I want to tell you a story about a broken suitcase. You might wonder why I would go through the trouble. A suitcase after all is a material thing of no significant monetary or emotional value. While I agree with that, I tell this story for a different reason. I believe that my experience with a broken suitcase has taught me the true value of good customer service and the consequences stemming from its absence.
This blog was inspired by my communication with a private company called Dolfi 1920 in particular. It performs the suitcase repair and replacement on behalf of the SAS airline.
But one thing at a time. Let's begin at the beginning..
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Hi!
My name is Alex. I live in Hamburg, Germany and work at Imperial Tobacco. I have a beautiful girlfriend called Ciara. She's from the States.
We had been dating for a year and a half when the summer of '14 began, so we decided it's a good time for me to visit her home and meet her entire family. While the trip itself was amazing and could be source material for a blog by itself, I will focus on our return journey.
13 Sept 2014
We flew out of Chicago in the early afternoon and began the first leg of our return journey. Our first flight would take us to Stockholm, and after a lengthy six hour wait we would catch our second flight to Hamburg.
14 Sept 2014
We reached Hamburg only to find my black American Tourister suitcase damaged during the return flight.
The handle was broken on one side:
The frame of my suitcase had also been damaged:
I've done my fair share of travelling to know that these things happen. No matter how sturdy or new a suitcase is, it can always suffer from poor handling at an airport. When something like this happens, there is a procedure in place for the repair or replacement of the damaged suitcase. One must report the damage upon arrival at the destination airport and then have the problem solved (free of charge) by the airline which carried the suitcase.
That's exactly what I did. I would later be contacted with more information about the procedure. The company performing this service for SAS in this particular case was Dolfi 1920.
