Lego - free replacement parts and fantastic customer service

jap200

I feel moved to pass on my views in the excellent customer service provided by Lego.

All you mums and dads out there must know how frustrating it is for your child (and therefore for you) when a 'vital' piece of lego goes missing from a set. However, not many people seem know that that Lego offer a replacement service for missing or lost parts, which in most cases is free.

You can access this on-line here:

http://www.lego.com/eng/service/replacementparts.asp

and you do not need to provide any proof of purchase.

I used it once to replace a lost part of a Lego Bionicle, a second time to replace 10 small parts that were missing from some Harry Potter lego bought at a car boot sale, and just recently to replace a faulty part in a Lego duplo aeroplane set that we gave my youngest for Christmas.

The parts arrive by courier in about 2 weeks and are shipped directly from Denmark.

The aeroplane parts arrived this morning with a free gift of a Lego minifigure keyring (worth about £2.99 I think) and a kind letter of apology. Needless to say, my son is thrilled- which means that I am too.

This sort of excellent customer service is rare nowadays - but maybe not so rare in Denmark!

UK Companies take note!!

Anic

Another company from my experience with excellent customer service is Mattel.

I am a Beaver Scout Leader and always on the look out for good quality cheap presents for Santa to bring them at Christmas.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time in August last year and overheard a Supervisor telling a checkout operator in Boots that all the sale stuff on was reduced to £1 to clear it as they were being refurbished. I picked up a lot of good bargains including 24 Harry Potter Championship Quiddich and Rescue at Hogwarts games which had originally been over £20 each. Got to the till and prior to them being put through at £1 each they had been reduced and then a further third off so this came off as well so I got each game for only 66p. I couldn't believe my luck.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the game sat in my garden shed until Santa picked them up and delivered them to the Beaver Scouts at their party. The next day I happened to meet one of the dads and he told me that a vital part was missing from his sons game.

As it was so long since I bought them I obviously couldn't take it back to Boots (not that I really wanted a refund of 66p) so I sent an e-mail to Mattel on the Sunday morning to find out if I could buy a replacement part.

They sent a reply by 9.30 on the Monday morning apologising that they no longer had that game in stock and do not keep replacement parts for it and to give them a call to "come to some arrangement".

I telephoned them and the lady basically went through every game on their list and offered me whichever one I wanted as a replacement totally free of charge. As he is only seven years old I decided on a Robots Game (from the movie) and she offered to send it by courier so the wee boy would have it in time for Christmas. It arrived on the Wednesday morning and I delivered it to the wee boys house and he was delighted.

I asked if she wanted me to send the old game back but she told me to keep it in case we needed it for replacement parts for anybody else. I was really taken aback by the customer service as I was expecting to pay for a replacement part not get a brand new more expensive game free of charge.

jap200

This excellent level of customer service means that we are more likely to buy these brands again - and also to rave about them as we are doing here - so why can't all companies do this?