From the treasure chest of anecdotes, a number of stories have already been told. This one, however, is particularly charming and shows that sometimes it really is both good and important to simply talk to each other.
I don’t know to what extent brands like Sony or Audio-Technica would spend much time dealing with cases like this, but for us it became another wonderful anecdote.
We received a 14-year-old Ultrasone Signature PRO for repair. Our surprise was as great as our shock, because even we rarely receive such a pile of shattered parts that once used to be a headphone.
Normally, we would inform the customer that repairing such a device would essentially amount to a full restoration and that, for economic reasons, we would advise against it. In such cases we usually offer attractive replacement options from our current product range and dispose of the old headphone properly.
But the phone call with this customer went differently.
First because of the dialect. Instead of the expected regional tone from Stendal, all we initially heard was noise until suddenly a brisk Berlin accent spoke up. He rejected my proposal outright.
He had owned the headphone for quite a while and used it intensively. After it more or less fell apart, he had already worn out two other headphones in the €300 range in the meantime. But he absolutely wanted his Signature PRO back—no matter the cost—because the sound was incomparably better.
The scratches didn’t bother him, he said. That was just patina, and it should stay that way. Only the ear pads, he added, he would like to have looking like new again.
Of course, we completely disassembled the headphone, cleaned it, inspected it—and discovered that mechanically and acoustically it was perfectly intact.
Now it is on its way back to Stendal and will hopefully serve its owner with joy for another 14 years.
My opinion on this is simple:
Of course we enjoy selling new products—and they are, in many respects, more advanced than the old ones. But an experience like this with a customer is priceless.
These are the customers who truly love ULTRASONE, and we value them enormously. Not “make it new,” but “please restore my old one.” A wonderful attitude. It may not be cheap either—but we certainly won’t end the deep relationship between a passionate user and their favorite device.
Where would we end up if we did that?
EXPERIENCE ULTRASONE
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- Because your ears deserve better.