We see you had a problem reaching us via our website. To save you further time & aggrevation, please call me at
800-438-0286, Ext. 7254.
Susan Graham, THORLO’s Consumer Services

Good post – any follow up yet? I just did a Google on “how long do thorlos socks last?” and came across your posts. I bought yet another pair today (makes 8 or 9 in the last two years) and while i run a lot i’m not a super mega crazy runner. They seem to just last 2-3 months for me before i need a new pair….

Lemme know what results….

Depaget

I love Dr. B’s soap! Great product and it’s a great value when available in a bulk bin at our natural food market.

We gave up on Thorlo socks and turned to SmartWool years ago. While the technology for man man fabrics went down, non-itching easy to care for wool was rediscovered. REI makes good wools hiking socks too.

-Elisa

First of all, it’s great to know that I’m not crazy, and that it is entirely likely that my Thorlos from the 80′s would still be going strong when later versions are wearing out.

Second, thank you for the insights into your manufacturing process. Yours is not the only industry where current raw materials aren’t necessarily better than previous versions across all attributes. I would definitely say that Thorlos are more comfortable and better padded now than ever.

Finally, thank you for providing a great example of why social media is truly a two way conversation. Not that you wouldn’t have responded to a letter or a call, but that I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to write or call. (Not probably. I didn’t.)

I know in this instance I came to your attention because Oftenatangent sent my post to your customer service as an email, which gave your company a chance to respond and manage a troubled customer. Does your company also monitor online reputation, looking for blog posts like mine? If so, have you been able to quantify the impact of these engagements on brand awareness, customer satisfaction, and any other metrics you use?

I will be contacting Susan Graham. Not only because I’m interested in seeing how the process works, but also because if I can have any input that can help make Thorlos a better product, I’d be a fool not to leap at the opportunity.

Let me start off by saying thank you for the feedback in your email. As you have described, one of the cornerstones that built the Thorlo brand is our ability to deliver a differentiated experience to our consumers that they can not receive from any other sock product. As you can imagine, durability is an important part of this experience and when we receive emails such as yours they cause me great concern as I am ultimately responsible for integrity of our products. I, along with Customer Service, Quality Assurance, and the Owner of our company read each and every email as it pertains to product function and performance. By monitoring consumer feedback and conducting internal and external testing, we are able to identify patterns in our product performance. When it comes to durability, the overwhelming pattern is that our product should last you for many years. From your email I see that this has not been your recent experience.

As you may know, there are many variables that can influence the durability of a sock. Shoe fit, sock construction, laundering methods are just of few of the many factors. Another factor is the raw materials used to make the product. As you mentioned in your email, Thorlo has and will continue to implement a business model that allows us to continue to design, develop, and manufacture in the United States. We firmly believe in the American workforce and for us, this is the one true way to sustainably make a high quality, mass produced, custom sock product that will deliver the Thorlo experience to our consumers. Unfortunately, our fiber (raw material) producers have had to play a different game. Due to competitive pressures, as well as government and environmental policies they have been forced to compete in a low cost production environment. Because of this, almost all fiber producers have gone out of business or have had to move their operations overseas (you will notice other sock manufacturers playing in this game as well). In fact the original fiber used to produce Thorlo sock products went out of production in the mid 1980’s. Thorlo has and continues to spend extensive resources in providing a stable product in an ever changing world. This involves searching out new suppliers, testing new fibers, and paying a premium price for the best materials the world has to offer. Our fiber of choice today is produced in Germany and is the one that most closely replicates our original fiber. We have developed Strategic Relationships with our yarn suppliers and work very close with them making adjustments at the yarn level to improve the performance of the fiber. We also have a group of testers that we work with and I would like to invite you to participate in our next round of testing as you have the awareness and insights that we look for in our testers.

As for the current issue you are experiencing with our product, when we receive an email such as yours, we work with the consumer to understand the particular situation and make recommendations to improve the life of the product. This involves some one-on-one interaction with Susan Graham in Customer Service and typically in cases such as durability, we have the consumer send in the product so that we can evaluate it.

I hope that you will continue to provide feedback and take me up on my offer to become a tester for us. Your feedback is invaluable to us as our loyal consumers are the true owners of the Thorlo brand.

Take care and please contact Susan Graham through our website http://www.thorlos.com so that we can work with you on your issue.

David Varsik
Director of R&D
Thorlo Inc