The King of Pointland

Staedtler

How's this for excitement? Listen:

Some time ago, I purchased a package of Staedtler Liquid Point 7 pens at my local Staples. Now I know what you're thinking: "Out of sight, man! German-engineered roller-ball goodness! You win!" Well slow down. As it turns out, the ink never dries. OK, the ink does dry, but it takes ages, and until it does, watch out. The slightest disturbance will smear the ink. Anything. Proofreading from a distance of six feet is enough to do it. And don't even think about using a highlighter on what you've written, even when, several days later, the ink is completely dry.

This may surprise some of you, but I took the time to drop Staedtler a note on their website. I politely suggested they consider reformulating their ink. And that, I thought, was that . . .

From: service@staedtler.de
To: deisner@*.com
Date: Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 4:21 AM
Subject: Complaint about Liquid Point 7


04-03-2008

Dear Mr. Eisner,

With your web-response you have reached the STAEDTLER headquarters in Germany. We are sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with the quality of one of our products.

The Liquid Point 7 is a directly-filled rollerball with a very good ink flow. On some papers - especially if the surface is very smooth - the drying time can be higher than with other pens. If the drying time is an important factor for you, we recommend that you either use a ball-point pen or a fineliner, e. g. the triplus fineliner No. 334. These pens can also be highlighted without any problems with our Textsurfer classic No. 364 (http://www.staedtler-usa.com/Textsurfer_classic_us.Staedtler).

Under separate cover we will send you a test sample of the triplus fineliner No. 334-9 and hope that this pen will meet with your requirements.

With kind regards,
STAEDTLER Mars GmbH & Co. KG
Sabine Schuster
Customer Service
service@staedtler.de

Kommanditgesellschaft, Sitz Nürnberg, Registergericht Nürnberg HRA 7512, persönlich haftende Gesellschafterin: STAEDTLER Mars Verwaltungs GmbH, Sitz Nürnberg, Registergericht Nürnberg HRB 2468, Geschäftsführer: Axel Marx

How can you be angry at somebody who sends you a free pen? You can't. And "under separate cover" no less. Apparently, in Germany, it is still 1956. But I'm a curious type:

Dear Ms. Schuster,

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my comment. This rarely happens with other companies. Thanks, too, for sending a sample. I look forward to trying it. Vielen Dank!

Yes, the paper I use is smooth, and that may be part of the problem. Not all roller-ball pens exhibit the same characteristics, however. For example, when I write on the same paper using a Uni-ball Deluxe Micro (manufactured by Sanford), the ink dries so quickly that I can smear it only by placing my finger tip next to the tip as I draw the line. If I wait even one second, the ink is completely dry. Furthermore, my highlighter does not smear the ink.

From this I conclude that some roller-ball ink formulations do dry quickly and are not soluble in highlighter ink. Perhaps the liquid point 7 ink is water-soluble?

Thanks again for your time, I do appreciate it, and I look forward to using the Triplus Fineliner.

-David Eisner
University Park, MD

To this, Frau Schuster responded:

04-04-2008

Dear Mr. Eisner,

Thank you very much for your feedback. We have talked to our laboratory again. It is correct that our Liquid Point contains water-soluble ink. The longer drying time is however due to the high ink flow and also to the fact that the ink contains glycerine as a wetting agent in order to prevent the ink from drying up in the pen.

One of the reasons why the Sanford Uni-ball Deluxe dries quicker is that it contains xylene. We do not add this to our products since this agent is harmful to health.

We hope that our sample of the triplus fineliner will reach you soon.

With kind regards,

STAEDTLER Mars GmbH & Co. KG
Sabine Schuster
Customer Service
service@staedtler.de

Kommanditgesellschaft, Sitz Nürnberg, Registergericht Nürnberg HRA 7512, persönlich haftende Gesellschafterin: STAEDTLER Mars Verwaltungs GmbH, Sitz Nürnberg, Registergericht Nürnberg HRB 2468, Geschäftsführer: Axel Marx

At this point I was swooning. She contacted their laboratory! Again! Somewhere, perhaps in Nürnberg, a German engineer, perhaps in a white lab coat, had to defend the Staedtler ink formulation and describe the dangers of Xylene to Frau Schuster, that she might politely inform me of the threat posed by my Uniball Deluxe Micro.

Xylene. Who knew.

I'm convinced that the only reason I received this level of attention was because Staedtler is a European corporation. Can you imagine an American company taking this much time to respond, in detail, to the concerns of a customer who purchased a $5 package of disposable pens? Again, in 1956, perhaps. But not today. I have it on good authority that the customer feedback form on the Sanford website sends the comments to a call center in India, where, through an inadvertent configuration error, they go to /dev/null on a Linux box sitting under somebody's desk in Hyderabad.

Posted by cradle at April 8, 2008 06:19 PM