Transcript of Video Titled “Thad Gerber – Massage Chair Relief Customer Interview”
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Dr. Alan Weidner: Hi Thad, OK.
Thad Gerber: Hi.
Alan: This is now – I’m just going to give a little preamble to our chitchat here today, I have to – this is Thad Gerber. He’s one of our customers, and he’s a local to our California store, purchased a chair from us, and we have been trying for a week now to get this thing to record right, and knock on wood, we’ve got it recording. But thank you – well, Thad, I thank you for talking with me today, thanks for talking with me last week, thanks for putting up with this for well over an hour, combined, both times – I really appreciate your being here today.
Thad: Oh, you’re welcome.
Alan: Now, Thad, I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed that this is going to record both audio and video, and then if we have the luck of the Irish – and I’m not Irish, I’ll just tell you right now – if we have the luck of anything, we’ll have these recordings up and running later today. But anyway, Thad, thank you for coming to visit today, I really appreciate this, and I thought maybe we could just begin – and I can’t even remember the depth of the interview from last week, when we ended up only having the audio recording – but maybe you could just tell me a little bit about your buying experience. I know that you purchased one chair, and you returned it, then purchased another. Can you tell me a little bit about that whole process of how you arrived at one chair, and then the other?
Thad: Sure. So, initially I did a bunch of research online, and in doing that research, I came across your videos, which were extremely helpful. So, I started watching – I think I watched every one of your videos on every chair, and what I determined was I thought I wanted the Luraco i7, which I ended up purchasing from you – well, actually, let me back up a little bit. I went to your showroom in Cerritos, and I worked with Michael. I was there for probably three hours …
Alan: Wow.
Thad: And I tried almost every chair in your showroom, I was very sore, and I really liked the Luraco i7, so I took delivery of that, and it’s a fantastic chair. The only thing I found out, for my needs, is the Luraco doesn’t, or I should say didn’t do a great job with my shoulder traps. That was my only complaint, and I work at a computer all day, so that’s usually the area that gets very tight for me. So, I – after living with it for a few weeks – I decided I really wouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t take care of my shoulder traps. So, I called Michael, I went back down to the showroom, tried a few other chairs, I tried the Panasonic, and I tried the Inada, and there were one or two others I tried, and I decided to go with the Inada. And your team was great, they came, they helped me box up the Luraco, they set up the Inada, and now I’ve had the Inada for a few months, I love the chair. You know, through this experience though, I determined there’s no perfect chair, so I tried to pick a chair that would attack, you know, the portions I needed most, which are my shoulders, and the Inada just has a very strong trap massage …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: Because of the way the did the airbags. You know, it’s got a wonderful …
Alan: Now, the iRobotics 7 …
Thad: Go ahead.
Alan: Well, I was going to say the iRobotics 7 also has an airbag mechanism to push down on the traps, but tell me why that wasn’t sufficient for you.
Thad: Well …
Alan: Or I guess you knew that, but it wasn’t sufficient.
Thad: Yeah, so the difference is the iRobotics 7 had pieces not attached to the backrest. The Inada had pieces attached to the backrest, so when you are sitting down on the Inada, there is much more force keeping the headpiece in place.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, it can really dig in to your shoulder traps, whereas the iRobotics, there’s nothing keeping it in place, so it kind of pushes off your shoulder traps …
Alan: Right.
Thad: And it’s just not that strong.
Alan: Did it have the Velcro strip behind it attaching it to the chair body?
Thad: Yes.
Alan: OK, and that still wasn’t sufficient for the traps?
Thad: Yeah, for me.
Alan: Yeah, no, I get that, and I know that Luraco has made some changes to that headpiece to make that, and the Velcro strip is the primary change to make sure it dug in a little bit deeper in to the shoulders. But for some people, like you say, it’s really not going to be enough, you really want to dig in, and I know that the DreamWave really does dig. I mean, when you turn on the highest airbag setting, it can be uncomfortably hard. Did you find that as well?
