Heimdallr Customer Service Story
We’ve shared a number of inspiring customer service stories from brands in various industries from Airlines, to Hotels, to fast food chains and even ophthalmologists. This post is a customer service story about a watch brand that took proactive steps to ensure a customer’s experience ended positively.
In this story originally published on the watchuseek.com forum, watch enthusiast – Thrax narrates his experience in ordering for a Heimdallr watch, getting the wrong order and how the brand took steps to ensure he was satisfied.
On January 15th, I ordered a SharkMaster MM300 in green. A mere six days later on January 21, it was on my doorstep from Hong Kong via DHL (wow, fast shipping). Unfortunately, their shipping department had packed the wrong colour and I had received a unit with black bezel/dial.
Based on my experiences with other vendors in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan I was unfortunately prepared for a bit of a hassle in dealing with this, but I nevertheless emailed them hoping for the best.
I sent pictures of my order email and the watch that I received, and within 24 hours I heard back from Heimdallr Sales Manager Lily who was incredibly apologetic and offered free return shipping to make it right. Return shipping back to Hong Kong was $37 via DHL (with insurance), and I had a refund on the shipping cost to my PayPal account within 12 hours.
The replacement unit in the right colour arrived on January 29. So, now we’re at a total of 8 days to contact the manufacturer, arrange a free return, and get a replacement from halfway around the world. They even included a free Marine Nationale-style strap for the hassle! Pretty incredible thus far, but it gets even better.
The replacement unit I received had a misaligned dial and bezel (the “better” comes soon; I promise). I am not a person that gets bent out of shape about this kind of quality control (QC) issue unless it’s especially severe, but it was noticeable on my replacement when I switched to a striped NATO strap that makes it more obvious where the center of the case and the dial is supposed to be.
Aligning the dial and bezel to their relative centers made it clear that they were cocked a bit to the left of the case’s center. No big deal. I wasn’t even going to contact them about it, but Lily personally followed up with me on February 4 to ask how I liked the replacement. I thanked her profusely for her customer care and follow-up, but I did send her a picture of the issue with a vertical line drawn through the cannon pinion to show that things were a bit askew at the center.
I mentioned I was a bit disappointed but planned to keep the watch because I loved it so much. Now, here’s the kicker: Heimdallr fully refunded me the cost of the watch. I did not ask them to do it. Did not even hint that I wanted it. I fully intended to keep the watch at full price, and was happy to tell others about my positive experience with them despite my unit being a little crooked… But I got a full refund. All $219 of it. Even after getting a free strap. Even after $37 of free return shipping all the way back to Hong Kong.
Let me provide an anecdote to make this story clear: my most expensive watch is about $2100 (It’s a Longines Master Collection), purchased from an Authorized Dealer as a wedding gift from my wife. It’s nearly 10X the price of what I paid for my Heimdallr, and far beyond what I would ever pay out-of-pocket for my own collection.
Like my Heimdallr, we also had to return my first Longines unit due to some severe QC issues with the Chrono reset and crown stiffness. It was a gigantic pain in the ass to return my Longines for a replacement. The dealer was argumentative, required multiple rounds of proof, set obnoxious requirements and timetables for the return, and generally made our life a nuisance for two days. Just for the basic dignity of asking for good QC at $2100!
In every way, Heimdallr at 1/10th the cost has absolutely embarrassed the Longines customer service experience I received from that Authorized Dealer. Heimdallr was more communicative; more responsive; faster to ship; more accommodating in every way.
I had planned for Heimdallr to be a one-and-done brand addition to my collection, but now I will be absolutely returning. I know the closeness of their homages are not to everyone’s liking, but they offer a look and feel that would otherwise be way outside of my comfort zone. And, more importantly, they gave me one of the best customer service I’ve had in my life. Not just from a watch company, but from any category of product I’ve ever purchased. Long live Crooked Hulk!
Disclosure: I have absolutely no connection to Heimdallr, or any other company involved in the manufacture or sale of watches or watch
-Thrax
Even though Heimdallr got the order wrong the first time, they were able to set themselves apart by being very responsive and empathetic to the customer’s plight. The sales manager understood the importance of following up on customers after the resolution of complaints, and as a result, she has helped the brand win a customer for life.
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