Tumi’d by an angel

October 26 2006

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that my Tumi laptop bag had bit the dust, and had been assessed by Tumi as irreparable.  There were lots of good suggestions on what to go with as a replacement, and I was thisclose to buying a Briggs & Riley bag.  But that's when the e-mail came -- Tumi sent me an "angel", someone within the company who cared enough about my frustration and disappointment to take another look at the situation.  I was pleasantly surprised that someone at Tumi reached out to me, and after a few e-mails back and forth, I was convinced to give them one more chance.

Image:Tumi’d by an angel So the replacement bag is a Tumi 26141, as seen here.  This wasn't a slam-dunk decision.  I was disappointed to learn that in the three years since I bought my last bag, the laptop bag market has started to move away from wheeled bags that also have shoulder straps -- Tumi no longer offers this option, and few others do.  I liked the either/or flexibility of the last one.  And as helpful as Tumi's angel was, I was often surprised by what I learned -- the difference in the durability of their various lines, for example, or the fact that Tumi doesn't publish the weight of their bags on their website.

I gave up on the wheeled bag because I realized that more often than not, I have another bag with wheels along for the ride most of the time, anyway.  I can just stack this bag on top.  And it's pretty light-weight in terms of shoulder carrying (just don't ask me the exact weight :-) ).

The new bag arrived yesterday, and I'm hastily packing it up for my departure to Rome tomorrow.  From many of the online reviews I read, this bag is one that "road warriors" swear by, so I'm hoping for the best.  After all, I have another 30,000 flying miles ahead this year, in what is turning out to have been my busiest travel year post-9/11 (though admittedly, a number of these trips have been personal and/or optional).  Let's see how it goes.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Travel  Add/View Comments [11]

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  1. 1  bill geimer  | 10/26/2006 3:02:23 PM

    Fare thee well, Road Warrior. Good luck with the new bag.

  1. 2  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 10/26/2006 5:18:31 PM

    Glad to see someone in Tumi understands public relations.

    One thing to remember about Briggs & Riley's warranty, which is also their slogan:

    Guaranteed for life.

    Simple as that.

  1. 3  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 10/26/2006 9:47:09 PM

    Now if you can take this and create an internal IBM "Angel" group to do this for customers.

    Of course this would imply our customers blog about their issues. (Some do and I hope the IBm reps read their clients blogs).

  1. 4  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 10/27/2006 2:16:12 AM

    @3 - I discussed the concept of an IBM "Angel" with Ed a little while ago. Whilst in a sales scenario Ed often IS the angel, from a technical perspective the only real option is often chargeable.

    There are a lot of Notes infrastructures that have been ripped out and replaced with alternatives purely because the customer didn't understand how to use or maintain the product properly. They switch products for features they already have, improved stability and other things that they already had and didn't know how.

    A simple knock on the door of these customers with the offer of a free healthcheck could, in my opinion, reap many rewards. Customers could not only be shown the benefits of clustering, instant messaging etc in their own environment; but also the small things like system policies and password sync.

    If we went out of our way to make these customers happy, they will buy from us again and may even be prepared to spend more money.

    The 'IBM Angel' in the first instance would find blogs that write "Notes sucks" type messages and contact their admin team. Do they need help to resolve their server performance or instabilities? Send the angel in.

    Providing apparently free field support on a 'free of charge' basis may look like it's going to cut into Professional Services profits but how many days on-site are you going to sell after the customer has migrated to a competitors solution?

    Nice one Tumi!

  1. 5  Phil West  | 10/27/2006 2:50:00 AM

    @4 YES!!! Make it happen!!!!

    erm sorry that was a bit loud.

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/27/2006 7:00:32 AM

    @4, um, we do that.

  1. 7  Thomas Schulte  | 10/27/2006 7:10:25 AM

    Examples?

  1. 8  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/27/2006 7:32:18 AM

    I would rather not go into a lot of detail on sales strategy on the blog. There is a Lotus "SWAT" team in place in each of IBM's operating regions. They work with customers on a consultative basis on a variety of activities, funded by IBM. They've been involved in many situations like Ben describes, and others as well.

    When customers contact me for help with Notes position in their organization, SWAT is quite often the organization that takes the handoff from me. I always encourage customers to let me know when there are evaluations/re-evalutions going on -- if I know, I can do something about it. There are the usual caveats around limited resource, but there are a lot more SWAT people than there are of me.

  1. 9  Keith Brooks http://www.kbmsg.blogspot.com/ | 10/27/2006 8:07:43 AM

    Agree with Ed, having previously been part of a similar group in Lotus EMEA, the current SWAT team does do this and more hopefully.

    What I meant was some "higher" help to make the call. The thing I found in my travels was customers responded when they thought or perceived that I or my team were some executive level. At the time I worked for the CTO(of EMEA) and this went pretty far usually.

    The problem with Technology advocates was they were considered sales or marketing. I have no idea what the current SWAT team falls under but executive sponsorship or suppport is key to make that happen.

    Ok, done with soap box :-)

  1. 10  Lillian  | 10/27/2006 10:48:48 AM

    Hi Ed,

    I'd love you to test drive one or two of our latest Briggs & Riley computer briefs. Our @work Collection (rolling & non-rolling) is designed to compliment your style and engingeered to exceed your needs -- and built to last!

    When you return from Rome, please call me.

    Have a great trip.

    (212) 355-5049, ext 122

    layala@hwhpr.com

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/27/2006 12:17:15 PM

    @10 Lillian, you've got mail ...