<![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service - Consumerist Comments]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service - Consumerist Comments]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> While Lutron does have good customer service. They are an awful company to work for. I was a member of the design team at Lutron for the redesign of the Maestro dimmer. (Mainly to cost reduce and fix the plastic actuator button that failed in Peter's case.) Although they do make a great product, Lutron treats their employees like 5 year olds, with rules about what they can eat, where they can walk, and they even ban post-it notes from the office. Leaving Lutron for $10K less was the best decision I have ever made as an engineer. Customer Service - Great. Employee Service - Poor.

Also. the dimmer is not made in the Pennsylvania, it's made in Puerto Rico. In fact, only a few of their consumer products are actually made in the USA, most come from PR and St. Kitts.

fingchillin

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Way To Go, LUTRON! I, too, installed over twenty of these things in my newly-built house and I could not be happier. I'm sure glad I popped for the expense, knowing that LUTRON treats their customers like this.

As an added benefit, I've convinced myself that using a dimmer decreases energy consumption and is good for mother earth, too!

Cranky Customer

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> We need more stories like this. I'm convinced that in these days of outsourcing, providing lasting quality is an area where American businesses can really compete.

Mr. Gunn

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> If anyone is curious about their motivation beyond the business benefits, I found this on their website:

[www.lutron.com]

If nothing else read the five bullet points. I see why their employees are empowered to make things right witht the customer.

BeardBrigade

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I will write down Lutron, I was thinking about getting dimmer switches myself.... now I know who I'm getting them from.

coold8

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I used to be an electrician (for 7 years). We swore by Lutron. I would expect nothing less from them.

unklegwar

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> A great example of how responsible companies handle customer issues with their product(s)! The manufactured cost of those 25 replacement switches + shipping = a huge return in positive PR for Lutron. I would say based on the number of comments here they had an excellent return on their investment in being responsible for their products.

OsoGrande

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Lutron is great at customer service. A few years ago I worked at Magnolia Hi Fi here in the Portland area and we carried their products. If there was ever a problem they were always right on top of the situation. We sold a lot of their product and had very few problems with returns or failures.

afterimageB

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Lutron sells the only dimmers worth buying. Even the basic round knob dimmers are better than any others you can get.

MrEvil

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @marchhare22: I filled my shelter with AquaDots and toys from China.

weakdome

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @weakdome: Quick! run into your bomb shelters/homes and hide!!! (All of which should contain Lutron Maestro dimmers.)

marchhare22

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @FessLove: I know, YEAH! for Lutron
@weakdome: Ha, ha!


graffiksguru

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I've had incredible customer service from them. I had the $95 remote fan/light switch which was shorted out (probably by my painters). Called them and they replaced with no problem. Great company. BTW Coopersburg is north of Philly south of Allentown.

xmarc

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> It's the consumer's fault for...
Wait. This isn't a story about someone getting screwed?
I don't know what to do.



weakdome

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> they have a good rep in the architectural field as well.

arch05

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I just sent them a happygram e-mail at their corporate website. This is such a neat story because not only did a Lutron employee take the initiative to replace all the switches - but he or she was actually empowered to do so!

I think that's a great idea that their engineers have to spend some time on the phones; and if on top of all that they also refused to make a crappy product to sell at Wal*Mart then I think I may be in love.

arsbadmojo

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Good on ya to Lutron. I'll be buying their stuff when I'm shopping for electrical components.

On Wallyworld and its lowballing: the Levi's jeans they sell aren't even made by Levi's. Levi's said they couldn't meet the price set by Wallyworld, so instead Levi's had a contractor make cheap jeans and they slapped their label on it.

Ragman

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I bet before he got a response from them he was thinking- "I'm just burnin' doin' the Lurtron Dance."
:)

Sorry....

homerjay

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I had just bought one of Lutron's $800-ish lighting control panels for a home theatre setup. I had a fairly specific question about the product and called their "Tech Support" number.

