Just how far will a company go to satisfy their customers? Well,
here's a tale for you.....

Way back at the start of this year, there was a great and wondrous
sale of the mythical Bessey Clamps. The sale was initiated by Lee
Valley and none other than Rob Lee Esq.

Down here (and I do mean DOWN here) we were feeling a little left-out
and unfortunate that we didn't have the same great deal that you guys
in the US and Canada had on offer (due to killer shipping costs).

On one of the Wreck's moderated sister groups in Oz, we began to make
comments and the occasional "what if?" arose. It was suggested that a
container should be shipped jointly by the group members, followed by
the beginnings of a discussion for a bulk buy. Then Rob Lee, who is
hereby granted the status of honorary Aussie, stepped in with an
admission that he was under e-mail bombardment from Oz, and offered to
check freight forwarders for volume prices.

With that post, Rob doomed himself and his staff to four months of
hard work and an ongoing barrage of e-mails and orders from a host of
long-neglected Aussie woodworkers.

(please note that the cut-off date for orders was the same as the US
date)

To say that the thread got its share of attention is an
understatement. To date there have been over 23,753 views and 495
posts. These resulted in a rather large order being gathered together
and shipped to the other side of the earth to a destination in Sydney,
to be broken down and on-forwarded to individual sites.

It has been an object lesson in willful logistics. Dozens of
woodworkers joining together with a company overseas to arrange the
details. People volunteering to perform distribution and other tasks.
Others voluntarily increasing their payments to ensure the organizers
get 'something' for their efforts.

The savings have been substantial. The effort immense. The timescale
lengthy. The enjoyment - substantial.

Thanks Rob, to you and your staff for their special effort. Whenever
people with like minds band together it is amazing what can be
accomplished. In particular, the photos and updates were great! We all
learned a lot about LV through the virtual tour and got to meet some
of the staff. (special thanks to the Internet orders team).

I like tools that have a story attached to them, and these will be
part of the "Great Oz Bessey Story", to be retold for a long time in
Australian woodworking circles. It will, and already has, raised the
bar for customer service down here.

Your staff and the Company are a credit to the industry, well done. I
hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and still are.

Groggy

Oh, and the link to the thread? Look he
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=14316&page=13&pp=40

Groggy wrote:
Just how far will a company go to satisfy their customers? Well,
here's a tale for you.....

Way back at the start of this year, there was a great and wondrous
sale of the mythical Bessey Clamps. The sale was initiated by Lee
Valley and none other than Rob Lee Esq.

Down here (and I do mean DOWN here) we were feeling a little left-out
and unfortunate that we didn't have the same great deal that you guys
in the US and Canada had on offer (due to killer shipping costs).

On one of the Wreck's moderated sister groups in Oz, we began to make
comments and the occasional "what if?" arose. It was suggested that a
container should be shipped jointly by the group members, followed by
the beginnings of a discussion for a bulk buy. Then Rob Lee, who is
hereby granted the status of honorary Aussie, stepped in with an
admission that he was under e-mail bombardment from Oz, and offered to
check freight forwarders for volume prices.

With that post, Rob doomed himself and his staff to four months of
hard work and an ongoing barrage of e-mails and orders from a host of
long-neglected Aussie woodworkers.

(please note that the cut-off date for orders was the same as the US
date)

To say that the thread got its share of attention is an
understatement. To date there have been over 23,753 views and 495
posts. These resulted in a rather large order being gathered together
and shipped to the other side of the earth to a destination in Sydney,
to be broken down and on-forwarded to individual sites.

It has been an object lesson in willful logistics. Dozens of
woodworkers joining together with a company overseas to arrange the
details. People volunteering to perform distribution and other tasks.
Others voluntarily increasing their payments to ensure the organizers
get 'something' for their efforts.

The savings have been substantial. The effort immense. The timescale
lengthy. The enjoyment - substantial.

Thanks Rob, to you and your staff for their special effort. Whenever
people with like minds band together it is amazing what can be
accomplished. In particular, the photos and updates were great! We all
learned a lot about LV through the virtual tour and got to meet some
of the staff. (special thanks to the Internet orders team).

I like tools that have a story attached to them, and these will be
part of the "Great Oz Bessey Story", to be retold for a long time in
Australian woodworking circles. It will, and already has, raised the
bar for customer service down here.

Your staff and the Company are a credit to the industry, well done. I
hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and still are.

Groggy

Oh, and the link to the thread? Look he
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=14316&page=13&pp=40

It's nice to hear a story like that, and see people get recognition.

And it's always nice when a company goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Always enjoy shopping at Lee Valley...

--
Will
Occasional Techno-geek

"Groggy" wrote in message

Oh, and the link to the thread? Look he

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...6&page=13&pp=4
0

Geez guys. As far as I could see the a large part of the clamping interest
seemed to be everybody wanting to clamp their hands on big busted blondes.

"Groggy" told a great story about Rob Lee and LV.

I don't want to sound like a curmudgeon or anything.

But what did you expect??

Rob Lee and Lee Valley are the good guys.

Rob, you should wear a white cowboy hat so everybody else can tell.

I found that to simply be an amazing story to read through. Good job to
everyone that helped on the whole thing. Nice to see not only a company
that reached and helped, but also the individuals that simply stood up and
said 'I'll do something'. Over the past few years I have become quite
cynical with regards to most of my fellow man, but stories like this give a
glimmer of hope.

SteveP.

"Groggy" wrote in message
news
Just how far will a company go to satisfy their customers? Well,
here's a tale for you.....

Way back at the start of this year, there was a great and wondrous
sale of the mythical Bessey Clamps. The sale was initiated by Lee
Valley and none other than Rob Lee Esq.

