TCFF | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019 | 89“Your call is important to us” continued from page 90
marginal cost of one extra rod. It’s also
an example of how competitive markets
work to the consumer’s advantage. I
don’t know which manufacturer was first
to offer the lifetime guarantee, but once
one of them does it, the pressure is on the
others to follow suit. I have never really
considered the guarantee as a deciding
point when buying a rod, but given the
cost, let alone the heartache if you are
unfortunate enough to break one, it is a
comforting thought.Almost every business I know bleats
about how important their customers
are to them, but if you really look at
it, frankly, most of them don’t give a
monkey’s. At the top of my pet hates are
cell-phone companies, followed by banks.
Almost all of them try to parade them-
selves as the customer’s friend, but just
try to get service when you really need it,
or even worse, talk to a real person who is
empowered to make a decision, let alone
the endless menus where you have to
select a button to push, when none of
the options you are offered really is what
you are after.Then there is the hurdle of entering
your ID number, your pulse rate, blood
pressure (rising all the time), what you
had for dinner last night, and then press
hash. I’m not even sure if “hash” is the
correct name for this symbol. To me, it
looks a bit like a glyph, which is the sign
for a sharpened note in music. Then, of
course, when you finally get through, the
operator tells you that you need to have
the call transferred to another depart-
ment, and then it goes dead... and youSo happy was I with the rod that I
wanted to share its effortless beauty. It
was with this in mind that I insisted that
Herman, a connoisseur of all to do with
fly fishing, try it out, and so he did. Un-
fortunately, however, it left the lodge as
a two-piece, but came back as a three-
piece, which is not really what Orvis had
in mind when they designed the thing. It
was certainly neither his fault nor his
negligence, but Herman, being the sport-
ing gent that he is, of course offered
to pay (although he may have been
restrained by a more financially
prudent Mrs Jass) but equally, I
declined. Rather, I thought, let me
see what Orvis would do, as the rod
had a replacement guarantee, as I re-
call, for 25 years. So I thought, let me
return it to them (with an admission
of guilt) and wait. I was also unclear
if the rod had been in my collection
for more than 25 years, so I had little
expectation, and would not have
felt hard done by had the claim been
repudiated.Well, it wasn’t and some months
later I got a call from the guys at
Mavungana, who had sent it off for
me, saying that there was a package
from Orvis – and there it was: a
brand-new, four-piece fuller-action
7ft 4-wt rod in the Superfine Carbon
series. An absolute beauty and a higher-
grade model than my previous rod had
been, so how’s that for standing by your
product and giving service to your cus-
tomers – and that’swhat I am writing
about. Did Orvis have to replace my rod
on a no-quibble basis? Certainly not, and
I don’t think any reasonable person could
have felt hard done by had they not, but
one thing is for sure, they will have a loyal
customer in me forever and a day.Now I know that most of the premium
rod makers offer guarantees, and we must
assume that they are in business to stay
in business, so they must have carefully
weighed the costs against the benefits
of offering these no-quibble or lifetime
guarantees. Perhaps they hired a roomful
of actuaries to build financial models
based around the probabilities of anglers
breaking rods and then bothering to
return them, and figured that the num-
bers were on their side. Or, perhaps they
realised that the return in terms of good-
will and the positive PR one gets from
a happy customer greatly exceeds thehave to start all over again, now with a
pulse rate that is totally off the dial and
you are a millisecond away from an
apoplectic seizure.Real customer service is hard to find,
which is why I am pleased to say that
almost all of the fly fishing shops I fre-
quent have a genuine focus on keeping
their customers satisfied. Perhaps it’s be-
cause they are primarily fishermen them-
selves, and not call-centre operatives.
Can you imagine giving your local
shop a ring and being told to press 1
for salt water, 2 for tigers, 3 for wet
flies, 4 for waders and so on, and
then having to key in your birth date,
tax number, and finally your Eskom
account number, which is a mere 42
digits long. Now I’ll bet you have a
favourite fly shop and whatever
makes it special, I am pretty sure it
would be the recognition, smile and
welcome you get when you come in
the door. They don’t have to tell you
that your custom is important – it is
clear to you from their welcoming
smile. I would also wager that the
reason you go back time and again is
that you get great customer service.
After all, just like the rods, there are
many places you could spend your
hard-earned cash, so why go back
to a place where you are treated like an
interruption, rather than the very reason
for their continued existence.As for Orvis, when I got the rod I
called their service department in the
USA just to say how pleased I was with
their response, and that I would be writ-
ing them a note of thanks, which I hoped
would be read at various levels in the
organisation. I have often said in these
columns that I really like Orvis rods – I
have quite a number of them, and I don’t
think they have ever made a bad rod.
Perhaps my soft spot for this manufac-
turer is due to the fact that the first
expensive premium rod that I bought was
an Orvis 9ft four-piece 6/7-wt. I got it
from the old The Flyfisherman store in
Maritzburg and it was my prized posses-
sion for many a year, and in its wake I
must have bought at least another half a
dozen Orvises. I haven’t used it for years,
since I really don’t have a call for a 7-wt.
However, of one thing you can be sure,
if and when I am looking at a new rod,
Orvis will be my preference and first
choice.“CAN YOU IMAGINE GIVING
YOUR LOCAL SHOP A RING
AND BEING TOLD TO PRESS
1 FOR SALT WATER, 2 FOR
TIGERS, 3 FOR WET FLIES,
4 FOR WADERS AND SO ON,
AND THEN HAVING TO
KEY IN YOUR BIRTH DATE...”