I was shocked- the guy that answered my call not only knew the product well, but also knew what he was talking about, electrically. Totally answered my question. I was just really impressed that his knowledge of the product was so solid.

Holo20

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Handy to know this, because I think I may have gotten some of the same bad switches. The guy who owned our house before us was an electrician and all the switches are Lutrons. I really like them but can't afford to replace them at $30 a pop. Maybe I won't have to lay out the cash after all.

Thanks, Peter!

puka_pai

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @MPHinPgh: Cee = a girl. Or woman. Or jezzie. Not male.

cde

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @MYarms: If he doesn't read it, how would he know if he would like it or not....

cde

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Actually, if you're going to use THAT many dimmers, you probably should have used a Lutron Grafik Eye lighting system. Once you have more than 4 dimmers in one location, it's time for a real lighting system. Ends up being cheaper too.

Used plenty of Lutron products over the years. YEARS ahead of the Lithonia & Lightolier crap I've ripped out and replaced with Lutron.

FLConsumer

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @AD8BC: The very first household wiring job I ever did was a dimmer switch. I was 19 and in college and living in half of the lower floor of a repurposed Victorian home. I just asked somebody at the hardware store for a beginner-level book. These days you only need to check the Internet for a how-to.

speedwell

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @spinachdip: Thanks for not being too hard on him. I always see that word misspelled, and I can NEVER remember how to spell it correctly. Fortunately, MS Word knows how to spell it...

MPHinPgh

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> If Lutron knew they had a problem with these switches they should have recalled them. Replacing everyone's switch who complains is still much cheaper than a recall. Many people just throw the switch away and buy a new one.

edrebber

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @MYarms: It's entirely possible considering it was a big renovation job hence the simultaneous installation of a large number of switches. My bf has some of these in his house that he bought in a batch to replace the low-quality switches the house came with, and they're great. I love being able to turn the light on without blinding yourself in the middle of the night with the ones that single-tap to a lower setting than the full power setting you get with a double-tap.

Buran

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @Me: Go away. Its called an opinion. If you don't like it, don't freakin read it.

MYarms

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I interviewed for a job as a software engineer with Lutron in late 2005, and I was very impressed by their attention to customer service. They told me that all engineers and other developers needed to take turns doing phone duty, because all of their customer service is done by the engineers who actually design the products. How cool is that, to have customer service done by the person who made the product rather than some sub-minimum-wage worker in India reading a script.

jwarner132

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @ShortBus: Not only that but I was wondering if the guy actually had 25 in his house before he received 25 for free. Sounds almost too good to be true.

MYarms

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> To all the "they couldn't possibly be that nice as to replace them, their must be some evil motive behind it..."posters: STFU!

Me

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @spinachdip: duh! thanks...

ceejeemcbeegee

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Add another Consumerist reader to the list of people who will be buying a Lutron next time she needs a switch :)

With all the pledges in the comments so far, I think they've easily made back that goodwill gesture!!!

pfeng

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Kudos to Lutron for outstanding customer service and standing by their products.

It's pretty sad that there's only one of these posts to 30 negative ones.

Next time I have to buy a dimmer, I'll remember Lutron.

Grrrrrrrrr

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> One time one of my Lutron Skylark dimmers failed in my old house (started popping and smelling of burned wiring) -- it had been installed four years prior. I didn't expect a warranty replacement, but I did send an email to Lutron asking if they wanted me to ship it to them so that they may do an autopsy on it (I am an engineer myself and I know I would appreciate the opportunity). They told me if I shipped it back to their lab they would send me a new one, and, in fact they did.

Lutron makes a very nice product and I have their switches all over my house, they run lights and fans that are not a part of my Insteon home automation system.

AD8BC

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @lenagainster: Fear not. Although incandescent bulbs are being outlawed, it is likely that halogen replacement bulbs will still be around as they are more efficient than incandescent bulbs yet they work just as well, especially with dimmers. And, Philips has invented an even more efficient halogen line called the Halogena Energy Saver -- it will satisfy all you treehuggers out there as well as the rest of us who care more about the quality of light and the ability to dim it. Look here: [www.nam.lighting.philips.com]

And yes, they have dimmable CFLs now. but they are awfully crappy -- they only dim down to about 20%, they don't act consistantly, and they take a few minutes to warm up.

