Giving me a hard time? (email)

From an email this morning...

"I am very dissapointed with your product. The Arc flashlight appeared to be large on your website, you didn't specify the dimensions? Why? I bought those a few months back for 20 USD each!! "

and my reply (I hope I wasn't lacking in graciousness)...

" Hello (ID omitted by me to protect their privacy). No offense, but are you serious? We have a close relationship with our customers and sometimes they like to joke with the owner.

But just in case...

- On the front page of our website (arcflashlight.com), we have a picture of the Arc-AAA next to a quarter, nickel and dime. This was done specifically to show how small (usually a desireable quality with our customers) the light is.

- The exact size and weight is mentioned on our "flashlight details" page at http://store.yahoo.com/flashlight/flasin.html

- Our literature also says the light is powered by a, "single AAA cell", which is a small battery.

- From our review page, http://store.yahoo.com/flashlight/reviews.html :

"It's tiny and it's practical."
"..easily the smallest and brightest single cell white LED flashlight in existence today. A miniature step-up power converter inside the tiny head makes it possible to run a 4 volt white LED with only a single 1.5 volt AAA cell. " "..same brightness as the Trek-1, a 3 "AA" single LED flashlight that's many times the Arc's mass."
"..designed to be as small and bright as possible.."
"..small, bright, and durable. It takes normal inexpensive AAA batteries.."

We are happy to credit you for any of our lights you have purchased in the past 30 days.

--
Peter Gransee

Happy Thanksgiving all.

Sometimes you just can't win

Tell him that if he return the light, that you will glue it inside a lead pipe of a length and diameter of his choosing. Then, he cannot complain about it being too small.

Same sort of thing happens with the Brinkmann Legend LX. I bought one, called customer service to order extra bulbs. Got talking about ways to improve things, and the guy told me that the only complaint they get, is people buy it assuming it is a 2AA flashlight. Guess they don't bother to look at the batteries or read the package. Duh!

I certainly try to be an "informed" consumer. I have to educate myself as to what I'm buying for the dollars I'm willing to put forth. Unfortunately there are those who don't take the time to "read" and comprehend!

Take a look or listen to some of today's commercials on the television and radio. Some are so "insulting" to intelligence, one has to wonder who they are trying to target! If it's the majority of the populace, hold on are we in trouble!

It took the complainant "a few months" to realize what size the ARC AAA is? Please.....just doesn't sound right does it!

Tell him to take his Arc AAA and make it stick out of the zipper in his pants.
It will "appear" much larger that way.

From the sounds of it, some meaning may be getting lost in translation to english.

I read the passage thrice and cannot determine the exact nature of the disappointment. If the complaint is that the [presumably] ARC AAA is dimensionally too small, please direct him to the Infinity product.

Perhaps the individual was looking for the Infinity product, thought the ARC AAA was indeed the Infinity product for a lower price, and made the purchase. A simple mistake from not doing the research adequately may have resulted.

The individual may prefer or only has access to AA batteries, or has inordinately large hands that make operating the ARC AAA difficult.

Interesting that the [seemingly] preference is for a larger product. We as flashaholics strive to find the most light output from as dimunitive a package as engineeringly (is that a real word?!) possible. From this topic, it is evident that we are indeed a very small (but discriminating) population sample of the overall flashlight user public.

Have I obfuscated that enough?

I'm returning mine because they're too damn BIG.

Originally posted by d'mo:
From the sounds of it, some meaning may be getting lost in translation to english.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes, that is my guess as well.

Peter

I guess I can fiqure out why he was upset about the size. Up here in Canada, if we saw an item photographed next to our money, we'd think it was a lot bigger too.

http://www.siriuslite.com/size.htm

Is that a flashlight in your pocket or....... ah never mind

Cool Pic

just cant please some folks.
i wouldnt lose any sleep over it.

That is strange feedback. One might guess that customer would simply be suprised that the light was that bright for its small size . I guess they thought they were buying some type of macho, oversized, bat with a bulb on the end... Oh well don't let the bad apple in the barrel bring you down.

Peter,

Just remember that we humans do have a pronouced tendency for irrationality at times. It's just our nature. Your professionalism, as always in these forums, stands in contrast.

Byron

EDITED

[No message]

I must confess,that billboard of those coins in the background behind the arc aaa had me going there for a while myself! After ordering my first AAA I spent more hours than I care to admit hurriedly preparing the roof rack on my suv for it's arrival. Perhaps in the future you might consider a new approach, maybe a photo holding the arc in your hand or something. Then again, there's always the Lilliputian,man,or giant conundrum.
DAMN!!!
I'll figure something out!!
STEELHEAD

I think the guy was just sitting too close to the screen. It's actual size if you're far enough away.

The last Ford I bought looked way bigger in real life than on the computer, btw.