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At the beginning of this year, I sent a pen to a nibmeister for a custom grind. There was no estimated timeframe but I figured 3-4 months was likely. April comes and I haven’t heard anything about my order progress. I go back to the vendor’s site and Instagram feed to see if they have any general status updates about the order queue but there isn’t anything posted.
I search Reddit for more recent customer experience notes for the vendor and am not thrilled by what I find. Several people have posted about sending in pens for nib work with this vendor and have received neither their pens back nor a response to messages sent asking for information.
I sent my own inquiry via the vendor’s contact form in mid-May asking for an update on when the nib work might be completed. A month went by with no response. I decided that there isn’t any point leaving the pen with this vendor, so I contacted them again to say my order in canceled and please return my pen as soon as possible. Two weeks have passed since that message and we still have radio silence.
Seven years ago, I sent pens to a different vendor for nib grinds and had largely the same experience. Months went by, no communication, had to send a few emails to get some level of response, and then canceled the order to get my pens back. It was my first time sending pens out for work so it left a sour taste in my mouth and I didn’t try again for a few years.
For people making a living with a small business where they fill most, if not all, of the roles it’s hard. You’re doing the work itself that people pay for as well as the customer service, shipping and logistics, dealing with your own vendor/supply issues, and then fitting all of that into whatever the rest of your life is. Stuff happens and things go off track. I ran into it when I collected knives and dealt with people, makers and vendors alike, who got stuck and couldn’t/wouldn’t talk with their customers.
That’s what gets me the most frustrated — a lack of communication. If you can’t provide the service I asked for, so be it. If you tell me what’s happening and let me choose which way to go forward, I will appreciate the candor even if the news was disappointing.
I am also frustrated with my own choice of not looking deeper at the vendor’s recent track record before sending my pen. Some of the complaints were extant before I made initial contact about placing an order. I suppose I had been swayed by seeing a post about someone else’s nib grind from the same vendor and thinking “I should get in line for one of those.”
That said, even a spotless reputation in the past is no sure indicator of what will happen going forward because life doesn’t care what anyone’s plans are. My plan was to send the pen off and have it back a while later with a new grind to elevate the writing experience. Maybe that’s not happening anymore. Maybe it’s not coming back.
Status unknown for my orange Kaweco AL-Sport. If you're the person I sent it to, please send it back.
