I'm once again tapping into a subject I found on one of the bigger bulletin boards. It's a tale of woe, of anticipation and longing and a wish that didn't come true - and it's a tale that could have had a reasonably happy (or at least not totally tragic) ending ... but didn't.
Someone (let's be really original and call her "someone") ordered a saddle for her horse - had the fitter out, had the measurements done, ordered the deluxe fancy leather / air panels / contrasting seat welting / bells and whistles Princess version once-in-a-lifetime saddle ... really shot the wad to the tune of about $5000.
Fast forward about 6 months, to the arrival of the long anticipated saddle. Not only was the saddle conspicuously minus many of the bells and whistles and Princess accessories "someone" had ordered ... it did not fit.
This is a pretty sad story in and of itself. But wait, it gets sadder: according to "someone", the fitter adjusted flocking, adjusted the seat, and did everything but stand on his/her head and whistle a tune while drinking cider through a straw ... and the fitter could not make the saddle fit.
Sadder yet: the fitter then tried to blame the bad fit on "someone" (even went so far as to infer that "someone" had packed on some poundage) and her horse.
The denouement? No refund. Too bad, so sad, but the saddle was "someone's" ... lacking bells, whistles and Princess accessories, AND not fitting either horse or rider. Eventually, "someone" did get the fitter to take the saddle back, but was still charged a 20% restocking fee (which, as any mathmatically gifted person can tell you, comes to a cool $1000).
Admittedly, I only have "someone's" side of this whole story ... but I gotta think, if "someone" is upset enough to air this whole experience on one of the major equine bulletin boards, something had to have gone wrong - and probably quite drastically so. So, while we may never know just who fell down, or where, here are some possibilities:
1) The Saddler Messed Up. It does happen - I mean, we're talking about a hand-crafted item here, and as statistician Marge N. Uverror will tell you, human beings are fallible. But usually, if the saddler messes up, it's only one thing - sometimes one very big thing, like the wrong color or the wrong tree - but it's rare that the whole saddle is a fiasco. In the roughly 10 years we've been ordering saddles to template, we've only had a handful of "mistakes" come through. And each time, the saddle company has stepped up and made things right.
2) The Fitter Messed Up. This happens, too - again, human fallibility. And to be brutally honest, the fitter probably messes up more frequently than the saddler. Fitters are out there taking templates and photos, measuring the rider, writing orders, noting modifications ... basically getting all the bells and whistles and Princess accessory details correct. And if a fitter is really busy, has customers stacked up, has an uncooperative horse (or owner ... yes, they do exist) ... it's not that hard to mismark or skip over something. I bust my butt to make sure the template and photos are correct - I'll do a tracing over (and over, and over) if I think something may be inaccurate. And still, I've screwed up. Not very often, and not recently ... but I have before and I'd be foolish to think I won't again. And when that happens, we step up and make things right.
3) The Horse Went and Changed. As I addressed long ago in the "Timing is Everything" post, horses can change quite radically in a fairly short period, particularly if it a youngster advancing quickly in training, a horse changing disciplines, or a seasoned campaigner coming back from a lay-up. To illustrate, I'm re-posting the photos that went with the "Timing is Everything" entry. This template, of a horse that was coming back into work after a month's lay-off, was taken in Oct. of '08:
Now, here's a template of the same horse taken in March of '09, after about four and a half months of gentle long-and-low work:
And here's a comparison of the two, with the '08 template in red, and the '09 in green:
That's a pretty dramatic difference. The saddle ordered to the back in the first template no longer fit the back in the second template ... but in this case, instead of being a bad fit from the get-go, the horse "grew out of it" gradually, and after the tree was widened and the flocking adjusted, the fit was fine.
4) The Owner is an Unreasonable Lunatic. Again, this is not completely unknown ... but it's very, very rare. Most people are really quite reasonable, and usually, if the customer is unhappy, there's a reason. And if someone has gone to the bother and expense of ordering a custom (or bench-made) saddle, it's hardly unreasonable for them to expect that it will be to spec, and it will fit.
