Dave sent us this post about his experience with Staedtler’s great customer service:
It’s fair to say that my emails to customer services at various pencil companies have produced a fairly consistent response. That is, deafening silence, no response whatsoever. But there is one exception to that rule, namely Staedtler. Both German HQ and their Australian subsidiary have promptly replied to my enquiries. Staedtler Australia even airmailed me their CD “Facts about Pencils†in response to a simple enquiry, and the covering note was personally signed by the CEO, so they obviously take customer relations very seriously.
It looks to me like their CD “Facts about Pencils†is aimed at children around the 8 to 10 year old age bracket. It opens with the question “Have you ever wondered where your pencil comes from?†accompanied by the raucous sounds of the Australian bush and a friendly cartoon kangaroo and koala bear. Then 5 short movies take you through the pencil manufacturing process:
Where Do Pencils Come From?
The ‘Unleaded Pencil’
Shaping the Pencil
Painting the Pencil
Labelling & Packaging the Pencil
There is also a “Student Workbook – Teachers Aid†section, and two bonus movies obviously from Staedtler Germany. One movie is about erasers, the other pencils – who would have guessed how erasers were so important in teenage love?
It was good to watch the movies to see all the automated machinery producing pencils by the zillion – pencil leads and erasers just being continuously squeezed out and chopped to length. I was particularly interested to see the painting process and how they get the pin-striping and other effects. The German movie mentions that Staedtler’s two manufacturing plants in Germany produce 1.7 million pencils per day.
Many thanks to Dave!
[Image, D.P. and Staedtler. Used with permission.]
I guess when it comes to a device that has no internal moving parts electronics, one does not need to have great customer service.
“Hello, my pencil is not working?” “Are you using the pointy dark-grey end?” “It’s supposed to be pointy????”
Sounds like a cool CD though.
Very cool, I’d love to get my hands on one of those!
Hi, How do i can get a copy of this staedtler-cd? I have just checked out the web, which went in vain.
Will be glad if you can get some details on this.
I think you have to contact the company’s PR office;)
We did our science experiment on erasers. Staedtler’s Mars plastic eraser won! We tried 16 erasers! We wished that we heard about the CD, but we will request it. We recently e-mailed the company. We think that the eraser is “awesome”!