kettle

Seth Godin has a sore thumb.

He has also just lost KitchenAid a sale. Given the popularity of his blog, KitchenAid may have just lost a lot of sales, actually.

Here’s my reason. My wife Laura and I bought a chalet-apartment in the Alps. Over the summer we took out a cheap kettle we had bought. It took so long to bring the water to the boil that I used to set it going before I walked to the local bakery for bread and croissants etc. If I stopped for a clumsy exchange in French with the bakery staff, the water was past tepid by the time I returned. It also failed to sing, squeal, whistle or any other of the comforting noises you want and expect from a kettle.

In other words, we got what we paid for.

So, this coming Christmas holiday trip to France, we plan on buying a better quality kettle that will make noises and heat the water quickly. The KitchenAid kettle was one of the options.

No more.

Do I feel I need Seth Godin to tell me what kettle to buy? No. Do I think Seth Godin is a leading expert on kitchen appliances? No.

But when Seth Godin tells a story about customer service, I listen. It isn’t because Seth said his kettle melted that I won’t be buying a KitchenAid kettle. Hey, Seth may be careless with how he positions the kettle on the gas, for all I know. No, the issue is that if my kettle were to melt – or go wrong in some equally basic way – I don’t want the customer service experience he had.

I like the look of the Le Creuset kettle in my local kitchen shop.