Thad: Well, you know, it really depends on how often I was using it, I tend to use it a lot. Occasionally, I would just switch the – they have inserts – they have these knobules, and then they have like the flat pads, so you can swap the shoulder pads.
Alan: Right.
Thad: So, when it was too intense, I just swapped the shoulder pads.
Alan: OK.
Thad: Now, the one thing to note for people listening to this is, the Inada is not going to give as intense of a massage as the iRobotics. The iRobotics has a very intense massage.
Alan: Right.
Thad: Now, I have some disc problems, so you know, having it a little bit lighter is probably better for me …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: But, you know, everyone’s different.
Alan: What other features did you like about the DreamWave? You know, maybe not, you may be, something that you didn’t recognize right off the bat, but you liked later, or something that really impressed, other than traps, what, tell me more about what you like.
Thad: Sure, so it does a great job of massaging the side of your legs.
Alan: Mm-hmm.
Thad: That’s very different, you know, a very different massage than say, if I contrast it with the iRobotics, and I would say, the way it works, all the pieces, the airbags and the rollers kind of work together. It’s very, very smooth.
Alan: Mm-hmm.
Thad: And it’s just the coordination, I mean, it’s just, it’s almost, it’s fantastic, just how seamless it is.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: And that’s one thing that struck me.
Alan: Yeah, I’ve heard people say that the DreamWave, probably, of all the chairs that people have tried, well, many people have said that that one seems to resemble the human hand more than any other chair. So, then maybe you’re speaking to that a little bit there, with the way it all kind of works together. It kind of feels a little bit more natural.
Thad: Yeah.
Alan: How, you said you sit on your chair a lot, how often do you use the chair?
Thad: Probably more than it recommends. I use it in the morning …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: First thing in the morning, you know, they have different settings. I’ll do the ‘Morning’ massage, in the middle of the afternoon, I’ll use it, and then often in the evening. So, I’d say two to three times a day I use it.
Alan: OK, and are you finding that it’s giving you the reprieve that you were looking for when you got it?
Thad: Yes, so you know, because I have a lot of tightness in my back, I have a sore back, and my shoulders, it relaxes me, and it allows me to sleep much easier, or to fall asleep much easier.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, yeah, it’s fantastic.
Alan: Nice, nice. Any other health benefits that you’ve noticed, besides the shoulders, and the maybe sleeping a little bit better, anything else that you’ve noticed with your using of it?
Thad: Well, well, yeah, I mean, in general, I’m just more relaxed.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, I mean, that’s fantastic, you know, it’s just reduced my stress level, so …
Alan: Yeah, so after everything you’ve been through, and through this entire buying experience, you know, of course, it’s been a while now since you got the chair, so it’s passed some time since you went through the experience of buying a chair, what advice do you have for people that are looking for a massage chair, they’re shopping, what sort of objective advice could you give to people that still have purchased a chair?
Thad: Sure, I think number one, I think most people really need to, really need to visit a showroom, so they can try out different chairs.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: Because the chair you think you may want, you may end up not selecting, which was the case for me, even before the DreamWave. I went online, and you know, there’s articles ‘Top 10 Chairs,’ ‘Top 5 Chairs,’ and when you look at the specifications between the chairs, they look very similar …
Alan: Mm-hmm.
Thad: But what those comparison charts can’t tell you is how the chairs are going to feel …
Alan: Right.
Thad: And each chair feels slightly different.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: The rollers are different, the speed of the rollers, so take the time, go to the showroom, spend a few hours in the chairs, because I think otherwise you really risk being unhappy, if you just order one off the Internet, if you’ve never tried it.
Alan: Right. Well, were you concerned at all with like, the Inada DreamWave is a Japanese-made chair, the Luraco’s an American-made chair, was quality a big issue for you, or did, just because usually when people are buying for better quality, they’re usually focused on Japanese or American, as opposed to Chinese, was that a big issue for you, or did it just so happen that the two chairs you bought, and originally liked, were non-Chinese chairs?
