Hi jc118,
Unfortunately … there are too many unknowns, variables, and preferences involved to know this with any certainty based on either specs (yours or a mattress) or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more accurate than your own testing or sleeping experience. This is the reason why a trial period is so important because if this could be known with certainty then a trial period wouldn’t be necessary. Having said that … it would be well worthwhile to have a conversation on the phone about the topper option they have made available to you to see if it might be a reasonable solution because they would almost certainly be willing to provide you with the benefit of their knowledge and experience and I doubt that they have lost the desire for you to have a more positive experience with their mattress.
[quote]Thanks for the follow up and hey, I acknowledge that I should have contacted them sooner. I’m not saying that it wasn’t my responsibility but what I am saying is that I’ve very rarely been in a situation where a couple of days wasn’t something that could be accommodated. This is on the business and on the customer side.
I’m just shocked that a potential exchange, where I would be expecting to pay them more money, was treated in such a manner.[/quote]
I think that outside of your delivery experience … they did the “right” thing with your exchange for all the reasons I mentioned in my last reply. They stuck to the terms of their agreement with you regardless of whether it may have helped or hurt them (in other words profit or loss wasn’t the issue and it was a “principle based” decision) and they offered you a possible solution that was outside of their policy as an exception to help you solve your issues.
The logo of the site is a set of Borromean rings with a Mobius strip connecting them. This reflects my belief that there is a partnership of sorts between manufacturers, retailers, and consumers and that if there is a weak link in any of them that breaks then all the rings fall apart and you end up with “challenging” situations where the most common outcome is that each part of the partnership ends up blaming the others. The Mobius strip signifies my belief that in reality (or at least in a perfect world) that all of these are on the same side and that all of them are accountable for their own actions.
The goal of the site is to help strengthen each part of the industry (manufacturers, retailers, and consumers) so that manufacturers make better quality mattresses and are more transparent, retailers can provide better service, guidance, and value to their customers, and consumers can make more educated and informed choices based on knowledge and legitimate research instead of marketing stories. The goal is to work towards each of these being more accountable for their part of the “partnership” they are responsible for so that it functions more as an equal partnership where the “best outcome” for all three is the same. The biggest issues in the market today IMO are manufacturers that make lower quality mattresses and are not transparent … retailers that have little meaningful knowledge about the mattresses they sell or that are more concerned with their profit margins or selling anything that a customer is willing to buy than the legitimate and reasonable best interests of their customers … and consumers that have unrealistic expectations about what is possible and what isn’t in a mattress or that don’t do the legitimate research that can allow them to replace hindsight with foresight.
I am not one of those who believes that “customers are always right” because while all areas of the industry (manufacturers, retailers, and consumers) have a long way to go and none are immune from making mistakes or not living up to the terms of their agreements … based on my experiences customers tend to have more unrealistic expectations about what is or isn’t possible and what isn’t or about exceptions that they believe should be made for them when they don’t take care of their end of the purchase agreement. In other words complaints from consumers on the internet that aren’t always reasonable, are based on unrealistic expectations or lack of meaningful research, or not realizing that they are only one part of a much bigger picture where the interests of all the parties in a “partnership” need to be taken into account has become much too common … especially because it’s so easy for consumers to be anonymous on the internet today and a single anonymous complaint (reasonable or otherwise) will affect so many people who also believe that customers should always be given what they ask for and that their interests should be more important than the other two parts of the industry. These types of complaints based on “I’m entitled” or “I believe I should be an exception because of “fill in the blank”” has replaced responsibility or even gratitude to a large degree and when a business does make an exception (such as your topper) it still isn’t enough to generate a “thank you” and leads to a complaint or “negative review” anyway … even when they are under no obligation to do anything at all.
While I understand that this may not be what you wanted to hear … and there have been other examples of “frank” and direct replies I’ve written on the forum in response to other members that have also “blamed” a manufacturer for choices that they are responsible for (see post #6 here for another example connected to a different manufacturer) … one of the goals of this site is to use situations like this to help educate other consumers so that they don’t end up making the same mistakes as you did.
Phoenix