AD8BC

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> This is great! I love hearing stories about companies actually taking care of their customers. We've been doing renovations to our house, changing out light fixtures, and installing a few ceiling fans. I am definitely buying Lutron switches after reading this.

diggtatorship

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @mmbb: I don't think anyone would suggest that Lutron replacead the guy's light bulbs out of pure altruism - when corporations do nice things, even the most naive amongst us understand that they do so out of self interest. It's just that some put more value into customer service, and understand that taking a short-term loss can be a long term gain, or help them avoid bigger losses in the future. Good customer service and profit seeking aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact, go hand in hand more often than not.

Which is to say, I think you're missing the point when you question Lutron's motives, because it's really irrelevant here. Even if their true intent was to avoid liability, they would still get points for snuffing out a potential problem before it became one. And ultimately, whatever sinister motives they had, they made a customer happy, and that's the key here.

spinachdip

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Just curious... does anyone actually verify these stories of good customer service? As heavily trafficked as this site is, it would be a *very* cheap piece of PR if someone shilled with a believable story. Not saying that this particular story is suspect, but every time I see one, it makes me wonder.

ShortBus

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @ceejeemcbeegee: Psst, that's fluorescent, like fluoride, not flourescent, like flour.

spinachdip

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Is it possible that they replaced the switches to preempt any sort of liability in the event of a fire, shock, or some other electrical damage?

mmbb

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> This makes me glad we chose Lutron switches for a recent renovation. Only 5, and not super-fancy, but they're all dimmers and weren't cheap.
I bought dimmable flood lamp CFLs for my living room, to replace two that had burned out. The lowest setting was brighter than the lowest on the traditional bulbs, and the brightest was dimmer. I was very disappointed. Also, they took several minutes to "warm up." I stuck them in the outer hallway. They were about $25 apiece.

kerry

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @ceejeemcbeegee: oh cripes, I meant "I realize the flourecent bulbs..." Darn spell check didn't recognize the word 'flourecent'.

ceejeemcbeegee

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> @lenagainster: I just did a quick search on Amazon and found 15w (75w equivalent) dimmable CFLs.

spinachdip

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I've been considering getting a lutron maestro dimmer for my bedroom. This amazing display of customer appreciation has just about sealed the deal. Only thing keeping me from it now is that I've never installed a light or dimmer switch before, but from what I read, it's not horribly difficult. I've taken my laptop apart and put it back together a few times, so it's just the high-voltage and high-amperage that scare me. Yes I'll turn off the breaker, but what if there's a short? ooooo nooooo do not want house burnie downie

TuxRug

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> My entire house has CFs. I too really want dimmable ones. Then I might spring for some Lutron switches.

miran

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> It's great to know there is a company like this. I will be sure to seek them out for my future home renovations.

@lenagainster: I hope this day never comes. While I realize that recently bulbs are more eco-friendly and use less energy, in my opinion the light they give out isn't as good and makes me strain my eyes. Just my opinion, you can beg to differ if you must. ;-)

ceejeemcbeegee

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Lutron, huh? I might have a renovation project coming up soon. Now I've got a good name to keep in mind.

pinkpuppet

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> It's a shame that those dimmers won't work with most compact flourescent bulbs. Hopefully by the time incandescent bulbs are outlawed (or severely restricted/limited), they will invent dimmable CFs. Right now, all I see on the market are 15 watt equivalent (3 watt) dimmable CFs.

lenagainster

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> It's incredible and un-heard of these days for a company to stand behind their product even after they are out of warranty. There is a warranty period, and then there is a period of time where a product should be expected to work properly. I agree with the poster, 3yrs for a $30 switch is definitely not long enough, especially when a plain old wall switch lasts pretty much forever.

