Cust Service & Packaging

Trying to extricate technical information from even the best manufacturers is as difficult as removing their products from the packaging.

Princeton Tec's heavy plastic packages are secure yet can be opened on one end and is hinged on the other. This was the case for the particular lights I received from them. Why do so many other companies have welded plastic shells that require a knife to open, if you don't wan't to destroy the informational insert, which will happen using a scissors? The thick, hard, slippery nature of most plastic product shells invites injury to one's self & the contents. Is it necessary to use that much plastic (thereby oil)?

PT's customer service (Jason) dropped the ball, big-time, in two requests for simple product information. Had I not already been familiar with their quality, I'd never have purchased anything from them based upon my customer service experience. SureFire, StreamLight & Pelican have disappointed me, sometimes, in their replies, giving a response not related to what I inquired about.

In most of my e-mail correspondence with most manufacturers of flashlights, they just don't answer the simply stated questions. It's bad PR because they appear to be incompetent when, in fact, that's not the case.

The heat sealed packaging that is used is often as a point of sale requirement of the retail stores who sell the products, particularly if they are displayed on hooks on store shelves. The primary reason is to minimize the theft potential (also hence the large size of some of the packages.) The larger heat sealed packaging helps minimize the cost for additional loss prevention (security) personnnel, enabling lower operating costs. As a side benefit, people are less likely to return the product after they've destroyed the packaging. Additionally, the heat sealed packaging shows clear evidence of opening should someone decide to try and replace the product with another one (an older model, a broken product, a broken product purchased from an auction site, etc.) and does reduce the potential that another customer ends up getting the replaced product. Some retailers, like the warehouse stores, have pretty strict requirements for heat sealed packaging including the package dimensions, and there are companies that are around solely for the purpose of packaging products that are destined for these warehouse stores (look at the package information card on those packages and you'll often see who actually packaged the product.)

Insofar as getting technical information on products like flashlights, it might be more helpful to try and reach their repair or technical departments rather than someone in Customer Service or Sales.

And if you use a reasonably sharp knife (or even a pair of reasonably heavy duty scissors) and cut along the edge just inside of the heat seal, you should be able to get the contents out without destroying the information card. I usually just open one or two adjacent sides of the package (usually without even removing the flashing) to get the contents out, and if I return product, I can get everything back into the package (survey the package first to see which sides will give you the easiest access to the contents.)

jayflash said:

Trying to extricate technical information from even the best manufacturers is as difficult as removing their products from the packaging.

Princeton Tec's heavy plastic packages are secure yet can be opened on one end and is hinged on the other. This was the case for the particular lights I received from them. Why do so many other companies have welded plastic shells that require a knife to open, if you don't wan't to destroy the informational insert, which will happen using a scissors? The thick, hard, slippery nature of most plastic product shells invites injury to one's self & the contents. Is it necessary to use that much plastic (thereby oil)?

PT's customer service (Jason) dropped the ball, big-time, in two requests for simple product information. Had I not already been familiar with their quality, I'd never have purchased anything from them based upon my customer service experience. SureFire, StreamLight & Pelican have disappointed me, sometimes, in their replies, giving a response not related to what I inquired about.

In most of my e-mail correspondence with most manufacturers of flashlights, they just don't answer the simply stated questions. It's bad PR because they appear to be incompetent when, in fact, that's not the case.

Click to expand...

I've also found that it's really hard to get answers to the actual questions posed in emails. It happens to me all of the time. On the other hand I'm afraid that sometimes I'm just as bad. I'll read a whole post but something in the first paragraph will really grab me and I often miss important details that may follow. It shows in my replies.

I have a theory that states that man's ability to communicate effectively is inversely proportional to the technological level of communication tools available to him.

As an example, when the founding fathers corresponded it often took weeks for a letter to travel from one colony to another and then a few weeks for the reply to get back. They had to communicate well (very well) in those letters because an omission or a fuzzy passage could take months to clarify, particularly when the widely separated men were trying to reach a consensus with more than just two parties.

IMO this is the main reason that their writings are so clear when read today, hundreds of years later. They had to both read and write very well to get anything done.

Fast-forward to today where we have cell phones, IM, email, pagers, text messaging -- a plethora of technological tools to communicate with. Those tools allow you to call someone in his car while he's only ten minutes from the cafe you agreed to meet him at for lunch and change your date. It no longer matters whether the two of you got it right when the date was made. We can fix any mistakes we now make when communicating -- sort of. The problem is that we feel that we don't have to communicate precisely anymore because the tools we have available to us make it seem that we may correct any mistake on the fly, when in actuality it doesn't really work that way at all.

Now, what else were you talking about?