Updates from Redwood

[JeffM-REDW]

Good morning everyone!

My apologies for my lack of communication over the past several weeks here on the forums - I have been traveling extensively across the central and northwestern US visiting Redwood dealers. I will be back at the home base for a few weeks so I wanted to give you an update and address some things that I know that are trending on the forums.

I believe first and foremost that the most persistent topic discussed on this - or any - forum is quality control. I have been reading extensively the posts about various issues that folks are having with their units, and I have been speaking to dealers, service managers, and technicians all over the US and Canada to find trends in QC issues. I want to assure everyone on this forum that your concerns are not falling on deaf ears, by any means.

Quality control is something we take very seriously at Redwood. We have implemented changes over the last 6-12 months, and have invested a large amount of capital into our QC processes and customer service resources.

Here are a few things that are going on:

• Construction of a new, state-of-the-art customer service facility that will increase our work space by almost 150%.
  
  
• Andy Cripe has been President of Crossroads and Redwood for almost a year now, and is dedicated to the furtherance of the companies and ensuring a quality product.
  
  
• Jim Lazzarino (whom many of you have met or spoken with) has been General Manager of Redwood for almost a year now. Jim comes from 13 years of retail RV sales and sales management, and is acquainted with the importance of quality control at a customer level. Like Andy, Jim is committed to ensuring Redwood's continuing quality improvement and innovation. I can personally attest to this, because as I'm typing this he is at the Redwood factory having a meeting with the Redwood production team, as he does on a weekly basis. Beyond this, he is at the factory several other times a week personally looking into quality control at the production level. In fact, if you ever take a factory tour with us here, it wouldn't be uncommon to see Jim or Andy in the middle of the production line talking to the builders and taking notes. Both of them "walk the walk", so to speak.
  
  
• Every person on the Redwood management team is always happy to get feedback - both good and bad. We are always happy to talk to our Redwood owners or prospective owners at rallies and dealerships and over the phone, and we welcome the chance to help in any way that we can. We will all be present at the Redwood rally this August, and look forward to meeting everyone and listening to your feedback.

I know that none of this is specifically unique to Redwood or Crossroads, but I do believe it is unique in the RV industry today, and we all believe it is the right way to do business. Will we mess up time to time? Sure we will - but our commitment to our customers is that we will always be there to take care of them and do the right thing.

If you haven't seen this already, please take a look. This is an interview with Andy about our company and the new things we are doing:

We are really excited about the new things that are coming. Stay tuned for more info about the new products which will be coming soon!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer, and I look forward to seeing many of you at our rally!

All my best,

Jeff

 

[0nTheRoad-REDW]

Jeff,

Thanks for checkin in, glad to know you're still with us and thanks for your report. Glad to hear that Redwood/Crossroads is hearing what we here on the forum are saying...now lets hope whats being said is adressed both in manufacturing AND in dealer delivery and as important...service.

Looking forward to meeting you next ,onto @ the Rally.

 

[dave and ginny]

Thanks Jeff! It's good the hear that the company is taking our concerns seriously.

 

[daily413]

We also send out thanks Jeff, It is good to know that what I have been reading on this forum is making it to the desk of the one's that can make things even better than they are.

 

[johnboytoo]

While plans for the future are great for future buyers, and you are trying to address it in more than just words...

What can you do for the 6 weeks or more down time every time you have to bring your redwood in for warranty repairs that should have never made it out of the factory in the condition it is in ?

Each rv dealer I have visited has a sign behind their service desk that says something like:

If you bring your rv today 7/16/14, we can look at it by 8/30/14

Not your problem, but it is for your customers especially when the repairs, again, should not have made it out of mfg like it was...

Am I negative ? You bet I am !!!

The battery disconnect switch that doesn't disconnect (and has been brought to the dealer no less than 4 times for that) has disabled my redwood for another 2 months (so far) such that I haven't been able to raise the jacks to move it...

