On the Matter of Warranties - and GREAT outdoor brands!

While at the Vermont Mountain Bike Festival this weekend, we spent a good deal of time practicing our tent set-up skills at the Nemo Tent booth Nicole from the home office surprised us with something new we didn’t already know about their tents…they all come with a lifetime warranty!

It’s a testament to the quality of the brands we carry that many of them come with lifetime guarantees. You may have seen on our last post that on several occasions MSR (and Thermarest - both owned by Cascade Designs) have shocked us by covering product issues (like broken tent poles) by replacing items at no cost to the customer…even when the damage clearly wasn’t a defect, but was the result of customer action and normal wear.

In backpacks both Gregory and Osprey cover their packs with lifetime warranties, and even our Darn Tough wool socks come with a lifetime guarantee... Imagine that!

Boot and watch manufacturers tend to treat warranties differently. Since both products can be subjected to extensive daily use--and wear and tear—their warranties are more limited. All of our boot manufacturers limit their guarantees against defects in workmanship or materials to 1 year, yet we’ve seen extensions made in some cases. Believe us we’ve recently seen some cases where boots have been subjected to so much abuse in as little as two weeks that the line between a product failure and user issue has been pretty close. Never-the-less our three boot brands Lowa, Zamberlan, and Vasque have been Fantastic to work with, have quickly dealt with the issues, and have been generous in honoring warranty requests. St. Moritz watches come with a 2/4/6 year warranty. More than a great service record, though, we have heard from many many customers - and seen the reviews on the web - of the amazing quality of these boots and watches. Perhaps even more telling in this case is the number of warranty issues we have NOT been called about.

At CCOutdoorStore our goal is to make sure you get a quality product, but in rare case when something isn't perfect, we work hard to be your advocate and give you the service you deserve. Just give us a call at 1-802-244-4000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-802-244-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-802-244-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email us at info@ccoutdoorstore.com and we’ll get the process moving so as to minimize your down time.

New "Focus on Service" Program at CCOutdoorStore.com

Customer service. We know its important. And we know good communication and a relationship built on trust will benefit our customers AND us. That's why as we enter 2010, the team at CCOutdoorStore.com has a renewed focus on customer service. We have developed a "Focus on Service" program, centered around a basic philosophy about the special relationship we have with our customers.

OUR PHILOSOPHY
1. Our customers need to trust us. In this age of efficiency and computer-based relationships, we all still need to feel like there's someone there on the other side. A name. A trustworthy person.

2. Our customers need to hear from us. Expectations vary from person to person, but we have found that almost all issues can be resolved - or at least better understood - with good communication. Although we cannot promise a perfect match between performance and expectations every time, we can promise our 100% effort toward useful and timely communications.

3. Our customers are our partners. We are so fortunate to be in an industry where the customers are... well... really cool. Almost every customer we work with is honest and just wants the right fit or a good value - they don't want to rip us off. We want to honor and serve these people, not put them through the ringer.

OUR PROGRAM
Based on those 3 core beliefs about our customers, we have developed a new "Focus on Service" program, where customer service is first and foremost. Program elements will continue to evolve, but currently include the following:

1. Remembering the Personal touch: While computers, e-mail, and automation allow us to operate efficiently and offer competitive prices, we will never forget the value of the personal touch and will offer it whenever we can.

2. Easy Returns: The returns policy at CCOutdoorStore.com has always been pretty casual, and we want to keep it that way. It's all about trust. We will take returns with few questions asked. We will always do our best to help our customers find the right product, the right fit.

3. Price Matching on any item, any time. Our customers have a choice of where to go to get their outdoor gear. We will do whatever we can to honor the prices they find elsewhere because we believe that a loyal customer is worth our time and money. We will appreciate every opportunity a customer gives us to do business with them. See more about our Price Matching program.

4. Continuous Improvement on Communications: In the next 6-8 weeks, we will engage in a comprehensive evaluation of all of our customer communications - be it via phone, e-mail, or automated message. We will measure our practices against the goal of giving our customers useful and timely information. Where there's room for improvement, we will develop a solution and implement it right away. We will revisit our practices over time, as well, taking into account the changing marketplace and customer feedback.

5. Listening and Making it Right Every Time: Each customer, each order, is unique. We will do our best to understand the needs of each customer... and then be agile, flexible and creative to serve them - one at a time.

6. Making it Public: This one is a bit tricky, as most people know that bad news travels more quickly than good. But we believe strongly that we will always give it our best, especially if we know any customer service experience can be put in public the eye. And we also have confidence that our customers appreciate our efforts and will reward us with a kind word (there's no better "feel-good" than getting kudos from someone you tried to help) in a customer review. Beginning in February 2010, will invite customers to post reviews at on SuperPages.com and will check those reviews regularly for encouragement and points of improvement.

We hope you have already experienced some of these program elements at work. And we invite you to share your experiences and write a customer review on SuperPages.com. Of course we encourage both good customer reviews and "room for improvement" advice on the web, But we hope that you'll also Contact us directly with the latter - so we can work to fix it right away!

Many thanks to our great customers!

The Vermont Move and getting out with Crescent Moon and St Moritz

We have successfully moved the CCOutdoorStore.com warehouse and customer service functions to Vermont! Soon the CCOutdoorStore.com team will be hosting visitors in our new retail location just outside of Stowe, Vermont, but now that much of the heavy lifting is behind us, we're eager to spend some time in the great outdoors trying out some great snow gear!

Right now we're most excited to don our Crescent Moon snowshoes and get on the trail! Crescent Moons are super cool snowshoes. They have been most recently recognized by Backpacker magazine as the "best binding" in snowshoes with "unmatched comfort, stability, and ease of use." And Crescent Moons are made using environmentally friendly manufacturing practices. The snowshoes are made with materials that contain NO PVC (polyvinyl chloride), and the company uses 100% wind powered energy in its Boulder, Colorado-based factory and office. We like that the Crescent Moon team is not outsourcing snowshoe manufacturing to China, and that they strive to recycle and reuse nearly everything, including coated fabric scraps, aluminum, stainless steel, polyurethane and HDPE parts, cardboard, and office materials. They'll even take back old snowshoes for a small fee to recycle the parts! What more could an outdoor enthusiast want?

At CCOutdoorStore.com, we hope your new year is filled with great adventures in the outdoors! Happy 2010!