How To Do Customer Service The Gorillapod Way

There doesn’t seem to be a reason. It looks fine. I haven’t mistreated it. I can pop it back in, but it’s not very sturdy.

joby.jpgAs you probably know, I am a photographer. I love taking pictures and I have all sorts of accessories for my camera. Among the best things I have is a gift from my daughter Stefanie (possibly the nicest, most thoughtful gift she’s ever given me), a Gorillapod.

A Gorillapod is a small, extremely flexible tripod. You can use it on a desktop or put it on the ground like a regular tripod. Where it differs is when you bend its legs. For instance, you can bend its legs around a light pool or the railing on a deck.

The Gorillapod turns nearly anything into a camera brace. It scratches a photographer’s major itch.

Recently, while playing with mine, one of the Gorillapod’s legs popped from its socket. I can push it back in, can no longer safely trust the pod to hold when its legs are wrapped around something.

I fired off an email:

My daughter gave me a Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM for my birthday last year. It’s quite a nice present for a photographer. I’ve only used it a dozen or so times, but when I went to use it a few days ago, one of the legs popped out of its socket. It did so at the very top where it connects to the ‘camera platform.’

There doesn’t seem to be a reason. It looks fine. I haven’t mistreated it. I can pop it back in, but it’s not very sturdy.

I’m not sure what to do. It will be fine as a ‘standard’ small tripod, but I can no longer trust it to hold my SLR by wrapping the legs… which, of course, is its advantage.

Is there something I can do, or a warranty under which it can be repaired?

The next day I got an email from Helga at Gorillapod’s parent company, Joby.

Hi Geoff,

I’m so sorry this happened to your SLR-ZOOM.

Could you please send me a photo of the damaged Gorillapod w/ the Joby logo showing and the type of camera you were using?

Do you know where it was purchased?

Please send me your address and phone number as well.

Thank you!

~Helga

I did and promptly got another email.

Hi Geoff,

We will send you a new one that will ship out today.

Again, I’m so sorry that this is happening.

Thanks and hope you’re having a great day!

~Helga

And today, in a plain yellow padded envelope, my new Gorillapod.

I am astounded. This is too easy. It’s as if good customer service matters to them! What a concept.

This is a really good product – very useful. Just as important, it’s a product the manufacturer is proud of and stands behind. There’s something in short supply today.

Why can’t every service story end this way?

6 thoughts on “How To Do Customer Service The Gorillapod Way”

  1. I’m glad to see that good customer service matters to some people still.

    After dealing with the god-awful people at Sprint when they screw up my phone bill, it made me lose faith in the customer service industry as a whole…

  2. That’s an excellent story. The folks behind Gorillapod are to be commended for their great customer service.

    One thing, though: my inner engineer says that, were it my product that broke, I’d send a self-addressed stamped envelope with the replacement, so you could send the broken one back to me. That way I could figure out what went wrong. Continuous improvement, and all that.

    Anyway, kudos to the folks at Joby.

  3. On a recommendation you made in a previous post on your Gorillapod, I went ahead a purchased one for my Rebel XTi. The online ordering process was smooth and tracking information was immediately sent. However, several days went by and the shipment shows that it never left. A call to Joby was quickly answered (by a live human being by the way) and they apologized for the delay, promised to look into my problem and regardless of what was going on, promised a second item in a priority overnight sent out the same day. True to their word, the next morning a Gorillapod arrived and several emails were also sent along ensuring that I received the replacement and an explanation of where the first one ended up (FedEx found it in the corner of a sorting facility and returned it). Like you, I was very happy with the service they provided! It’s rare nowadays and that’s sad!

  4. For a while now I had been reluctant to purchase a Gorillapod, but after reading these posts, I just went and added one to my amazon wish list. I’m looking forward to adding it to my growing list of camera toys.

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