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 12:09:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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2328 times
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In lugnet.color, Christian Treczoks wrote:
> 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?
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 parent
company (Kirkbi A/S) behind them. This is the company who btw owns the majority
of the stocks in Modulex A/S (the small bricks, signs etc.), Eskofot Purup A/S
(packaging material) and invests in real estate.
The layoffs are about downsizing to the current activity, it is not the same as
the ship is sinking.
>
> > 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.
Can't argue with that, I agree wholeheartedly.
The Knight Bus is a very unfortunate mistake, but in the present situation, seen
from a strict economical viewpoint, I think they are better of, by still selling
it and then hopefully fixing the problem in future production of this set.
> snipped
>
> 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.
Of course, they mistakes, and it would be better if they didn't, but I must say
that customer service is usually very good. Way better than many other companys
> 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.
Well, they have been present on many more occasions than just two. In april Jake
McKee and Bjarke H. Nielsen showed up at the first Danish Afol-gathering for
just 30 or so people on a sunday afternoon. And the level of contact with
different Afol-groups keeps growing.
> 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.
Well, compare with 3 or 4 years ago, which would you prefere?
> And their "Great Achievements" with legend sets and similar were (IMHO)
> not that impressive, either.
Can't argue with your personal opinions. I think they have done a good job.
Let's face it, everyone has their favourite sets and not all can have what they
want.
> > 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.
Yes, but sometimes all we have to do as Afol's is to ask. It only took a few
hours for Bjarke H. Nielsen yesterday to get an answer to the purple problem.
We need to look at ourselves too. This morning a very speculative thread emerged
on BrickLink about whether the new Maersk Set was a fake or not. All it took was
one person to call a contact within TLC and ask.
> 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.
I think this is a prime example of trying to be proactive from TLC
> 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.
Yes, that would indeed had been nice, agreed.
> > 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).
I don't think you are fair here. They have made a lot of good stuff recently.
> 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.
Well Bionicle is a top-seller, The latest Adventure sets were great, World City
looks promising to me. There has been a lot of good stuff in the Spiderman sets
lately and remember how technic was declared dead by many Afols just a few years
ago. I agree that the new Catle sets looks too juniorized, but hey owerall I
think they are doing allright at the moment.. Oh I forgot the Designer sets
again, they are good stuff you can buy in regular shops too.
> 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.
Martin
Who refuses to be pessimistic about the future for TLC
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Knight Bus problem
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| (...) There are people which still believe the above is true. Everything below is just my personal opinion so there is no reason to jump on me in these sensitive times (hi larry ;) ) The last 'true' Technic set is the Barcode Truck (1997). Then (...) (21 years ago, 14-May-04, to lugnet.color)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Knight Bus problem
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| (...) 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? (...) Maybe some kids don't. But the set makes Lego look cheap as in "cheap clone from (...) (21 years ago, 14-May-04, to lugnet.color)
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