My wife and I own one of these. We used to think they were kind of silly, but a friend of ours bought one for his cats on his vet’s advice. His cats were afraid of it (inbred Siamese, scared of furniture), so they didn’t use it, and he asked us if we wanted it. Sure, we said, we’ll give it a shot.
Luckily, our cat loves it. Took him a couple of days to get used to it, but now he drinks more water than he did when we were putting still water in a bowl every day. We’re very happy. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to clean, but I’d rather scrub slimy kitty spit out of it every two weeks or so than have to worry about remembering to change the water bowl every day.
So anyway, a couple of days ago, the pump broke. It’s a little submersible motor, similar to what you’d use in an aquarium, that drives the fountain. Nothing obviously wrong with it, but it’s a pretty cheap little gadget, so I wasn’t surprised when it just quit after a year and a half or so. I looked on the manufacturer’s site and found a replacement for fifteen bucks. It’s about what I expected to pay, and our cat really likes the fountain, so I ordered it off the website without a second thought.
But then we get an email from the manufacturer, saying, in effect: These pumps quit all the time. They’re sensitive to clogging. Please see the attached instructions for taking it apart and cleaning it, and let us know whether that fixes the problem, and whether you still want to order the pump.
Let me repeat what happened: I was going to give them money, and they said, no, you don’t need to buy anything from us, because it’s probably easily fixable, and here’s how.
So I went home, followed the instructions, and sure enough, I had it working again in fifteen minutes. For free.
On the one hand, you have to wonder how a company that does that can expect to stay in business. Including shipping for the device, I was going to give them twenty bucks, without complaint, and they said no thanks, you’re spending money unnecessarily. But then, on the other hand, I’m so impressed that they’d do this that barring future catastrophe I’m now a loyal customer. They thought it was more important to give me good and thorough customer service than to let me give them a few dollars I didn’t have to give them.
In other words, they’re thinking long term: Even if I replace the pump, it’ll likely clog up and quit in another year or two, which might make me consider checking out the competition for a more reliable product (or abandon the fountain idea entirely). Instead, they’d rather refuse my money, because it makes more sense to have me continue buying replacement filters for the fountain, which over the course of each successive year will equal the cost of the pump.
That’s just plain good business: Keep the customer happy, and you’ll get more money from them in five years, than if you provide shitty service and get more money in the first two years but then nothing thereafter. It seems obvious, but it’s shockingly rare in our current climate of short-term thinking, where five dollars this month is seen as being worth more than a hundred dollars at the end of the year.
Anyway, I was hugely impressed, and I thought it was worth sharing. I don’t know if anybody else has had similar (or contrary) experiences with Petmate, but based on this, I’ll be going back to them first when shopping for things for my cat.
