Tourneau Makes It Right

A couple of days after my ranting about the Tourneau incident (if you missed it, you can read about it here), I received this response from them on my blog:

Tourneau April 30, 2013 at 12:01 PM

We are sorry for any inconvenience and frustration this has caused. It is our understanding that this was resolved to your satisfaction however if you still have outstanding concerns or needs, please feels free to contact us. It would be our pleasure to assist you further.

The following was my response:

I'm not really sure how it is you think that you were of assistance, or that I ended up satisfied. I "resolved" this because I felt that, if I didn't take the gift certificates, I would end up with nothing. No one from your customer service ever contacted me. If you want me to be satisfied, I would like to turn in my $500 gift certificate for cash or a credit to my credit card.

I also received an email dated May 1 from Tourneau, saying that they could not find my wife’s original e-mail, and then going over their return policy and, once again, saying that they thought I was satisfied with the result.  I explained in a response back that just because I didn’t go ballistic in their store didn’t mean I was satisfied.  Again, I asked for flexibility in their policy.  In addition, @Tourneautimes asked me to DM them so we could go into more depth about the problem.  I did not respond to that.

In any case, later that same day, the Tourneau GM of my area called me, but I could not speak to her then, as I was in the middle of a project at work, and I asked if we could speak Friday.  She said that would be fine.  In the meantime, I received e-mail from Tourneau saying that, when I spoke to this person, I would be getting a $500 credit on the credit card that I made the purchase on.  On Friday, May 3, that transaction took place.

Those are the facts.  Now my commentary:

First, as I said in my previous post, I do not blame anyone at the Tourneau store or the GM.  I think they were very professional.  The GM apologized to me on the phone, and I told her it wasn’t her fault; she was just doing her job.  I believed that when she couldn’t help me, and I believe it now.

Second, I do believe that Tourneau ultimately did the right thing.  Whether they did that because I was tweeting about them, or they finally agreed that, given the circumstances, there should be flexibility on their part, I don’t know. 

Third, I can’t say I would ever buy a watch from them again, but I can’t say I wouldn’t either.  I think I would just be much more aware of their policies, and I would caution anyone buying anything expensive from any company to be aware of that company’s return policies before they complete the transaction.

But, I have to say that this ended up being a good learning experience, and I most definitely have a better taste in my mouth about Tourneau than I did a couple of weeks ago.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have gluten free polenta mushroom bolognese to make.