Down here (and I do mean DOWN here) we were feeling a little left-out
and unfortunate that we didn't have the same great deal that you guys
in the US and Canada had on offer (due to killer shipping costs).

On one of the Wreck's moderated sister groups in Oz, we began to make
comments and the occasional "what if?" arose. It was suggested that a
container should be shipped jointly by the group members, followed by
the beginnings of a discussion for a bulk buy. Then Rob Lee, who is
hereby granted the status of honorary Aussie, stepped in with an
admission that he was under e-mail bombardment from Oz, and offered to
check freight forwarders for volume prices.

With that post, Rob doomed himself and his staff to four months of
hard work and an ongoing barrage of e-mails and orders from a host of
long-neglected Aussie woodworkers.

(please note that the cut-off date for orders was the same as the US
date)

To say that the thread got its share of attention is an
understatement. To date there have been over 23,753 views and 495
posts. These resulted in a rather large order being gathered together
and shipped to the other side of the earth to a destination in Sydney,
to be broken down and on-forwarded to individual sites.

It has been an object lesson in willful logistics. Dozens of
woodworkers joining together with a company overseas to arrange the
details. People volunteering to perform distribution and other tasks.
Others voluntarily increasing their payments to ensure the organizers
get 'something' for their efforts.

The savings have been substantial. The effort immense. The timescale
lengthy. The enjoyment - substantial.

Thanks Rob, to you and your staff for their special effort. Whenever
people with like minds band together it is amazing what can be
accomplished. In particular, the photos and updates were great! We all
learned a lot about LV through the virtual tour and got to meet some
of the staff. (special thanks to the Internet orders team).

I like tools that have a story attached to them, and these will be
part of the "Great Oz Bessey Story", to be retold for a long time in
Australian woodworking circles. It will, and already has, raised the
bar for customer service down here.

Your staff and the Company are a credit to the industry, well done. I
hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and still are.

Groggy

Oh, and the link to the thread? Look he
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=14316&page=13&pp=40

Groggy wrote:
Just how far will a company go to satisfy their customers? Well,
here's a tale for you.....

[snip of good story]
Groggy

Oh, and the link to the thread? Look he
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=14316&page=13&pp=40

I want to hear more about the BBBLMSs.
j4

In article .net,
jo4hn wrote:

I want to hear more about the BBBLMSs.

"Hear"??? SEE!!! JPEGS, man, jpegs.
--
Owen Lowe
The Fly-by-Night Copper Company
__________

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
Corporate States of America and to the
Republicans for which it stands, one nation,
under debt, easily divisible, with liberty
and justice for oil."
- Wiley Miller, Non Sequitur, 1/24/05

Have we misjudged Canada AND New Jersey? I think we all owe them an
apology. LV is a perfect example of what a company can really do for
their customers. Instead of having the "do as little as possible to
save money" attitude, they have the ,"do as much as possible so we can
make money" attitude. What a differnce, LV is! Great job, eh.

In article ,
WillR wrote:

It's nice to hear a story like that, and see people get recognition.

And it's always nice when a company goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Always enjoy shopping at Lee Valley...

I don't understand why Bessey wouldn't get off their corporate asses to
help out.

"Groggy" wrote in message
news snip

The savings have been substantial. The effort immense. The timescale
lengthy. The enjoyment - substantial.

snip


http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...6&page=13&pp=4
0

Hi Greg -

Thanks for the gracious post. We DID have a lot of fun with entire order.
All of you deserve the credit though...it was a large leap of faith on many
people's part...

Just think of how difficult it is to split a restaurant bill among 10
people... let alone an international shipment of 3000 pounds, duty, freight
taxes etc.

My only regret is not delivering the shipment personally... 'course, we had
dozens here who wanted to do the same...

Cheers -

Rob

Dealing with Lee Valley is not a large leap of faith!! Ya'll do what you
say. Thanks

Great story. It helps when a company lends a hand.
The fact that it was Lee Valley is no surprise - they
go the extra mile and then some for their customers.

When people get together cooperatively it's pretty
amazing what can be accomplished. The fact that
it was a bunch of Ozzies is truly amazing - you
guys are such independent folks, getting three of
you to agree on anything is pretty astounding.
Lots of folks scored some Karma Points on that
project.

Now if there were some way to do the same thing
for a bulk WoodRat order . . . A show of hands
please.

charlie b

charlie b wrote:
Great story. It helps when a company lends a hand.
The fact that it was Lee Valley is no surprise - they
go the extra mile and then some for their customers.

When people get together cooperatively it's pretty
amazing what can be accomplished. The fact that
it was a bunch of Ozzies is truly amazing - you
guys are such independent folks, getting three of
you to agree on anything is pretty astounding.
Lots of folks scored some Karma Points on that
project.

Now if there were some way to do the same thing
for a bulk WoodRat order . . . A show of hands
please.

charlie b

Hearing stories about companies that go that extra mile for customers
is great news but they need our support to stay in business. So let's
support them as much as we can so they can stay in business and we can
continue reading good news instead of Taiwan built crap and overseas
customer support that barely speak English and are a totally waste of
45 + minutes on the phone.
By the way I'm not affiliated with Lee Valley just want to support them
so that the Borgs don't drive them out. That's why I never shop at Wall
Mart and avoid the Home Dump unless I have no other choice.

One way to help this is get their garden catalog!

On 17 May 2005 04:34:42 -0700, wrote:

Hearing stories about companies that go that extra mile for customers
is great news but they need our support to stay in business. So let's
support them as much as we can so they can stay in business and we can
continue reading good news instead of Taiwan built crap and overseas
customer support that barely speak English and are a totally waste of
45 + minutes on the phone.