Editing The Pen Addict 475/transcript (section)

== Nibs Discussion ==


'''Myke:''' Something I noticed of Yovo nibs, which I've actually never spoken about on the show, I don't know why. I've had two Yovo nib sections, the feeds where it connects to the, like, you know, like the part on the back, I can't think of the words now, of the back of the nib, right? What is that called? Like, is that, that's not the feed, is it? So the feed is, is like the fan type of thing. Yeah. But the part that's attached to the back of the nib just snapped clean off. I've had that happen twice. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So I don't know. Just could be like a setting issue. It could just be a thing.

'''Myke:''' Like, you know, it's bad luck, but I've never had it happen with other pens. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It depends on how much those get manipulated. You can kind of loosen the feed around the collar and, you know, if you manipulate them a lot, they can wear out and things like that. But this was happening. These were like visible cracks and it was happening a lot. And to the point where Yovo actually made, it became enough of a stink that back in April, Yovo apparently created an Instagram account. It has one post saying, this is April 9th, saying that they have re-received information about defective housing. So I call it the collar, but it's really the housing, the circular part that goes around the feed. Kind of like what you're talking about. The solid, solid piece.

'''Myke:''' Was the only place they could have given this on an Instagram account? Why did they do that?

'''Brad:''' I think we're going to explore this a little bit more as we go. So just in general, not that I have an answer for you, but I think you're on to something there. It sounds to me that they're like a very old stuck in their ways type of situation, right? That now we have this new type of customer for their nibs that has a more direct and more public-facing feedback loop for products. Like this is the internet world that you and I live in, but maybe Yovo wasn't exactly ready for that.

'''Myke:''' I mean, I think you could take a lot of opinions as to whether this is right or wrong or the right way to be or the wrong way to be. But customers now are much more demanding for information from companies than they have been previously. And part of that is because it is so easy to get the information out there. You know, like I see this a lot in the keyboard hobby more than the pen hobby where like in the keyboard hobby, there seems to be this like intrinsic demand that like a demand that you have to know where something's made, like who makes it. Mm-hmm. It's being shady. And it's really strange. I mean, because this is the kind of thing that gets born out of a community. Like the community was small and now it started to grow and it had like just these ways because, you know, and I understand it because for this type of product, who makes it does actually have an impact on the quality. But people are untrusting. They will not trust a new company. And that's the thing that I find strange of like if you don't want to trust it, just don't buy it. Wait for somebody to buy it and see what they say about it. But, you know, it's just like these are the things that are – it's like a strange way that some of these communities are. But my point is that like customers now are much more demanding of information.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And so that's come out to bear here in the last few weeks, probably the last month or so, that nothing has really seemed to change since that April post from Yovo. Yovo and, you know, we have more people like speaking up and putting pressure on the brand. Although through like some of the – customers don't deal directly with Yovo, right? So Yovo has – based in Germany, they have a U.S. distributorship and then that distributor sends out the products to the makers. And then the makers sell the nibs to the customers, including us at Spoke. We are a Yovo distributor, U.S. distributor customer. And so it works backwards that way too. So the customer comes to, let's just say us, even though we haven't seen like a rash of problems, but just for, you know, consistency's sake. So the customer will come back to us saying, hey, we got this feed problem or this, you know, housing problem and it's cracked. It's like, okay, we'll send the nib back to me and then I'll replace it. Well, then now the customer's got five and then five other customers have five and then all of a sudden I can't replace all those. So I'm going to my distributor and my distributor is going, well, I'm talking with Yovo and they can't figure out the problem and that's the information I'm getting. And so we're just stuck in this loop of nothing progressing. And it finally came to a head here in like in the last couple of weeks. There's a great account on Instagram that you should follow, PermisWorld. We'll put a link in the chat. And they've been communicating recently with Yovo because they were one of the ones that sent like a video. Like they opened up all their pens and they had like double digit housing failures. Like just crack after crack after crack after crack. And, you know, trying to figure out what's going on to the point of like wanting to not, I'm not saying Permis, but I'm just saying like the groundswell was like, let's, you know, let's all switch to Bach and have all these other issues with Bach. There's a reason that everybody switched to Jowo and it's because Bach nibs were bad. Yeah. Yeah. But PermisWorld's done actually a good job of sharing their communication with Yovo. Yovo says theoretically they're going to have a message out on their wonderful one post Instagram. Their Instagram is just going to be a quarterly apology saying we haven't done anything yet. So sorry. Waiting with bated breath.

'''Myke:''' So sorry. So that's just kind of, that's all it is.

