Retailers regularly get emails from people asking for large orders, then writing a cheque for much more than the total and asking for us to quickly return the excess money. Of course, they want us to send the money before the counterfeit cheque bounces.
But this time we thought we’d have a little fun: http://www.chessbaron.co.uk/tables-turned.php. Could the scammer be scammed?
After a good number of years operating ChessBaron Canada we would like to announce that we are passing the torch to the new owner of the business – Will Havenaar.
We would very much like to express our appreciation to all of our customers in Canada. It has been a real pleasure being of service to you.
Will is very experienced in running customer oriented businesses. We are confident that ChessBaron Canada’s reputation for quality and service will be in safe hands.
Wishing you all the very best,
Jonathan
I would like to say a few words about customer service. This is not a promotional blog about ChessBaron‘s own high standards, but rather a short contemplation on how companies set the bar for each other. First I’ll give Amazon a plug. 
I noticed that the keys were starting to wear on my Kindle after about 18 months usage, so I gave them a call about the matter. My expectation was that I’d probably get the “out of warranty … give you a small discount of a new one” type of routine. To my pleasant surprise Amazon very quickly acknowledged the problem and arranged for a brand new replacement to be sent out which I received in less than 48 hours from my call. Wow. In my experience that is rare service these days.
I will contrast that with the provider of our mobile phones services. I don’t care to name them here but the company is a leading provider in Canada. Only 2 months ago I purchased a new Sony Ericsson Experia Arc for my wife (her previous phone can now be viewed in the Royal Ontario Museum). We took the phone on our recent road trip loaded with music and ready to collect all sorts of photo and video memories on the generous 16Gb Micro SD card that came with the phone. However a few days into the trip the card failed. We lost the music, and would have lost all the photos and videos up to that point if we had not had the sense to back them up. Not only was the card unreadable, it also heated up the phone so that we could have cooked a small fillet mignon on it while we were camping. It was unfortunate, but we understand that hardware fails. The supplier can’t do much about that. What they can do is quickly rectify the problem, but in this case the company initially shirked all responsibility. The store referred me to the telephone support line. The telephone support line referred me to the store. They offered to send the whole phone off for repair which would have left my wife without a phone for two weeks. I was informed that the SD card was basically a freebie with the phone and not covered under warranty (a freebie that would cost $40-50 for me to replace). Eventually my tenacity won through and they funded another card and the phone works fine. But what a paaaaaiiiiinful process.
Returning to my initial comments it is important for customer oriented companies to learn from their own experiences with suppliers. The more we can put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and treat them as we would want to be treated, the more everyone wins. Sure we have to trade a little profit margin on occasion in exchange for some goodwill but that is part of running a good business. We do well to remember that in our highly interconnected world it is very easy to establish a good or bad reputation. Not only that, but providing good customer service is just the right thing to do, and is more satisfying not only for the customer, but also for the provider.
For those customers who want to own a really beautiful set of pieces and board, but don’t know how to play chess…..we now offer a great chess book…just for you! Check out the site for Chess 101!!
Glad you’re back Jonathan! Sounds like you had a wonderful trip and your picture was beautiful! Time to gear up for your customers now, huh?
Well we drove almost 6000km around Eastern Canada and the USA, and now arrived safely back home. It was a great trip with some of the best scenery we have seen in North America. Did we play any chess? In all honesty no. Our days were too packed, and also my wife needs to learn to play (just as I need to learn Spanish – her family tongue). And so we played Boggle instead – our favourite word game.
We ate plenty of seafood of course – lobster, clams, mussels, scallops. In fact we may have only consumed red meat twice in the twenty days we were away. I can’t say that I missed it.
It’s difficult to say what was most outstanding on our trip. From the rugged coastline of Maine, the fascinating tidal system of the Bay of Fundy (see picture), the beautiful beaches of PEI, the awesome majesty of Cape Breton and the Cabot Trail, the history in Boston, to the pretty towns and beaches of Cape Cod – how could one choose?
Now we are back and ready to provide normal service to our customers. If you are looking for a chess set in Canada then please check out our range. We appreciate your patience while we were on the road.
For the UK,there is a special commemorative chess sets design just released – marking the Diamond Jubilee of HM the Queen in 2012 and celebrating the most important modern occasion of the British Monarchy. It commemorates the 60 years from 1952 since Queen Elizabeth’s accession. The chess set has been designed in partnership with St Georges Chapel in Windsor, the official residence of The Queen and depicts the ceremony of The Garter Day at Windsor Castle.
We will be taking a vacation during September, although our trusty travel chess set will come along for the ride. We wish we could take
Teddy the "Grand Master"
on this trip also, but he’s better off at home with our house sitters. We can check up on him from time to time with our newly installed IP Camera which we can monitor from our Sony Xperia Arc phone (it’s a great phone except for the local wi-fi that keeps dropping out). We’ll try to maintain a blog or two during our journey, which we hope will take us up through Maine, Nova Scotia, PEI and back down to Boston. I suspect some seafood will be involved most of the time. Yummy.
For all of our customers please note that orders can be placed on ChessBaron.ca during our absence, but the next dates for dispatch will be 1st October. Sorry about the temporary disruption and we thank you for your understanding.
The new chess set designs we have in the UK store are the following lines:
To our valued customers that may be affected by the severe storms on the east coast:
FedEx Express
Customers in the following states will be impacted by delays with package pickup and delivery operations:
Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina coastal areas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Eastern Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington DC
Additionally, facilities in Manteo, NC are closed and will not reopen until conditions are safe for pickup and delivery operations.
FedEx Ground
Customers in the following states will be impacted by delays with package pickup and delivery operations:
Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina coastal areas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Eastern Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia
We hope that everyone is safe and they can resume normal travel as soon as possible.
ChessBaron USA
