com/inetis...=urgent_update
|| --
|| zk

This is the letter I got back from them after I wrote them. Note that it
instructs you to return your lock to them postage paid (note: they didn't
say by what means to ship it, so cheap slow mail is best).

I will be out of the office starting 09/22/2004 and will not return until
10/01/2004.

Thank you for contacting Kryptonite.

If you have a Kryptonite lock that has a tubular cylinder (a round key
cylinder) you are eligible for a Kryptonite non-tubular cylinder lock
exchange. The steps you take to participate in the exchange a
1. Provide the information listed below to Kryptonite.
2. Return your current tubular cylinder Kryptonite lock to us (postage
paid).
3. Kryptonite will send you your new non-tubular cylinder lock.

Please provide the following information:
Name:
Street Address:
City:
Province:
State/County:
Country:
Zip Code/Postal Code:
Daytime Phone Number:
Email Address:

How many locks with tubular cylinders will you be exchanging?
What lock model(s) do you own (Evolution 2000, KryptoLok, Gorgon)?
What is/are your tubular key number(s), which are stamped on your keys?

Please send this information:
By e-mail to:
By fax to: 781-821-0780
By mail to: Kryptonite Lock Exchange, 437 Turnpike Street, Canton, MA 02021

Once we receive the above information, we will contact you with specific
details as to how to return your Kryptonite lock (postage paid). Upon
receipt of your tubular cylinder Kryptonite lock, we will send to you a
replacement Kryptonite non-tubular cylinder lock free of charge.
Replacement locks will be sent beginning mid-October on a first come, first
served basis, based on product availability.

If you have any questions, please contact Kryptonite Customer Service at
or by calling 1-800-729-5625 (United States and Canada)
or 001-781-828-6655 (Outside of the United States).

NOTE: Please do not reply back to this email message. Please email the
information above to .

There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly.

They are specifically not allowing dealers to handle exchanges. This is a
source of no small amount of annoyance to me; as the final seller of the
product to the consumer, I want to make it as easy as possible for our
customers to be taken care of. After all, if it was *my* shop that sold the
product (obviously not knowing about the issue; we removed all stock from
our shelves when we found out), then the customer's experience in purchasing
the product was with me, not Kryptonite. And I should be able to handle it
for them.

The cynical side of me would suggest that a mail-in program costs the
company a lot less, because many people won't bother with it (just like
sending in product rebate forms).

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Dan Daniel" wrote in message
...
On 23 Sep 2004 16:58:34 GMT, Marc Slemko wrote:

In article , Dan Daniel wrote:
Well, I for one am impressed with their response.... Waiting a month
is a drag, but I don't know if they could do much better considering
that the new products were just coming out now anyway....

I agree that it is good that they have decided to replace locks which
may be more vulnerable than they should be.

Unfortunately, because their offer is one of "send it in to us and
we will send you back a replacement first come first served whenever
we have stock available" it is pretty useless for anyone who, say,
uses their lock.

Even if you are comfortable using your current lock until you can send it
in, having to wait an arbitrary and unspecified time to get it back isn't
very practical unless you buy another lock.

There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly. This
makes the most sense. Kryptonite is not set up for distributing
individual locks. They would probably hire an outside firm to handle
the swaps. If they can get the dealers to play along, they save the
postage, use existing channels, and the dealers get some satisfied
customers. Seems like the way to go to me. Well, see what happens in
the next few days. They don't even have the locks to exchange yet...

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly.


They are specifically not allowing dealers to handle exchanges. This is a
source of no small amount of annoyance to me; as the final seller of the
product to the consumer, I want to make it as easy as possible for our
customers to be taken care of. After all, if it was *my* shop that sold the
product (obviously not knowing about the issue; we removed all stock from
our shelves when we found out), then the customer's experience in purchasing
the product was with me, not Kryptonite. And I should be able to handle it
for them.

Have you had any customers disgruntled with you because you couldn't
handle it? I would imagine there are folks like that out there, who
just refuse to understand that the company is tying your hands.

-km

--
posting from Linux box, haven't copied over the sig-file yet, too lazy
to recreate it

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 06:53:33 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly.

They are specifically not allowing dealers to handle exchanges.

Thanks for the info. Based on their release this Wednesday, there
seemed to be an implication that letting the dealers handle it was a
possibility. You are probably right- to reduce the demand. One more
reason to find the OnGuard model I've been looking for. The
replacement Kryptos will go into the basement for locking up the bikes
in storage.


This is a
source of no small amount of annoyance to me; as the final seller of the
product to the consumer, I want to make it as easy as possible for our
customers to be taken care of. After all, if it was *my* shop that sold the
product (obviously not knowing about the issue; we removed all stock from
our shelves when we found out), then the customer's experience in purchasing
the product was with me, not Kryptonite. And I should be able to handle it
for them.

The cynical side of me would suggest that a mail-in program costs the
company a lot less, because many people won't bother with it (just like
sending in product rebate forms).

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Dan Daniel" wrote in message
.. .
On 23 Sep 2004 16:58:34 GMT, Marc Slemko wrote:

In article , Dan Daniel wrote:
Well, I for one am impressed with their response.... Waiting a month
is a drag, but I don't know if they could do much better considering
that the new products were just coming out now anyway....

I agree that it is good that they have decided to replace locks which
may be more vulnerable than they should be.

