Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/23/18, 10:16 PM #1

Jesse Cloud
Member
Offline
1,273 posts

Registered: 10/17/07

Another Lee Valley happy ending!

Jesse Cloud

Good old Lee Valley. Bless em all!

I'm making a complicated media cabinet and almost done. Its promised to be ready for the wife's birthday in a couple of weeks.

I'm using rare magnet catches for door stops and just realized I was two short. Problem is that they are kinda special, thick and countersunk to pair with the specific magnets I am using.

I was about to start the search at the local hardware stores when I remembered that I had placed an order last night (Saturday), taking advantage of LV's free shipping on $40 orders for the next few days. So I went to their website, found that you could change unshipped orders by calling customer service (though it said they were not staffed on Sundays) or by replying to your confirmation email.

Worth a try. I emailed and asked them to add the washers to the other free shipping order and crossed my fingers.

To my surprise, five minutes later LV replied that they had done what I asked.

Now thats a relief. I was trying to decide the lesser of evils: redoing all the stops with different washers, using different washers to the last two (ugly probably), or paying $10 shipping for two washers. Glad that none of the above were applicable.

Now I can just go ahead and bore the holes for the washers so they will be flush with the door and finish up when they arrive by just screwing in the washer.

That's the kind of thing that makes me loyal to Lee Valley!

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/24/18, 9:58 AM #2

David Yoho
Member
Offline
2,135 posts

Registered: 1/5/04

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

David Yoho

Around here in the Richmond VA area there were a number of local family owned grocery stores that had a huge following. They carried quality meats and produce in addition to the usual grocery items. They weren't the lowest priced stores in town but what set them above the others was their impeccable customer service.

Whenever I tell folks here about Lee Valley I compare them to Ukrops by saying as good as their customer service was Lee Valley makes them look like they didn't have any at all.

- - -

I live in Mechanicsville, VA (not far from Richmond) and I've been building furniture and cabinetry for well over 20 years now. It all started with my frustration of not being able to cut a straight line with a hand saw. About this same time, a guy named Norm appeared on my local PBS station. The more I watched, the more I learned. I also started thinking, "Hey, I can do that"! And so, I began with small projects and soon found myself moving up to increasingly advanced work. Word of mouth started the ball rolling and before I knew it, I was building all kinds of things for people. While this is not what I do to pay the bills, it has provided me with a means of equipping my shop over the years. The main downside to all of this is when my wife looks at a finished project and says, "I want one of those" and I know I don't have the time to make that happen right then. I take advantage of any slack time between commissions to work on things we want and this seems to keep her "on my side". She even surprised me one day with a new Tormek sharpening system. Sometimes it pays to leave that tool catalog lying around open! For me, woodworking is a type of therapy. I can go out to the shop and totally forget about the world outside. There have been days when I get out there early and before I know it, it's dark outside and I have no idea where the time went! I also enjoy challenging my skills and learning new things. Most of the time, since the majority of my work tends to be custom pieces, I'm working on projects I�ve never built before. While this takes me longer than if I were doing production work, I find it more appealing because there's always something new to learn. I haven't had any formal training in woodworking. My teachers have been experience, the many books and magazines I've read, WoodCentral, and of course, a guy named Norm.

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/24/18, 2:11 PM #3

Barry Irby
Member
Offline
13,125 posts

Registered: 1/27/05

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

Barry Irby

Wow, David, You got to go some to have better service than Ukrops. If Lee Valley is anywhere near that good, I will be shopping there. I miss Ukrops.

Congrats to them for getting your catches to you and thank you for posting a positive report.

Merry Christmas to all....and Happy Hanuka

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/24/18, 4:16 PM #4

David Yoho
Member
Offline
2,135 posts

Registered: 1/5/04

That's the point

David Yoho

Lee Valley's CS is that good and better.

Although I haven't been to one here yet, I have in Tallahassee, we now have some Publix stores around. They are hard to beat on customer service too. They're the closest thing to Ukrops we have now.

I've done a fair amount of business with LV over the years. You should try them in the future.

- - -

I live in Mechanicsville, VA (not far from Richmond) and I've been building furniture and cabinetry for well over 20 years now. It all started with my frustration of not being able to cut a straight line with a hand saw. About this same time, a guy named Norm appeared on my local PBS station. The more I watched, the more I learned. I also started thinking, "Hey, I can do that"! And so, I began with small projects and soon found myself moving up to increasingly advanced work. Word of mouth started the ball rolling and before I knew it, I was building all kinds of things for people. While this is not what I do to pay the bills, it has provided me with a means of equipping my shop over the years. The main downside to all of this is when my wife looks at a finished project and says, "I want one of those" and I know I don't have the time to make that happen right then. I take advantage of any slack time between commissions to work on things we want and this seems to keep her "on my side". She even surprised me one day with a new Tormek sharpening system. Sometimes it pays to leave that tool catalog lying around open! For me, woodworking is a type of therapy. I can go out to the shop and totally forget about the world outside. There have been days when I get out there early and before I know it, it's dark outside and I have no idea where the time went! I also enjoy challenging my skills and learning new things. Most of the time, since the majority of my work tends to be custom pieces, I'm working on projects I�ve never built before. While this takes me longer than if I were doing production work, I find it more appealing because there's always something new to learn. I haven't had any formal training in woodworking. My teachers have been experience, the many books and magazines I've read, WoodCentral, and of course, a guy named Norm.

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/25/18, 3:55 PM #5

North of the Border
Member
Offline
635 posts

Registered: 2/22/08

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

North of the Border

Any woodworker who has not shopped at LV (online or in person) is missing the joy of woodworking. LV is that good. Period.

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

12/27/18, 7:28 AM #6

TomD
Member
Offline
5,037 posts

Registered: 12/25/23

Re: Another Lee Valley happy ending!

TomD

Lee Valley is one of two companies that have given me unasked refunds, etc... So FWW cut a check to each of it's early customers for 20 dollars a video when they reduced the price on their VHS cassettes from 39.95 to 19.95. Just arrived in the mail, no request was made. Lee Valley does similar things as when little packages arrive in the mail and they contain unasked for improvements to, say, a plane adjuster. Odd to me when these two stars had a falling out over something a few years ago, because they were the standouts in my commercial experience.

I don't have much experience with their customer sales service as I live near a store, so mail order is rare for me. Their in-store service is unremarkable due to the format, which for the most part reduces them to fetching and carrying. Whenever I relax and don't double check an order, I get home and there is something wrong with the order. I happens infrequently, because whenever I remember to check there is never a problem, and when I get lax, there occasionally is. But I am only about 8 miles from the store so no biggie.

LVs integrity culture is second to none.

Another Lee Valley happy ending!

Posts