Tumi Or Not Tumi? There Is No Question

Does it ever feel like customer service is dead? That a brand standing behind its product is something from a bygone era? Because to me it does on an almost daily basis. Perhaps I have high expectations, or perhaps businesses today have absolutely no accountability to their customers.

That is why I was so delighted today to find that, to my complete surprise, Tumi does not fall into this category. I lent my bag (pictured above) to Junna for her trip to NYC. Upon her return, she collected her luggage from the carousel and found that the entire wheel and wheel casing were missing. The bottom corner of the bag looked like it had been blown off with a shotgun. We contacted SFO baggage who–to no one's surprise–explained they were not responsible for ANY damage to the luggage, and that if we have traveler's insurance that might cover it.

Yes, of course. Traveler's insurance. Of course we have that.

Fools.

Anyway, we were going to contact Virgin America–who are the best people flying planes these days by a mile–and hope that perhaps they would be willing to take some ownership for the completely-destroyed, now-unusable piece of luggage.

Before we got around to that Junna recommended I bring the bag into the Tumi store and see if it was at all fixable. I was sure it was beyond repair, but I made the trip anyway. I walked into the downtown San Francisco location on Grant St. fully anticipating to be completely disappointed. I approached the counter and held up my mangled bag and said I was wondering if the damage might be able to be repaired. The fellow took the bag from me, held it up to examine it, and started to say,

"Ummmm..."

I knew that sound. It was the sound of a salesman pretending that he cared about your problem before explaining it was just that–your problem. The salesman, whose name just happened to be Ryan (great name), looked up and finished his sentence with, "Yeah I can fix this for you. When do you need it back?"

Still skeptical, I said "No hurry whatsoever. Whenever is fine." He said he could have it ready for me Monday and to just write down my name and number on the pad of paper that was sitting in front of me on the counter.

Now this was nice and all, but I wanted to know what it was going to cost. I asked, and he explained it would be free, and that they have all the parts on-site, but that even if they didn't and they had to ship it to be repaired, it would still be free.

I was dumbfounded.

He went on to say, "That's why you buy a Tumi bag" and I followed that immediately with "And that's why I will always buy a Tumi bag from now on."

I recommend you do the same, as well.

Thank you Tumi for completely going above and beyond my expectations and serving as a perfect example of exemplary customer service in an age of automated help lines, no return/no exchange policies, and mostly apathetic sales representatives.

It truly made my day.