 

[JeffM-REDW]

Hi Johnboytoo,

Please let me be the first to apologize for the issues you are having with your Redwood. Thank you for your candor. Please check your private message inbox for my message there and we will find a way to help you out.

Thank you,

Jeff

 

[DLRAKOWITZ]

hey JeffM,

I am one of those that have been having some pretty bad issues with my 38BR. I have spoke with Jim L and sent him a list of issues I was having. Finally going to be able to take mine back to the dealer again to see if they can get these fixed finally, time will only tell. Jim assured me that he will get down to the bottom of this so I can't wait till we finally get this back in time for our first time in this unit since we havnt been able to sleep in it yet due to faulty AC's plus more. Thanks again for putting this post up for all of us.

David

 

[JeffM-REDW]

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply. Jim is very proactive in solving problems - rest assured we will make sure things are taken care of. Please keep us in the loop.

I know that once these issues are resolved you will love your Redwood. Please contact me if I can be of assistance.

Best Regards,

Jeff

 

[Steve & Linda1]

Jeff, So glad to have you check back with the forum and give an update. I noticed your absence and wondered what happened. Welcome back.

 

[JeffM-REDW]

Thank you! It's great to be back.

 

[johnboytoo]

Hi Johnboytoo,

Please let me be the first to apologize for the issues you are having with your Redwood. Thank you for your candor. Please check your private message inbox for my message there and we will find a way to help you out.

Thank you,

Jeff

Thank you, I will respond...

And apologies for the dog pile , after a point, it turns into that !

 

[Grandpa-THOR]

It's good to hear we are not invisible!

 

[Rick and Mindy]

Jeff, great to have you back! It's always nice to know someone from Redwood is hearing us. As for Johnboytoo, I can attest to the fact that the 2 dealers I have had dealings with were pathetic when it came to quality of repairs. He is right, after awhile you start losing faith but I can also attest to Jim's concern in making it right with the cutomer, and because of that, I applaud Redwood Customer Service. My question is, does Redwood look for dealers that just don't have a clue what customer service is, or what. I have 3 fairly reputable large dealers in my area and not one of them is a Redwood or Crossroads dealer. Prior conversations with them indicated that they would be happy to accomplish inspections or warranty work for Redwood if it was authorized.

 

[JeffM-REDW]

Hi Rick & Mindy,

Thank you - it is good to be back!

Please message me with the dealers you have in mind. We are always looking for reputable dealers to carry our product, and we try to monitor very closely how our dealers treat our customers.

Thank you,

Jeff

 

[ksaltman]

Jeff,

Thanks for the update. As you may recall there was discussion here about doing a user survey about RW product features and concerns to present to RW during the rally.

After some discussions off the forum the feedback I got back was that for this year it would be best to focus on the major issues of quality control and customer service and leave the other feature requests for another time. If you feel it would be helpful to move forward with the survey let me know and we still may have time to pull that together.

I'm glad to see the QC concern is being heard and look forward to improvements in this area.

Look forward to meeting you at the rally and seeing the new RW facilities first hand.

 

[Rob_Fla]

On a good note, I have had some very positive communication from our area Redwood rep offering any assistance, problem resolution or answers to any of our questions.

Not sure what his actual Region is or what it covers but his name is Hilton Riggins.

 

[ksaltman]

I met Hilton @ the Tampa RV show so I expect his region includes Florida.

 

[JeffM-REDW]

Ksaltman,

We are always open to suggestions. If you could get a survey done in time, please feel free to do so. We would be interested in seeing the results.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Oriana]

Jeff - Thanks for checking in with the forum and updating us on the company's initiatives. Hoping to meet everyone at the Rally and over time see positive changes in QA/QC, through culture change.

 

[Oriana]

Jeff - who is the Regional Sales Manager for Western Canada, we initially had a great chap, but he disappeared after the changes last summer. He was extremely helpful and with our dealer was instrumental in getting us into a RW.