[Pen/Pencil Review Post] Pilot US Customer Service
This week’s pen blog – in the spirit of “Good Will Towards Men” – I’m doing a Stage 1 follow up on the Pilot Petit1 review and how Pilot handles at least some customer service issues. I don’t know how they deal with all of them, but this is one of them.
I have several of the “big” pen companies following me on Twitter – and a couple of them check out the blog when I mention their pens. Pilot’s one of them. When the reviews are good, they will sometimes retweet or comment, which is nice, but not expected. When I wrote my review of the Petit1, Pilot commented on the post about how they were sorry I was disappointed. I shrugged it off, because hey, it happens.
Then Pilot sent me a link to their customer feedback page. So, I sent the link there, because the social media guys suggested it. (Sometimes I do follow instructions.) This way the issues I had were in the system to maybe be looked into. Again, not a big deal. There was a bit of back and forth. They wanted to make things right, send me another one. Okay. That’s nice. I’ll try then thing again. In fact I was already thinking of getting another one to see if it was a one-off design flaw…
Of course, I wasn’t holding my breath they’d actually send something. I mean, it was a nice gesture. But it’s the holidays, and the whole country has been hit with crazy winter weather. Yeah. Until we find the nice little box late last week. Pilot made good…except…they didn’t send me another Petit1. No they did not.
In a very nicely worded, polite letter, they explained the Petit1 is a one of the pens from Pilot Japan not Pilot US, and though they would’ve sent me one of those, they don’t have any. Would I mind accepting a lovely METROPOLITAN fountain pen instead. It’s their White Tiger Medium Point, which I wouldn’t have bought for myself, and need to do a review of it for the fact it’s a wider nib than the Metropolitan I already have. The reason I’m not disappointed? It’s a much nicer, more expensive pen. Well done, Pilot.
Because this means the next time I do a Jet Pens order? I’m going to pick up another Petit1 and give it another shot. In a day and age where Customer Service is on the wane, or outsourced, or overwhelmed, this was a refreshing moment. Thank you, Robin Jones and Deborah Roberts – you make your company look really good. And to Pilot in general, keep this up, please. I give your customer service 5 Bronze Pencils…
