Review: Skullcandy Ink’d (and) If at first you don’t succeed, write a letter
admin | February 4, 2011 | 5:00 pm
This rings true for me more times than not.
A cleverly crafted letter, or a direct phone call to the people that matter (without losing your cool), that spells out logical points and is based on a solid argument generally works out in your favor more often than you’d think.
Over the years I’ve been able to get out of a myriad of CC late fees, fraudulent billing statemnts, and other similar infractions that had any semblance of being in a ‘gray’ area.
When it comes to actual product mishaps, disappointments in performance, design flaws, or whatever, the same principal also applies. I have gotten my share of free meals, charges reversed, complimentary samples, upgrades, shipping credits, etc. based on solely on my confidence and persistence.
Like your mama may have told you as a life lesson: ”It’s easier to catch flies with honey than shit.” Well, on second thought, that’s probably a bad analogy, because I can never recall a time where a fly turns down a nice fresh pile of steaming shit, BUT, the principal is there: Striking while the iron is hot and fresh and doing it in a calm and rational way will generally give you the results you want.
I could launch into a plethora of examples for you, but let me combine my most recent one with a product review at the same time.
About 6 or 7 months ago, possibly longer, I purchased a set a ‘cheap’ headphones from Best Buy by a company called Skullcandy. I spent all of $19.95 on a pair of Ink’d earbuds for my Zune player as the default pair that Microsoft includes with their players are cheap and very uncomfortable in their own right.
Anyway, as it turns out, Skullcandy earbuds are pretty much like all other earbuds out there other than the fact with a few jazzy color schemes, some slick marketing and a creative name, they seem to command a slightly higher price. That doesn’t mean they are actually any better than other OTC earbuds under $50, but they make the consumer ‘believe’ their product is superior through an above average presentation. Another selling point is that they supposedly have a good warranty program in placeas well. But let’s be honest, we aren’t talking about a personal computer or new plasma television set. How many people actually fill out the warranty card or even take the time to register $19 earbuds with any company? I’d wager to say less than 10% and I even think that’s being generous. Most people don’t register hardware products under a certain value as it just seems easier to replace them by buying new ones.
Now before I get into the meat of what I’m dropping here today, let me do a quick review of the Ink’d earbuds themselves:
I read an article not to long ago that led the reader to believe that all OTC earbuds and portable earphones are pretty much supplied and manufactured by one company in China. That’s right, in the end it doesn’t matter if you buy “ABC” brand’s metallic glow-in-the-dark, or “XYZ’s” Shiny Sound 2000′s….they are all made by the same company, they just get fancy names and pretty paint jobs by those that sell them domestically.
I’m not sure if that also rings true for mid-level and high-end earphones, but all the ‘low-ends’ are pretty much the same.
My experience with my Ink’d's are as such: they sound a little ‘tinny’ or hollow to me. Don’t expect deep bass sounds (there’s no huge magnet driving these puppies). They come with three different size silicon ear inserts, and by default the mediums are installed. I did find these a bit uncomfortable after long periods of wearing them. I’m a tad lazy in swapping them out for the smaller inserts, and for all I know the smaller ones may fit my inner ear better and be more comfortable in the long run. But I give Skullcandy credit for including three different sizes….most brands don’t, so they must figure everyone has the same size ear and thus just accepts the feel.
The wires themselves are coated in a silicon like rubber that aren’t smooth and give the earphones a feel that they may be a bit more rugged and weighty; an impression that they may be more durable. It’s my experience there really is no added protection to the internal wiring underneath this sheathing. I noted that after a few months, something exposed a little piece of copper wire and they get just as tangled up, if not more so than all other brands.
The biggest problem with all these damn earphones is where the wire meets the RCA jack itself. I’d say 90% of all earphone failures all happen here. No one has been able to design a rugged enough ‘sleeve’ around the RCA plug itself and the internal wiring. Overtime this thing just gets bent and disconnected somehow. You’ll sit there like a dolt wiggling the wire back and forth, trying to tape it in place for a few weeks, but eventually they’ll give out. This happened to me and to just about every other headset I’ve ever owned in my life.
