I am totally blown away by a customer service experience that happened today I simply have to share it. Great customer service deserves attention! And it needs to be emulated by as many companies as possible.
Two months ago I bought a mid-engine E-Bike at Aldi Suisse by Prophete for the unbelievable price of just 999 CHF. Recently I had an Error Message on the display, so I had to check the warranty terms. There is a 3 year (!) repair-at-home warranty for most sensible parts (engine, electronics etc.). There is a 10 year (!) warranty on the frame and the suspension. The Samsung battery has a warranty of 1 year.
Then there was the indication that I need to call Buchner GmbH, as they are the company with the service level contract. The person was super-friendly, filed my problem within 2 minutes and promised that a mechanic would visit me at home to repair the bike. First WOW moment! I never had a mechanic visiting me at home before. Feeling like a king :)
Today I had my appointment with the mechanic. It turned out that he was coming all the way from Austria and was performing all this work in Switzerland by coming by car from Austria, visiting all clients personally. He would spend 3–4 days per week in Switzerland, servicing 4–6 clients per day. He was probably the most friendly mechanic I have ever worked with.
He replaced the display and fixed some other minor things. Everything, including a test-drive and a nice conversation took about 45 minutes.
The most interesting part was the conversation with him. I have learned a lot:
- It’s not Aldi Suisse that is paying for the repairs, it’s the manufacturer, Prophete, a German company.
- He doesn’t know, but he and I estimated that Aldi Suisse probably sold more than 10’000 E-Bikes in Switzerland
- The engine is a Bosch engine. The battery is a Samsung battery.
- These sort of E-Bikes generally don’t break a lot.
- The E-Bikes are manufactured in Asia. There must be a very healthy margin if they can afford to offer such an outstanding warranty. First there is 8% VAT. Then I would guess a 20% margin for Aldi. Buchner needs to be paid. Production needs to be paid. Headquarters in Germany need to be paid. Seems like a healthy business.
- Every repair is documented in great detail. Every report goes back to the manufacturer. If Prophete is smart, they will use this feedback to create the perfect E-Bike. They also need to interview those mechanics, because there is a lot more knowledge in their heads about the strengths and weaknesses of the product. I would LOVE to see those reports. Then I would go and create the perfect E-Bike that would blow everyone away :)
- He even recommended that I might upgrade the bike with Magura H11 or Magura H33 breaks. I probably will do that!
- He also recommended that in winter to always take the battery inside. Cold and wet temperatures are not healthy for these kinds of batteries! I will probably do that as well.
He then went off to the next client. What a fantastic experience! And what a great feeling to have peace of mind for 3 full years!
I love you Aldi. I love you Prophet. I love you Buchner!
Please emulate this experience! Your clients will love you and write blog posts like this one about you!
