MY THRU HIKE

How is it that women can get so side-tracked? I have gotten hung up on getting this trip organized and I looked up and weeks had passed with no time spent on the blog. I’m here to remedy that! And do I have good news!

Have you talked with your cell provider lately or your cable company, how about your medical insurance representative? Maybe you tried to get an emergency flight out of town for a funeral. Well, you probably have a good idea what crummy customer service is all about. As therapy, let me suggest that you go to www.backcountrygear.com. I want to tell a story. . . a true story.

I found the tea kettle of my dreams at backcountrygear.com. It is low and wide, exposing a huge surface to the heat of my alcohol stove for boiling water. Perfection! On sale to boot! Doesn’t get much better than that! So off we go into the Smokey Mountains…it’s predicted to be freezing, with a slight chance of snow. I have my tea kettle and I won’t freeze—HA!HA!HA! (The predicted 32-degrees was a chilly 17-degrees at breakfast time! and sleet was pelting everything!)

I heated water in the tea kettle and measured a spoonful of freeze-dried coffee for my DH and hot jello (my glucose drops precipitiously when I get really cold) for me. I picked up the tea kettle and the handle was NOT hot to the touch and I was delighted about that and tipped it over to pour…the lid stayed in place… but drops of warm water landed on my boot-toe. What? Is it raining, too? Where did that come from? I tipped the kettle again and there they were, forming just underneath the spout and running down onto my feet. YIKES!! This will not do on a 2175-mile hike.

Back home, I contacted them by–I don’t know what to call it except talking eMail. The handsome-sounding customer service rep and I could not talk to each other but we could type to each other. I explained the situation, described where the leak was developing and answered all his questions about order/customer/telephone numbers details that he needed. He assured me that Primus was a reliable company to work with and that Backcountrygear.com would ship out a new one within 24 hours. Now that’s a promise I can live with.

Surprise! Surprise! I get an eMail from a young woman who has gone to the warehouse and taken tea kettles off the shelf to test them out. She doesn’t want to send out another one that leaks, so she’s making sure….50 times she unboxed a tea kettle and put water in it only to have it leak exactly as I described.

She wrote to tell me that she’d contacted Primus in Switzerland to get some new tea kettles and that she was contacting everyone they’d delivered one to from that shipment to offer a replacement kettle. She promised to forward all relevant eMails from corporate Primus and offered many apologies, promising that they’ll get it right.

Now ladies and gentlemen…that’s customer service! Their prices are right on target, their discounts and sales are deep, and their customer service is 1st rate. I highly recommend these energetic, enthusiastic, and service oriented young folks!