Subject:
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Re: The Knight Bus problem
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color
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Date:
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Fri, 14 May 2004 10:21:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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2003 times
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Martin Bruun wrote:
> What makes you think, that a company with an equity of about 950
> million US$ couldn't afford to scrap a set?
Maybe because it would cost money they currently don't have? Have you
followed the news about Legos financial situation or the massive layoffs
recently?
> The question is whether it would be a wise thing to do. You are
> probably right, that they can't produce an improved Knight Bus in
> time for the film. And I beliewe they are right when they say, that
> the color mismatch in the Knight Bus doesn't matter much to most
> kids.
Maybe some kids don't. But the set makes Lego look cheap as in "cheap
clone from china" - and even the chinese clone makers sets are better
than that. This might or might not noticed by parents, who might or
might not think twice the next time they spend US$30 on a toy.
Point is, that the way above market average prices of Lego sets have
been justified in the past with a superior quality of the product. If
they fail to reach that mark *and* the customers notice that, they can't
stick to those prices anymore. And this will hurt badly.
> Sorry I don't see any desperation and where do they say children are
> stupid and colorblind?
To quote the text from Lego Billund: "...the colour variation
does not play an important role to children...". OK, admittedly, they
did not write that kids are stupid or colourblind. But they act as if
they were.
> Ok, so 165 employees in customer service, TLC's active support and
> participation in fan created events and a dedicated team in community
> development is "active disinterest"
There are different levels of customer contact.
There are the call centers who take care of minor problems like the
increasing number of complains about missing or damaged pieces. This is
ok, as mistakes and accidents can happen with any product, and they have
to take care of this anyway. Their big problem is that they are getting
worse at the moment: people who contacted Lego support about the knight
bus have been replied to with standard letters about the grey and brown
colour change. Go figure.
This support and participation in fan created events has happened twice
in Europe so far (IIRC), and the one event I had the chance to
participate did not really yield that much. They put up some
Winni-The-Poo and other figurines for free, the had a building table for
the kids and a room for themselves where they exhibited a few of the
current sets. Yes, there was a Q&A that did help as much as discussing
with Jake ("I can't talk about it", "You'll love it" and "I don't
know" were the predominant answers). If I take into account that the
whole rest of the event was done, managed and paid by fans and visitors,
they had a big case of dirt cheap advertising with all that. In total,
the event support happens - as far as I can derive from the net - more
or less exclusively in the US, anyway.
And for community development - even those community developers have to
admit that their stand within the company is so weak that it is better
to contact the call centers about the problems that irk us. We were
lucky to do a bulk order at Lego last spring via Community Development.
But: The bricks have been paid for somewhere last summer, and i'm still
waiting for the last bricks (no, nothing exotic, just a few hundred red
slopes 45 2x2 double convex in red). Anything else of the job seems to
be a kind of company spokesperson stuff. The new guy in Europe for
example has so far only posted translations of Jakes Lugnet postings,
and has joined the chat a few times. Yes, he is new, but so far his
visibility is extremely low. Even some of the more patient members have
raised the question whether he was only hired as a translator. I
sincerely hope that he gets better than that in the future.
Until now, the CD persons only started to react when the noise went up
considerabely, but - as Jake admitted - way too late to change anything.
And their "Great Achievements" with legend sets and similar were (IMHO)
not that impressive, either.
> You have to explain what the term "active interest" would be then.
Well, so far I have not seen CD reactions to the knight bus problem or
the other quality issues that came up in the recent months like the
question about different height of plates, and such. This is one
of the areas where they should be way more active. Maybe Jakes "Top
Secret" project is something that is intended to really help us, but the
way he communicated it simply sucks, and the outcome is undetermined.
What I expect from a community contact person is proactive communcation
and action, i.e. when people started to discuss about the knight bus
problem, and it became an issue that was not limited to a few sets, I
would expect such a contact to respond to this, even if it is only a
note along the lines of "OK, I noticed that you see this as a problem,
I'll see what the stuff is all about.". Jake or whoever could easily
order such a set internally and see that the problem is real, find the
person responsible for these quality issues and talk to him/her. This
would be a prime example of "active interest". This did not happen.
> Agreed they have made great stuff in the past, not like those crappy
> Santa Fe trains, UCS sets, sculptures and Designer sets they make
> now... right..
Not that I'm really impressed by them. There have been the two
outstanding sets so far (Siskinds Smithy and those Santa Fe waggons,
both AFOL designs, not from Lego!), and a lot of unsolved quality issues
with the sets (bending parts, bad engineering, non-adhering stickers,
and more). Nontheless, I was talking about those sets that can actually
be bought in real shops, and this is where it becomes a real horror
show. The new Knights Kingdom eases the pain about bley insofar as the
sets were not purchase-worthy anyway by their overall design. If that
design was even acceptable, I would have been torn between my urge to
collect the new castle sets and the decision not to buy bley sets.
Luckily, I'm not. The Lego world police state sets is nothing I would
buy for my kid for paedagigical reasons from the very beginning.
Bionicle ist the same, a trading card ripoff put in plastic.
The only big plus so far (although I don't know if this was due to
community development or not) are the PAB shops, even though their
selection and pricing is more or less abysmal.
Yours, Christian
PS: Yes, I know I'm getting emotional about all this. Both the
companies' attitude and Jakes way of communicating "great new things"
are really getting on my nerves recently. I promise to go on holidays in
two weeks time and won't bother you for some days.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: The Knight Bus problem
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| (...) Yes, actually I have. Trust me on this, it will take several years with results like the one for 2003 to bring this company to it's knees. It is still a very well-consolidated company. And should the results get worse, they have a very wealthy (...) (20 years ago, 14-May-04, to lugnet.color)
| | | Re: The Knight Bus problem
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| (...) Yea. It is sad. But it is also a reason to try and step up support. They are really one of the few companies that are trying to get it right, rather than just pandering to us and (more strongly) our children. And by us, I don't mean AFOLs, but (...) (20 years ago, 15-May-04, to lugnet.color, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Knight Bus problem
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| (...) I agree, I don't think this particular set lives up to TLC's core values nor their quality policy as it is expressed in their latest annual report page 21 "In LEGO Company we aim to exceed our Consumer's expectations of our products, our (...) (20 years ago, 14-May-04, to lugnet.color)
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