Cold Steel = VERY BAD Customer Service

[soonerboomer]

OP here again...

I have some points that I want to highlight:

1) It does not matter that it was a cheap Chinese piece of crap knife, that's not the point. The point is that Cold Steel's attitude was "screw you". My post is about poor customer service. Quality customer service should not be reserved for people buying more expensive knives.

2) The reason I got impatient with Cold Steel is that they simply ignored my emails. See the time gaps for yourself. If they did not want to answer my questions, they just waited for days until I more aggressively prompted them. However, you'll also see that they responded within one hour if they wanted to.

3) Companies will continue to treat customers this way as long as customers permit it. For me, my dollars (as small as they may be) will be going elsewhere.

4) I'll continue to carry my "COLO STEEL" knife. When people ask about it then I'll tell them a little story about poor customer service and recommend that they check out products by Kershaw or SOG or Spyderco perhaps.

 

[augustino]

rebranding simple AISI 1095 tool steel as 'Carbon V' makes all the difference. You see, anyone who disagrees is an idiot.

Well I have two Cold Steel knives. One master Hunter made with Carbon V steel that's made in the USA and is pretty darn good despite the comment I paster above. Fact is that they no longer offer the Carbon V steel because their US manufacturer of this steel stopped producing it since it was cheaper to go to Japan & China. I also have another version Made in Japan called Pendelton Hunter, I think it is. And this blade is fantastic! Now recently I e-mailed Cold Steel about having one of their Kydex (that non slip rubbery styff) rehandled. They said sure they would do all I had to do was send them the blade and of course pay postage and a nominal charge. They would even resharpen the blade as a courtesy.
So the bottom line is we get what we pay for. Spend 9 bucks and you'll get that much worth of a knife. Are there better kinves than Cold Steel? Sure. Are there cheaper knives? Sure. Does Cold Steel have some upper end products? Sure. Do they have some low end products? Sure.
We get what we pay for.

 

[Leaky Waders]

I'm sorry I even read this thread...it wasn't worth 9 dollars of my time.

Seriously, grow up and don't sweat the small stuff. Cold steel has products in various price ranges to accomodate the market spectrum. You got what you paid for. If you didn't like it then just take it back to the retailer for an exchange?

I'd hate to see the internet rage if you ordered a whopper and got a round piece of cheese...some things aren't worth the fight or energy. IMHO this (and the round cheese) are one of them.

YMMV,

LW

 

[earlthegoat2]

recommend that they check out products by Kershaw or SOG or Spyderco perhaps.

Bearing in mind your OP was about customer service more so than the product involved, I am curious how many $9 MSRP knives that SOG, Spyderco, and Kershaw make. If they only make knives more so than that extremely low price point then the probably have better customer service by default because of more inherent quality and pride of their products. Just something to think about since :

1) It does not matter that it was a cheap Chinese piece of crap knife, that's not the point. The point is that Cold Steel's attitude was "screw you". My post is about poor customer service. Quality customer service should not be reserved for people buying more expensive knives.

Also as a side note: THR and the internet in general is getting fed up with "Bad Customer Service" threads. I hope to see a rule soon against them because really it is just another form of hate thread. The boom of so called weapon purchases has saturated the internet with "horror stories" about EVERY company who manufactures anything. Big Grain o' Salt.

 

[hso]

I recently purchased two Cold Steel knives. Both had misprinted logos that said "COLO STEEL" instead of the proper "COLD STEEL"

soonerboomer,

Where did you purchase the knives? Catalog, internet or gunshow/craftshow/fleamarket? It would be nice to know the source.

Looking through your emails you never asked them to do anything. You made statements, but never asked to send the knives back for replacement with knives with the "D" in the name. Your 4th email said you were satisfied that you hadn't received knockoffs and you said you'd felt "duped", but you didn't ask them to take any action. When they didn't reply you sent an email telling them they had lost a customer instead of asking if they were going to allow you to send the knives in for replacement. You never told them what you wanted them to do. If you want someone/thing to actually do something you should clearly lay it out for them so they have the opportunity to comply with the request. Expecting someone, much less a company, to carry out some action without explicitly laying out the expected action often leads to disappointment and resentment on both sides. I would have expected a good customer service rep to have asked what you wanted the company to do for you and I would have expected you to have told them what you wanted. It is disappointing that CS's representative didn't show the initiative to ask that question and is a failure of the basic rules of customer service.

 

[rooter]

I am shocked CS did not send Lynn C. Thompson, and his dog, to personally retrieve the knife and replace it with a one off, gold plated Master Tanto free of charge. After all, you did spend NINE WHOLE DOLLARS. LOL

Come on, man, get over it. You bought and received a $9.00 knife. The logo doesn't cut anything and the knife works.

