Saturday, March 08, 2008

Crest-Whatamess Pro-Health

Well it has been awhile since I have written anything. I promised to update all of my readers (2?-3?) with news of the radon fix and things in general. But first a rant.

Crest Pro-Health Clean Mint Toothpaste. Be sure to include the lot number: LOT733253EXP0C09. I went to their website a few months ago: http://crest.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/crest.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php
and filled in my complaint about the worse design for a toothpaste cap on the planet. I hit submit and got an error. So I am trying again today. Don't get me wrong. love the toothpaste. Gritty and spicy and like the dentist uses. But 8chwife won't let me buy it again (yes, I do the shopping). It makes a mess. I keep it in a tray so that it doesn't leak all over the vanity drawer. See picture:
Notice that I even bought into the notion that I need both the day time and night time version of the stuff. I am a sucker for incremental marketing. I am sure you can see the green and the white leaks. The caps are worthless. You cannot make a snap cap that big and expect it to hold tolerances. I challenge you, my loyal readers, to purchase a tube and try and reclose it by simply snapping the cap shut. Impossible. Well not impossible the first time or two, but once the tube starts to empty clicking the cap causes "Paste Extrusion" (that's toothpaste science talk) and yuck, what a mess.

Here is what the cap looks like about halfway through its life:
And don't get me started about what gets caught in that mess. For someone with mild OCD it is totally sick. Now the stuff has been on the market for about a year. Surely they know by now it is a mess. The internet sees to that. Are they scrambling to correct it? Work through old inventory? Writing engineering change orders? Redesigning the cap installation machine? Getting headquarters buy in at a quarterly product review meeting? Okay, I suppose they need to do all of this stuff.



How much do you wanna bet I get a polite "thank you for your feedback, P&G welcomes all consumer inquiries and we assure you that your comments are important."

Stay tuned. I will follow up once I get an answer from customer service.

By the way, radon fix was remarkable. I will get to this story another day...

ATTENTION LOYAL READERS A RESPONSE FROM P & G - March 10, 2008

I received a response via email from the "team" at P & G. Not as bad as what I imagined a few lines above here. Here's the cut and paste:

Thank you for sharing your disappointment with our product. Our goal is to produce high quality products that consistently delight our consumers and I'm sorry this wasn't your experience. Please be assured I'm sharing your comments with the rest of our team. Since your satisfaction means a great deal to us, I'm following up with you by postal mail. You should receive my letter within the next 2-3 weeks.

Thanks again for writing.P&G Team

Not bad boiler plate, an improvement from the old days.

Wait, do you realize I am spending time here ranting about a toothpaste cap? With impending planetary doom from Global Warming and Dubya's horrid humanity you would think I had more important things to write about.

Okay, enough of this.

8chwife just threw away all the Pro-Health and replaced it with something that is supposed to whiten your teeth. Rigth. At least it has an old fashioned little screw on cap.

The End