Unfortunately, because their offer is one of "send it in to us and
we will send you back a replacement first come first served whenever
we have stock available" it is pretty useless for anyone who, say,
uses their lock.

Even if you are comfortable using your current lock until you can send it
in, having to wait an arbitrary and unspecified time to get it back isn't
very practical unless you buy another lock.

There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly. This
makes the most sense. Kryptonite is not set up for distributing
individual locks. They would probably hire an outside firm to handle
the swaps. If they can get the dealers to play along, they save the
postage, use existing channels, and the dealers get some satisfied
customers. Seems like the way to go to me. Well, see what happens in
the next few days. They don't even have the locks to exchange yet...

Have you had any customers disgruntled with you because you couldn't
handle it? I would imagine there are folks like that out there, who just
refuse to understand that the company is tying your hands.

We'll find a way to get our customers taken care of. It's going to be
especially tough for dealers in college towns, since the students are all
now coming back to school and need locks *now* but the replacements won't be
available for some time.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"the black rose" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly.


They are specifically not allowing dealers to handle exchanges. This is
a source of no small amount of annoyance to me; as the final seller of
the product to the consumer, I want to make it as easy as possible for
our customers to be taken care of. After all, if it was *my* shop that
sold the product (obviously not knowing about the issue; we removed all
stock from our shelves when we found out), then the customer's experience
in purchasing the product was with me, not Kryptonite. And I should be
able to handle it for them.

Have you had any customers disgruntled with you because you couldn't
handle it? I would imagine there are folks like that out there, who just
refuse to understand that the company is tying your hands.

-km

--
posting from Linux box, haven't copied over the sig-file yet, too lazy to
recreate it

Subject: Kryptonite tubular lock exchange
From: Marc Slemko
Date: 9/23/2004 11:58 AM US Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

In article , Dan Daniel wrote:
Well, I for one am impressed with their response.... Waiting a month
is a drag, but I don't know if they could do much better considering
that the new products were just coming out now anyway....

I agree that it is good that they have decided to replace locks which
may be more vulnerable than they should be.

Unfortunately, because their offer is one of "send it in to us and
we will send you back a replacement first come first served whenever
we have stock available" it is pretty useless for anyone who, say,
uses their lock.

Even if you are comfortable using your current lock until you can send it
in, having to wait an arbitrary and unspecified time to get it back isn't
very practical unless you buy another lock.


jeez, what are you 10 years old? talk about zero budget!

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:03:15 -0400, "Roger Zoul"
wrote:

This is the letter I got back from them after I wrote them. Note that it
instructs you to return your lock to them postage paid (note: they didn't
say by what means to ship it, so cheap slow mail is best).
But they can claim that they never got it. A better way is to send
with return receipt requested. That way is more expensive.

Thad O wrote:
|| On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:03:15 -0400, "Roger Zoul"
|| wrote:
||
||| This is the letter I got back from them after I wrote them. Note
||| that it instructs you to return your lock to them postage paid
||| (note: they didn't say by what means to ship it, so cheap slow mail
||| is best).
|| But they can claim that they never got it. A better way is to send
|| with return receipt requested. That way is more expensive.

If they want to claim that, then so be it. I've never used that lock
anyway. However, that won't happen.

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 06:53:33 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:


There could be an exchange program happening at dealers directly.

They are specifically not allowing dealers to handle exchanges. This is a
source of no small amount of annoyance to me; as the final seller of the
product to the consumer, I want to make it as easy as possible for our
customers to be taken care of. After all, if it was *my* shop that sold the
product (obviously not knowing about the issue; we removed all stock from
our shelves when we found out), then the customer's experience in purchasing
the product was with me, not Kryptonite. And I should be able to handle it
for them.

The cynical side of me would suggest that a mail-in program costs the
company a lot less, because many people won't bother with it (just like
sending in product rebate forms).
I suspect that that is not going to be the case.
Someone is already filing a class action suit against the company.
Certainly some State Attourney Generals will take up the cause too.

A sham return policy will just hurt them in court.

Wait a short while and see what happens. I suspect that Kryptonite
will be changing their policy several times, in fact I think it would
be a real possibility that those sending their locks in now might get
them back and tell them to take it to their dealer.

PS Where is your shop?

The cynical side of me would suggest that a mail-in program costs the
company a lot less, because many people won't bother with it (just like
sending in product rebate forms).

I suspect that that is not going to be the case.
Someone is already filing a class action suit against the company.
Certainly some State Attourney Generals will take up the cause too.

A sham return policy will just hurt them in court.

It's not a "sham return policy" requiring customers to return the locks
directly to the company; that's becoming the new business model these days.
The larger department stores won't have anything to do with a product
anymore if they have to deal with returns themselves... *all* costs are
externalized if you wish to deal with someone like WalMart, for example.
The smaller shop (like a local bike shop) sees dealing with customer
problems as an opportunity to keep a relationship intact and make people
happy, rather than a major hassle that ought to be off-loaded.

Wait a short while and see what happens. I suspect that Kryptonite
will be changing their policy several times, in fact I think it would
be a real possibility that those sending their locks in now might get
them back and tell them to take it to their dealer.

Why? What's in it for Krytponite to send the (bad) product back to the
customer? Why wouldn't they send the new, improved product back instead?
The older locks are no good to anybody at this point; there's no incentive
for Kryptonite to waste the money on postage and still have an outstanding
issue.

PS Where is your shop?

We have two shops in Northern California, one in Redwood City, the other in
Los Altos.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com