rg

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I have friends who work at Lutron, and I can tell you that they have lots of 'bad batches'. Their quality sucks, point blank. But man do they have some sweet lighting panels. One of them has a $1400+ panel from there controlling his whole living room and it's expandable to control the entire house!

shades_of_blue

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Interesting to hear that anecdote about Wal-Mart lowballing Lutron. What's revealing is that apparently Wal-Mart just wanted to acquire a quality name rather than selling quality.

timmus

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I think what really should be done here is people should use this story as an example to other companies in similar situations. This story should be the standard-setting example of not only good customer service, but standing behind your products.

aaron8301

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> hooray! my faith in humanity is at least partly restored!

kittenfoo

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Nice to see it's still the case that when you go high-end, you get high-end service. I've gotten fantastic service from some high-end suppliers of boutique quality parts. Usually takes nothing more than a polite email or phone call explaining the problem, and in a few days I get a free shipment of replacement parts for whatever went wrong.

Eric1285

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I think Peter underestimates the value of excellent service and overestimates the real cost to Lutron of providing the switches. Obviously these $30 retail switches don't cost Lutron anywhere near that, or they'd be bankrupt.

Lutron is betting that Peter will a) continue to use Lutron switches in his homes, b) tell other people how well he was treated and how happy he is with his "theater-dimming" switches, and their bet really paid off when he posted an account of their excellent service on an internet site for many people he doesn't even know to read about. Their investment was worth every switch they sent.

GearheadGeek

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Lutron is a great company.
I took a Lutron training course to sell their products at my store a few years back. One thing I loved was a story they told me.
Several years back, Wal-Mart wanted to sell Lutron dimmers. Wal-Mart gave them a price quote which was much lower than what they could sell them to Wallyworld for.
Wal-Mart told them to move their plants to China and make lower quality goods. They refused, and Wal-Mart started selling some crapy GE dimmers.
The company said they will always stay in PA,and will always make high qulity goods.
That is nice to hear.

suburbancowboy

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> My question now is if those $30 switches are really good. Still is good to hear about those kind of actions.

uchari

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> If you disassemble your broken switches with a small torx screwdriver, you will likely find a plastic finger that has broken away from a U-shaped plastic base. The plastic finger provides the only "spring" to resist the pressure of your finger and return the switch to its normal position.

These are easy enough to fix with Super-Glue, but it is nice to know that they admit to a problem, as I've had to glue 2 out of 4, and like Peter, I expect an expensive solid-state switch to last longer than a cheap mechanical one.

jfischer

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> EXCELLENT response. Bravo, Lutron! When my cheap, $10 X-10 switches start to fail (one already has), I will definitely consider Lutron (who also makes X10 compatible switches). Heck, they're not even that expensive if I do them one at a time (like the FA, I replaced all my switches at once, so $10 vs $30 at the same time was outside my budget).

balthisar

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Nice to hear a positive story.

FessLove

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> I live in Coopersburg- Lutron sponsors lots of community programs and gives quite a bit of money to charity. They're a fantastic company!

zenmoused

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Obviously, Lutron views quality and customer satisfaction as ordinary costs of doing business. If only more companies had this view.

NightSteel

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> And kudos to the OP for letting us know about a company that does right by its customers.. I don't know a damn thing about switches, but one thing's for sure -- when and if I ever do have to know something about them, I'll remember the name Lutron.

That, if anything, is worth something - and what companies these days seem to forget.

tcp100

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> That's incredible! Good job Lutron!

mopar_man

]]> <![CDATA[Lutron Brightens Up Your Day With Good Customer Service]]> Lutron is a local company based in the Coopersburg area of PA (40 miles south of Philly). I interviewed there to be a co-op in the 80's. They were really big on quality and testing of components before they are used in their products. While I was disappointed that they didn't pick me to be a co-op, I was still impressed with their commitment to quality products. Seems like they are still committed! Great customer service Lutron!

zippyglue

]]>