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The Moleskine manufacturers understand the web

Moleskinerie has a letter from Modo & Modo S.p.a. (the company responsible for the Moleskine notebook).

While we were on vacation (yes, yes, Italians love vacations…and even more this year, since we had something to celebrate after the World Cup!) we received 37 several e-mails. There also has been some discussion on several Internet groups: Google and Flickr among others.

We just got back and here we are answering our customers having trouble with their Moleskine Notebooks. First of all, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE SILENCE, but – like many Moleskiners may already know – we are a very small company: 15 people total! And we personally follow the customer care.

Obviously, if you’re having quality problems with your moleskine notebook, you should read the post at Moleskinerie, since there’s important information there regarding quality-control serial numbers that you can use to help Moleskine track down manufacturing problems.

Starting last June we added a number printed on the Moleskine flyer (see image [below]), which allows us to identify the time, place and lot of production. This enables us to address any possible problems pertaining to a specific batch. If you don’t have this flyer in your notebook, you will, as soon as the inventory in the shops updates.

As the post on the 43 Folders Google Group above notes, many people with issues had been trying to contact moleskineus (no link), with no response.

Modo & Modo, on the other hand, mentions that they found complaints about the quality of their product on Google and Flickr; that is, once they were alerted via email, they looked on the web and found out that there was discussion going on that hurt their brand.

They could have delivered a nastygram and force people to take down photos of their defective product, like certain popular electronic companies have done recently. Or, they could have issued a press release on their website, like, um, certain popular electronics companies. They didn’t do either.

I really wish this kind of customer service wasn’t so unusual. In any case, it’s a rare and informative example of what to do when things go wrong with your product.

Hi. Thanks for writing such a great summary of this incident. I think it’s especially useful that Modo & Modo posted its apology/statement not only on its own blog, but also in the 43 Folders forum where the complaints erupted.

I just wrote a short article at the Capture the Conversation blog explaining three key lessons about conversational media that PR pros and organizations can learn from this. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

• Amy Gahran

[…] The company Modo e Modo ( manufacturers of high-end notebooks Moleskine) were the subject of negative commentary about quality issues. Paper Bits records how they responded, apologetically, and with detailed information about how they were dealing with the issue. Classy. [via Constantin Basturea] […]