'''Brad:''' So back to your point. Back to your point is we, and I say we as consumers, that the we, we need more information, especially when we have provable consistent failures like this and we need confirmation and conversation with the manufacturer, not the makers, say me, not the distributors, but with the actual manufacturer of the product. Why does this keep happening? And the previous statements and subsequent fixes have not happened. So why are we in this situation? And we, I think, need that level of communication. We almost expect that level of communication in this modern consumer world that we live in. And I think it's fair. Like I absolutely think it's fair. But what I don't want to see is like, I know we can't all have like a direct line to Yovo. Like my customers can have a direct line to me. Right. And then my conversation is not with Yovo either. It's with my distributor. So like as bad as it sounds, like these things take time and we can't just, you know, expect a large manufacturer to jump through hoops. And I'm not excusing anything that they've done in this. But they need to do a better job, Yovo that is, of communicating with their customer base. Because this is not going away despite assurances that we're past this issue. It doesn't. The thing is about this product is you don't know when the nib that, let's just take me for example at SpokePen. I don't know when the nib that I currently have is going to make it into the hands of the customer. Like I could have a nib sitting here that might not be in someone's hands for a year and then they find out there's a problem even if I've inspected it the first. So these things, there's like a long tail failure that can happen, which keeps this in, you know, keeps it being a topic in the community. Right. So that's the challenge that Yovo has to come out and say, we can't, it's not as easy as saying it's fixed this time because of the long tail of the problem. So fortunately us in the U.S., we're lucky to have a great distributor, Meister Nibs, who has, is dealing with directly with Yovo. So I'll have some links in the show notes to Jonathan Brooks's Instagram account where he's posted Meister Nibs communication with the community. So Meister Nibs is taking it upon themselves to replace everyone's housings at no charge. You just have to get in touch with Meister Nibs. You know, that doesn't solve the failures, right? But it hopefully repairs the issues that you currently have. And the next step is to, okay, Yovo needs to step up and come clean on what has happened, why they're experiencing this level of failure, and what's going to be done to prevent it in the future. So we have some great support in this community from Jonathan Brooks and all of the makers who really rely on Yovo Nibs because they do provide the best nib platform. And they are affected negatively by this, you know, this failure of communication, not just of a structural failure of the product. You know, they're affected by customers not wanting to buy these nibs because of the stories they're hearing about them and the pictures they're seeing of all of these failures making customers go, Hey, maybe I shouldn't buy this pen or maybe I should go find someone who uses a Bach fitting. And, you know, it's a little bit scary, I think, for some of the makers out there to have this kind of groundswell of problems with something that's really out of their hands. And no one's blaming makers for this. You know, the blame lies solely on Yovo, but we as a community are not getting enough from Yovo. And that's what we all need to see. So I'm thankful for Jonathan and for Meister Nibs for kind of taking the lead and fixing the end result. But we have to fix the source. And that's what Yovo needs to step up to the plate and do.

'''Myke:''' This is one of those things that's always interesting and kind of weird to me where it's like, oh, we're having this problem. And we're not necessarily saying what it is, which honestly suggests that they may be not 100% sure how to maintain the quality because that can be difficult to do sometimes. But we'll replace them. What with? Right. Right. What are you going to replace them with? Like, we're just going to keep replacing it with the same product and hoping that you're not one of the one in X that break. Right. Yeah, like a numbers game. Yeah. I mean, I know that's kind of all you can do, but it's pretty awkward, right?

'''Brad:''' Right. And that's where the difference is, the difference in the customer dealing with the maker versus the customer dealing with the manufacturer. And, you know, so the manufacturers don't, I'm not going to say this right, but they don't have as much incentive to fix it, as bad as that sounds. Right. I mean, they do in the end, but they don't have the immediacy, the immediate incentive that, say, a maker like myself has to hopefully allow my customer.

'''Myke:''' You don't have the customer email sitting in your inbox.

'''Brad:''' Like, my customer's, yeah, my customer's going to yell at me, and I'm like, yeah, I'm with you. And Yovo's just going to go, eh, there's probably a problem. We'll look into it.

'''Myke:''' But that thing of, like, yeah, I'm with you doesn't really matter to the customer either, right? Like, I know what you're saying. I feel it. Right. Exactly. But it's, they don't, kind of don't care. Like, it is your job for them, you know, for the customer. It's your job, Brad, to fix this for them, you know?

'''Brad:''' Right. However, that gets done. I agree. Yes. So, it's now, we're beyond this point, and it's time for Yovo to do something publicly about this.

'''Myke:''' So, as far as you're aware, has the issue, have they fixed it?