Peters reply in the comments:
Hi Everyone,
Peter Dering here, the founder of Peak Design and co-inventor of the Anchor Link system. First off…I’d like to thank those in the comment string here who have come to our defense. We owe our company’s success to our loyal supporters, and it is deeply felt and appreciated.
But…when a story like this breaks, we can't blame the messenger…we take full responsibility. Fstoppers have done a wonderful job telling the world about our products when they’ve come out. Telling the world about their failures is simply fair and honest journalism, which we hold in high regard.
In my view, there are two issues here Peak Design needs to address. First off, we had a product failure. Secondly, we had a customer service failure and a policy discussion on our hands. Insurance is an interesting topic, but is outside our expertise or right to comment on.
Apologies for the forthcoming novela - there's just a lot I'd like to address...
Product Failure: Here's the history behind all this...
1. We've upgraded our Anchor design 2 (soon to be 3) times. The Kevlar/Delrin connectors that broke on Thomas’ strap are v1 Anchors, launched at the end of 2012. This is indicated by the old logo on them.
2. We heard about the first Anchor breakage in early 2014. We paid close attention to the issue and worked closely with the customer who experienced it. We previously thought the system would stand the test of time no matter what. This incident made it clear that Anchors were subject to wear in certain use cases.
3. This realization prompted three actions:
a) We immediately put warning tags directly on Anchors, so that everyone using these products would know that these are a “wear item”, that could require eventual replacement. We were able to get this warning into the product stream quickly.
b) We wrote a blog post and help article (
http://support.peakdesign.com/hc/en-us/articles/203702175-Anchor-Strengt...) about the need to check Anchors for wear, and implored people to do so.
c) We re-examined high performance cords to see if there was a better option.
4. Within a month, our v2 Anchors began being produced, using Vectran instead of Kevlar. Vectran is better against UV and abrasion. As soon as we could, we inserted these new Anchors into the product stream, and began issuing free replacements to those with frayed v1 Anchors.
5. These v2 Anchors were an improvement, but not the panacea we were seeking. The material is better, but the weave of the Vectran is looser, which fought against the its abrasion resistance. We still wanted to do better.
6. We are now in production of our v3 Anchors, which are actively being inserted into all new products. At significant cost, we scrapped 50,000 Vectran Anchors so that we could switch more quickly.
7. The new Anchors are made with Dyneema…a material that has shown to be 10x stronger than Vectran and 15x stronger in Kevlar in our reciprocating and vibratory tests.
8. v3 Anchors cords consist of three layers: a black exterior, a yellow middle core, and a red inner core. They come with instructions to seek replacement when yellow shows, and immediately cease using at the first sight of red.
9. As soon as our fulfillment centers are stocked, we intend to release this news as far and wide as we can, and provide a very cost effective way of getting these v3 Anchors into the hands of those who are already using products with the Anchor Link system.
In our biased opinion, Anchor Links remain the most innovative and convenient way to connect a camera to a strap, and we are committed as a company to never stop improving on the products we have.
Customer Service Failure:
I hesitate to label this as a customer service failure, if only because it reflects poorly on our customer service manager who I have extraordinary respect for. But as I take responsibility for the failure of any of our products, I also take responsibility for the our customer service. In this case we failed to give you the service that one deserves in such a serious situation, and I'll be following up with you directly to make things right.
Peak Design has been lucky enough to see a huge uptick in the popularity of our products and the number of people using them. With that has come a huge influx of customer service needs. We have been meeting that demand by trying to create efficient systems that let us handle a large volume of issues, as typically we see most questions and issues come in waves. Broken Anchors, however, are not a common issue to be handled by a response we’ve created using ZenDesk. This issue should have been handled with extreme delicacy and personal attention, and it wasn’t.
Peak Design products are carrying the gear of about 250,000 photographers now. Certainly, we’ve had breaks in the past. Thank goodness, very few. And in most cases, I have personally engaged with customers, with the aim of learning more about the situation people were in that led to a failure, shared with them the plan for v3 Anchors, and have also paid our fair share of insurance deductibles and repair charges. These are painful discussions to have to have, but the confidence that’s rebuilt in the consumer is worth every penny.
That said, the policy we have in place is that Peak Design is not responsible for damage to equipment. We need to have this blanket policy in place, mostly to protect against fraud. The consumers’ protection against Peak Design is that if we are negligent or fraudulent….we will cease to exist far more quickly than we were born.
This community has my assurance that we will be taking steps to improve our customer service and not have this type of failure. We’ll be increasing capacity, eliminating any process based replies for something as serious as a camera drop, and making sure that we have the bandwidth to speak with everyone who wants their voice heard. These changes won’t come overnight, but by April of this year, I hope to be staffed up and ready to give the service our customers deserve.
I’d like to close with a heartfelt thanks to all of those in the community of writers, bloggers, and readers of this content. There is a whole ecosystem around photography that Peak Design is pleased and humbled to be a part of. Thanks for your efforts, and your enthusiasm.