What Skullcandy does have for it, as I mentioned earlier, is a vast array of color schemes that go beyond the standard black or white ones that we’ve all seen 1000 times.
So my final take? Eh, you end up buying them for their color schemes first, and maybe the ear insert second, but I see no real difference in sound quality themselves, which makes sense, if they are indeed all made by the same Chinese company.
Now back to my initial issue. My headphones broke at the common point of failure where the wire meets the jack. I can’t even remember when I bought the damn things and the simple thing to do is just to buy another pair. But since I wanted to try my hand at the warranty and see if I could get a free replacement, I went ahead to the Skullcandy website.
While the website itself may look ‘cool’ and relatively simple in design (less is more), all the darn pictures take a bit longer than I’d like to load. Doesn’t matter what PC I use (work vs home), or what browser (IE vs Firefox)…it just takes longer than you expect to load, but no big deal, unless you use the forward and backward buttons to check out individual products…then the page refresh gets old fast.
First I had to create an account, validate my email, blah, blah, blah. Then I had to register my product, but since I can’t remember when or did I keep the receipt, I made one up in the probable time frame. So far so good.
The problem starts when you have to get an RMA number. They pretty much discourage a calling at this point and request you fill out a warranty claim and get an RMA number via email. You then have two choices for a claim: 1) aggressive enjoyment (?) -or- 2) manufacturer defect. I didn’t know what to select and since there was no guidelines I chose #1 (mistake – more on this later).
Once you get your RMA, your instructed to place your damaged earphones in a padded envelope and mail to them along with a tracking number. Thank goodness the tracking number is optional, because if I had to pay for Fed Ex to give me a tracking number, it’s already too much work and additional investment for $20 headphones.
I press on. I mail my earphones and am instructed to wait for an email upon their receipt. Should take 3-4 business days, but for me it took at least 6 – 7 business days (not weekends either). My email said it would take 4-6 weeks processing. Stop right there. 4-6 weeks to process a request for a replacement of $20 ear phones….after waiting for over a week just to get confirmation they received them? Buying a new pair seems highly plausible as this point.
I call them up and am put on hold for a good 10 minutes until I get an actual person. To Skullcandy’s credit, I will say that everyone I spoke to was both nice and spoke English, and for those two facts alone, I hung in there. I told the first guy I spoke with that this 4-6 week processing seems unreasonable. You look at the earphones, you plug them in to see if the work or not, and you make a determination on the spot. There are no moving parts here, nothing radioactive or needs DNA screening to my knowledge. He said it’ll probably be faster just hang out a few more days, so I agree.
Sure enough a few days later I get an email stating that my claims was processed and I’ll get 50% value credit to their online store. Okay, that’s ‘cool’ I guess, but why not 100%? Not my fault that the internal wiring breaks. I call up again, wait another long period of time and this time get a young lady who is equally nice.
Now here’s the moral of the story folks….this is where persistance pays off (note: the first time)……I remainded very cordial and made my case and she agreed. In realtime right then and there, she credited my not only 100% ($20) but gave me free shipping as well. When I asked her why I only got 50% the first time, she said because I chose ‘aggressive enjoyment’. If I would have chose ‘manufacturer’ defect, I would have most likely got 100% credit the first time around (read: they don’t check or test their claims…probably not worth the time and effort for a quick cheap replacement).
Armed with online store credit, I chose a new pair, but then here’s where I ran into issue #2. Again, whether I tried either IE or Firefox, their website rejected my home address and asked me to ‘try again later’. Well, I tried off and on multiple times over the course of two days, each time double checking my own address which I lived at for the past 7 years, and each time my address was rejected. Screw this, I’m calling back.
And yet again, I get the nicest guy on the phone. I tell him the issue, and he says he’ll be happy to fix it and push it himself…which he does and even before I hand up the phone with him, I get an email confirming my address and….get this….an additional 20% off my next purchase. How awesome is that?
So while I may have had to jump through a few extra hoops, and do the leg work myself, in the end I got a full replacement plus a 20% coupon to boot.
In the future, I probably wouldn’t buy a new headset unless it was in the mid-tier ($60+), but Skullcandy customer service was a positive experience.








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