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Damaged Assimil CD--Customer Service | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| nowneverends Newbie United States Joined 5435 days ago 26 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 10 14 August 2011 at 1:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello all,
I have a brief tale I would like to share with the language learning community concerning customer service at Assimil. Before I begin, I would like to let you know that the purpose of this post is not to dissuade people from purchasing from Assimil--a company that makes some of my favorite language programs--but rather to ask for advice and inform fellow consumers with my customer service experience. So here it goes: I recently purchased Assimil French. I was slowly working my way through it, but I had stopped and had to mostly start over. Before I could finish CD 1 it got scratched (I left it sitting out while I was moving), so, using Assimil's customer service form, I sent this message: "I recently purchased a copy of New French With Ease, but before I could finish the first CD I scratched it. I still have all of the other CDs, but it will be hard for me to progress to the second one without being able to complete the first. Is there any way that you can enable me to make use of this wonderful product?" My hope with this email was that they would offer to send me a CD or mp3 files or at least offer to sell me one CD at a reasonable price. The response I received was as follows: "Dear Mr #####, Thank you for having chosen Assimil to learn French. We can provide you with the CD #1 of the course. Price is EUR 124.50 including shipment. Payment can be made by credit card : let us know your card number, expiry date and visual cryptogram by return Email, by fax to +33 1 45 94 06 55 or on the phone to +33 1 45 76 87 37. Shipment will be made at payment receitp (sic) to the mentioned address. Yours sincerely, Nathalie FROEHLY" I'm hoping she simply misplaced a decimal, but I can't help but feel like someone is trying to pull one over on me. This is the response I sent: "That hardly seems like a fair price considering that the complete CD set is listed at EUR 54.90 (excluding shipment) on the Assimil website. I'm sure that you can do much better than that. #####" I only sent that email about 36 hours ago, and I am still waiting for a response. If I don't receive an acceptable response, where do I go from here? I am thinking that I might just continue to push using the customer service form and possibly calling on the phone until someone is able to help me. Also, am I wrong to demand that I not have to buy a full set of CDs? I think this is a reasonable expectation, but others may disagree. If you read the whole thing, thank you, and I look forward to reading your responses. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 2 of 10 14 August 2011 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
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You own the original, I don't see why you would not be able to acquire the recordings by
some other means if push came to shove.... edit: They are not obligated to sell you anything. It would merely be good customer service. Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 14 August 2011 at 6:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 10 14 August 2011 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, you are wrong. They have the right to sell their product any way they want to, and you can't demand that they change for your convenience.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5191 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 10 14 August 2011 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Just fill your CD gap by other means not involving the company. If I had purchased the French Assimil, I would send you the CD since the first thing I did with my Italian and Spanish courses was convert them into mp3 files for use in my ipod. I have no use for the physical CDs, and they are just gathering dust until I decide that they have been useless long enough and are ready to be discarded.
My suspicion is that Assimil slowly responds to technological trends. After all, it wasn't that long ago that they made the giant leap from cassettes to CDs. At this point they should be distributing a jump drive with the mp3 files or a DVD at least. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nowneverends Newbie United States Joined 5435 days ago 26 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 10 14 August 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Latinoboy: I definitely agree that they are not obligated. Obviously this was my mistake. I should have ripped the
CDs to my hard drive right away. Here is the way I see it: let's say you go to an ice cream store and buy an ice cream cone, but you drop it on the ground after your first lick. A good store would say "I'm sorry, let me get you another cone." They are not obligated to do this since you messed up, but I've seen in happen multiple times. In this example, providing a new ice cream cone is fairly generous, since the physical product is a large percentage of the expenses for the company. When it comes to the CD, the development of the product was one of the larger costs. It costs them, what, about 25 cents to print of a new CD or nothing to send mp3 files. And I am willing to pay for it if they are willing to present me with a reasonable price. They could actually provide me with good customer service and profit at the same time. And I have to wonder where she got this ridiculous EUR 124.50 number from. Maybe she meant to write EUR 12.45? This is a price I would gladly pay. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 10 14 August 2011 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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It'll be a typo. If they couldn't do it for less than the full set, they wouldn't offer it at all, because everyone would just end up buying the full set anyway.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7132 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 7 of 10 16 August 2011 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
Did you mention in your reply e-mail that you thought this might be a typo? If it is a typo and they haven't caught it, they might think you're saying that EUR12.45 is not a fair price. If that's the case, I can imagine some people not writing back. However, with the exchange rate and shipping from France, it wouldn't be much less than buying the course from Amazon. I paid around USD30 for my German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nowneverends Newbie United States Joined 5435 days ago 26 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 10 16 August 2011 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
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seldnar: thanks for the reply. That's something I should have thought of (and would have thought of if I hadn't been
so distracted by the ridiculous number). Fortunately, I managed to find an affordable solution to my problem without Assimil's help. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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