In any or all of these cases, the best business practice (and the only one that will let me sleep at night) is to take the saddle back. It happens very infrequently - I'd say that over 90% of our bench-made (or custom, or semi-custom ... choose your term) saddles come as ordered and fit well - but it does happen. What's the sense in trying to make a customer keep a saddle that doesn't fit and makes them (and their horse) unhappy? Sure, you may make that one sale, but at some point, "someone" will be willing to step up and tell the world about their experience - and they will be well within their rights to do so. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful forms of advertising, for better or for worse ... and frankly, that's the sort of press I can live very well without.
7 comments:
Interesting post, and really shows the difference between companies. I had a 9-month ordeal with one prominent custom saddle fitting company after they made me a saddle that might have fit a draft horse, but not my horse, who is admittedly shaped like a banana with wither hollows and big shoulders. At each fitting the saddle got worse and worse. The fitter agreed with me that it didn't fit, but was trying to "fix" it in ways that defied the laws of physics. When the client can see clearly that the fitter did not pass geometry class, there is a problem. I finally sent the bloody thing back for a full refund (customer service was great, but the fitter sucked) and called Devoucoux. They sent me a custom saddle within 6 weeks, and when it broke in a little bit interestingly, fixed it at no cost. Even had one of their master saddlers in from France to look at the saddle on my horse's back and fit it to him on the spot. Now that's service! Saddle companies are fools to think that stories of bad customer service won't get out; $50 says I know which company your "someone" was posting about. They get NOTHING by refusing to admit an "oops" except fewer customers. Companies like yours, on the other hand, get more customers because of your good customer service--part of which is owning up to mistakes. Thank you for doing that!
Oh, wow. I bought a saddle that did not live up to its promises, but at least it only cost me $1400. It was a treeless saddle, and it worked on a horse I was leasing, but it does not work for my mare. It's annoying when saddles are marketed as "will fit almost any horse!" but then when you have a problem with the saddle and you contact the manufacturer, they start telling you that you have to fit the saddle to your horse, and buy different pads/shims, etc. to make it work. Um, couldn't you have mentioned that before I bought the saddle? Just what I want to do, throw more money into a saddle that I don't like and my horse doesn't like. No thanks, I'll cut my losses and sell.
I have to say, I've heard enough sad stories about big $$$ and a long wait for fully custom saddles - and then the saddle isn't really that great if it fits at all - to feel that I'm better off going off the rack. For $5k, there's no reason the customer shouldn't be DELIGHTED in every possible way.
I hope enough custom saddleries will learn that lesson, and quickly, because it really is a service that people want.
Oh, I have always said I will write a book one day. You are very succinct and funny--thanks!
Tracie.
Goodness...I feel like this is me. But it's not as I haven't advertised that my $5200 custom saddle doesn't fit my horse or me. And yes, I'm being told it was because he's changed over the past 3 months from a lack of work (he's been lame) and weight gain. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be sinking more money into this, or keeping a saddle that doesn't fit or trying to sell it a huge loss. And no, they won't take it back.
I had the exact same experience the "someone" had and I think it was the same company! After trying to tweak the saddle 5 or 6 times the saddler told me that he couldn't make it fit any better. It was rolling and almost sliding right over at the canter. He suggested that my riding might be at fault. At that point I really wanted the saddle to fit but eventually I gave up using it and asked him if he would consider taking it back since it had never fit properly. He refused, saying that it wasn't a new saddle anymore. I sold it for $2500 less than it had cost and chalked it up to a bad experience. I had previously bought 4 saddles from him and had recommended him to my students. I definitely don't recommend him any more!
I have had an ordeal with finding a saddle to fit my gelding. I had a fitter/agent come out onsite to do the hands-on templates and fitting. Ordered the saddle through their company and when it arrived I could not even get it to sit on my horse! No, the horse had not changed, I just got a bad job. They took it back and I ended up with an off the rack version of the same saddle.
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