I would be embarrassed to rant over an issue like this. I do think CS should mention the blemish in their advertisement, however.

I'll still buy from them.

 

[Guillermo]

'll continue to carry my "COLO STEEL" knife. When people ask about it then I'll tell them a little story about poor customer service and recommend that they check out products by Kershaw or SOG or Spyderco perhaps

I do not remember anyone ever reading the blade of my knife.

interesting life that you must lead.

 

[Gord]

Another point that no one seems to have made yet: most businesses take a few days, at least, to reply to emails. Getting all torqued up about it tells me that you either aren't very experienced with doing business over the net, or you have a really unreasonable opinion of just how special you are. If you want a prompt reply, pick up the phone and call, and even then you should still be prepared for one or two business days' delay in receiving a reply call - Cold Steel does a high volume of business and they are not waiting with bated breath especially for your next communique. This is true of most businesses that generate more than three digits in revenue. You must lead a pretty sheltered life if this is all news to you.

I'm also in agreement with everyone else: what's the big deal? It's a $10 China knife; what exactly is the significance of having a flawless CS logo on the thing? Were you planning to pass it down as a family heirloom or pull it out at barbecues for bragging rights?

 

[1KPerDay]

soonerboomer,

Where did you purchase the knives? Catalog, internet or gunshow/craftshow/fleamarket? It would be nice to know the source.

You didn't ask me but I just checked out my Kudu that Cold Steel sent me for free when I bought some Bushmaster knifes (factory blems). Yep, it says COLO STEEL on it. That's probably why they were giving them away for free. LOL

 

[JohnKSa]

4th Email sent by me on 4/29 at 5pm: <<<Right at or after typical close of business on a Thursday>>> Okay?... this is good to know, I guess... but I assumed Cold Steel sold first quality products. It would be nice to own knives that are not "misprints". As a loyal customer and owner of multiple Cold Steel knives, these leaves me feeling kind of duped.

[No Reply for 4 days] <<<Friday, Saturday, Sunday--that's interesting math you're working with there. Even if we count Monday morning as the fourth day, most people understand that businesses typically take some time off during the weekend and deal with businesses on the basis of "business days" rather than calendar days.>>>

5th Email sent by me on 5/3 at 11am: <<<Monday morning before lunch.>>>

I don't think Cold Steel handled this as well as they could have, but it looks to me like you are trying to find every little way you possibly can to be mad over this.

 

[Guillermo]

I don't think Cold Steel handled this as well as they could have, but it looks to me like you are trying to find every little way you possibly can to be mad over this.

well said John K

 

[phantom_890]

cold steel customer service.

I will say this about Cold Steel, I emailed them while I was deployed to Afghanistan and they sent me ten pocket bushman knives free of charge for my squad. My friend did the same and was sent a couple of SRK knives also for free. I do admit the emails sound combative.

 

[Guillermo]

I emailed them while I was deployed to Afghanistan and they sent me ten pocket bushman knives free of charge for my squad.

thank you for your service phantom

And thank you "Colo" Steel for supporting the troops

 

[Slamfire]

You didn't ask me but I just checked out my Kudu that Cold Steel sent me for free when I bought some Bushmaster knifes (factory blems). Yep, it says COLO STEEL on it. That's probably why they were giving them away for free. LOL

Defective FREE knife, why that is outrageous. You should have another free knife, to make up for the defective free knife. I would like one too, but I did not get it with my Black Rhino. Bummer.

Cold Steel must be doing a poor job of Vendor Quality Survelliance and Sub Contract management. They are selling a subcontracted product with a known defect. While the defect is non functional, it is still there. I don't understand why they are selling this stuff unless they are not spending time with the manufacturer, getting the details right, and inspecting before acceptance.

If the source selection was through, product specs correctly written, contract acceptance requirements clear, I would have told the vendor, this product is unacceptable and my company is not buying the stuff.

Then it would be up to the big dogs to figure out what to do.

 

[Erich]

I don't think Cold Steel handled this as well as they could have, but it looks to me like you are trying to find every little way you possibly can to be mad over this.

No doubt. It's always interesting to me to see the different ways in which people handle things like this. I am afraid that I still don't understand what underlies soonerboomer's disturbance at the interaction - to me, it seems disproportionate to the stimulus at hand. To me, a mis-marked tool with 100% functionality is just sort of something to point out to friends, certainly not something to "feel duped" about. If I were running things at Cold Steel, I'd want my people to be a lot more on top of promptly responding to customer service emails, but I wouldn't necessarily change a thing about the response itself.

I enjoyed 4thPointofContact's post with the stamp - that was my first thought as well: "Cool! A factory-acknowledged collectible!"

