In Praise of Crowley's and Lewmar...

[skipgundlach]

In Praise of Crowley's and Lewmar...

I am servicing my Lewmar V3 windlass. Extended emails and a few telephone
calls with Lewmar's CSR in the technical support department, Austin Cohen
(acohen@lewmar.com) established that I'd need two kits - the individual
parts needed aren't sold separately.

I mention that for two reasons: Using the owner's manual, or any of the
on-line info, doesn't make that clear. However, my experience with Lewmar's
tech support goes back many years; I've found them to be completely helpful.
But, back to the story:

Lewmar doesn't sell direct, so they recommended I find a dealer I wanted to
use. I speculated that most would merely order from Lewmar, get it in
house, and then ship it to me, or, maybe, Lewmar would drop ship; Austin
confirmed that premise but indicated that few retailers had drop-ship
privileges. Thus, a stocking retailer would save me several days at least.

I did a search, and found that the kits were mentioned in several suppliers,
but all gave long delivery times (not even a drop-ship). I'm a Port Supply
customer, so I called them; they could get the kits, and then send them to
me. Not so good.

Crowley's (Crowley's Yacht Yard Lakeside, LLC), on the other hand, showed them in stock. I
called to make sure; they had at least two of both of the kits I needed,
and, at better than my Port Supply price, even!

So, I do the order. Oops! One of the kits is missing key parts. I
photograph what I have received, and shoot off an email to the order-shipped
notification email return address and to Austin.

And, here's where the CS shines...

I had a response from Austin in literally minutes. Simultaneously, there
were copies of my mail being forwarded around in Crowley's; because it was
critical, I'd also put in a 'read receipt' to make sure it had been seen.
Forwards in Crowley's would have included that RR request; so far there have
been 6 receipts of forwards opened - there may have been even more who saw
it but didn't click the response...

Austin's response was that there had been a rolling change; my parts were
2007 stock, based on their labels. He said he'd ship me another (current,
of course) kit.

At the same time, I got a note from one of the online sales folks at
Crowley's telling me that the store manager had ordered the part and that it
would ship that day.

So, in less than one hour, both vendor and retailer responded, and resolved
the issue. Yes, it would have been nice for me to get the current
package/kit - but as obscure as these uses are, I'm surprised that anyone
had one in stock, at all.

And, I have no doubt that Lewmar will put out a notice to retailers asking
them to check their stock. As well, it speaks volumes about Crowley's that
they've involved so many people in the resolution of my issue.

Well done, both.

L8R

Skip

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