Hope it doesn't bother you too much, soonerboomer, now that you've vented. And thanks for reminding me that I wanted to buy a CS Roachbelly!

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

Dude--GET A GRIP

You got all worked up about a misprint logo on a $9 POS that's perfectly functional for its intended purpose---oh my the sky is falling.

You'll spend darn near $9 on trip to Wendy's for lunch---gimmee a break------and where's my $9 for wasting my time reading this stupid thread??

And I'm not even a fan of Cold Steel and the last thing I bought from them was a Master Hunter nearly 20 years ago.

 

[MattTheHat]

I'm wondering how much customer service is expected for a $9 item. If it bothered me, I think I would simply touch the blade to my belt sander and knock off the offending letters. It's not like there's any collector value or anything.

-Matt

 

[hso]

I'm wondering how much customer service is expected for a $9 item.

Quite a bit considering if a customer who just bought a couple of $9 knives is also a customer who previously bought a $100 knife and was planning on buying more in the future. While a customer service rep may have been told that these knives were put out so inexpensively that there wasn't much to do for the customer it's still the role of customer service to try to retain the customer for future business. If the customer makes unreasonable demands, they put the customer service rep into the position of having the weigh the potential value of the customer against those demands.

If there was a problem with the expectations of the customer over the product he should have gone to the retailer and asked for an exchange and then to the manufacturer if the retailer wasn't helpful. At the probable $1 profit that Cold Steel made on each knife they had little direct incentive to replace the knives, but to retain a good customer they might have burned their profits to keep him.

 

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this site sir, and here is mine..You could have asked for a refund and I'm sure they would have given you one. I have never owned a 'cold steel' knife and never will. Even the name 'Cold Steel' sound's junky and flashy to me. However, I can certainly understand them refusing to scrap an entire line just to satisfy you behind a cheap assed $9.00 knife. I can also understand them refusing to go to the trouble and expense of retooling dies and whatnot just to please you. What I CANNOT understand is you. If the quality and whatnot on the knife is within the specifications and it will perform the job cold steel said it would then I don't see the problem here. Take the knife and use it. One damn letter being misprinted or out of place dosen't hurt anything....

 

[MattTheHat]

Quite a bit considering a customer who just bought a couple of $9 knives is also a customer who previously bought a $100 knife and was planning on buying more in the future.

If a guy gets all bent out of shape about an incorrectly stamped letter on a $9 knife, I'd hate to think how picky he might be about a knife that costs $100!

Just as we (consumers) shop sellers/manufacturers, those companies shop customers. I know MANY companies that have "do not sell" lists for this very reason. Some customers simply cannot be satisfied.

-Matt

 

[shockwave]

Here's a rather amateurish review of the COLO STEEL Kudu.

So you can source this knife for around $5 if you shop a bit. It looks really cheap. I can't believe Cold Steel allowed their logo - misspelled and all - to be put on this bit of gimcrackery.

Also, that closing mechanism is absurd. You have to tug the ring away from the direction you're closing the blade, and whoops-a-daisy your fingers are right in the blade path. Terrible design and this one goes into the What Were They Thinking? Department.

 

[onibaba]

the $9 knife is not the point

I find it curious how many people want to shun the OP because he didn't spend enough on his knife to qualify for your respect.

I also find it curious how many people overlook the fact that the same company some of you are defending are the ones peddling the cheapo knife.

Speaking only to these two groups: how many of you are willing to send the OP $18 to replace the two knives?

Either step up and defend Colo Steel's good name by taking care of the refund for them,

or show the OP that the $18 isn't a problem for you therefore you'll take care of it,

or shut up IMO

Not everybody has the same spending capabilities or the same quality requirements. Neither issue is on point with the OP post.

 

[scythefwd]

onibaba - You are missing the point of the deriders. It isn't that they are only 9 dollar knives, or that he has high standards... it's that he expects a cheap 9 dollar knife to meet those high standards. I expect a knife to stay sharp, not bend too easily, not rust too easily, and have a good balance and feel to it. I can reasonably expect a knife costing 40-50 to meet most if not all of those requirements, but I cannot expect a 9 dollar knife to meet them. What the deriders are saying is that maybe he is expecting too much from a knife he knew would be low quality based on price. It is ok to have high standards, but you have to be willing to pay the price to get them. You can't get dom perignon on a mad dog 20/20 budget.

 

[MattTheHat]

Exactly. How does having the letter "o" instead of the letter "d" change the value of the knife?

-Matt

 

[sonier]

I think id prefer the misprint, adds character plus if i buy a knive it is for work not looks so i understand what they are saying. on other hand they should take your knive back and fix it or replace it free of charge.