Thad: It was on my list, but it wasn’t my number one, you know, buying criteria.
Alan: Mm-hmm.
Thad: The number-one criteria for me is relief, or pain relief, and how well the massage chair felt.
Alan: Mm-hmm.
Thad: It just so happened that the Japanese chair and the American chair that I tried, excuse me, felt better to me.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, but if I had found a Chinese chair that felt better, or just as good, I would have been open to purchasing that.
Alan: Yeah, a lot of people can tell, you know, when they come to the showroom, they’ll sit on like a Luraco, or a DreamWave, and they’ll sit on some other chairs, they usually can tell the difference, but like you say, there’s other things that come in to play. Well, price, of course, is one, these chairs that we’re talking about are quite expensive. But also, well, you know, some people want a particular feature that they’re not getting enough of from another chair. For example, the DreamWave, you were mentioning earlier, it’s not as aggressive a chair as some people might want, but maybe they want quad rollers, which the Luraco doesn’t have, it has dual rollers. So, you know, they’ll go the Chinese route, whatever works their way, whatever works best for them, but yeah, there’s definitely a feel to a chair when you sit in it. Just like when you’re driving a car, or test-driving a car, they all have four wheels, they all have an engine, they all have a suspension, but on paper they look the same, but when you drive them, they’re different. Any other input for our viewers today, and by the way, and again, and thanks so much for all your time, and you know, hopefully, I kept this interview short enough, and hopefully, fingers are crossed, that the actual recording took place. But anyway, any other parting shots?
Thad: Yeah, sure, so a couple of things, I think, not only is it important to select the chair, but it’s very important to look at the support that the manufacturers can provide after you purchase the chair.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, selecting the manufacturer that’s going to be around for a while, that has a long history was important to me. I called Inada because I had a couple questions. They were extremely helpful, I didn’t have to email them, they answered the phone. Also, selecting, or purchasing the chair from a reputable retailer, or e-tailer, was very important to me. You know, there’s a lot of companies that sell massage chairs, and a lot of them, it’s kind of just an accessory, mattress stores that sell them …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: And you know, some of these larger retailers, and they don’t have deep expertise in the chairs, and they don’t necessarily have a wide variety of chairs.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, I found myself, before I found Massage Chair Relief, I went to some other larger stores I won’t name, and I felt I knew more about the chairs than I did, so you know …
Alan: I get that a lot.
Thad: Yeah, so you know, I couldn’t be more pleased with the buying experience, going through your company, the warranty, being able to swap the chair out if it didn’t suit my needs was a big piece of mind. There was no sales pressure, I mean, when I went to Cerritos, Michael really just wanted to focus on getting me the right chair.
Alan: Good.
Thad: He wasn’t focused on making the sale …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: Like I experienced at so many other stores.
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: So, if I were to sum it up real quickly, it’s selecting a retailer that’s going to provide you kind of the guidance to help you get in to the right chair, selecting a manufacturer that has post-sales support …
Alan: Yeah.
Thad: And just taking your time to find that right chair.
Alan: Yeah, well, I really appreciate that. That is so true, and of course, our, a portion of almost every single day in my business is dealing with people that have been either disappointed with the way they were treated, or a little disenchanted with some of the chair models out there, and the way that they were supported if and when a problem occurred. So, yeah, that’s a big deal to a lot of people, but you know, people don’t think about that as preemptively as you did. I mean, they’ll buy the chair because they got a good deal on it, or something, but then inevitably, something, maybe if they needed something, they you know, that after-sale support, it’s such a big deal, they don’t, they didn’t realize at the time, and then they come to regret it sometimes, the chair they got, or who they bought it from, or whatnot. So, thank you, those are crucial criteria, and so I appreciate that.
Thad: Oh, you’re welcome.
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Alan: Well, I think that’s just about it, you know, knock on wood, and the recording worked. But Thad, thank you so much for all your time, and energy, and boy, I just really appreciate you. Golly, and when I come down there for, to visit the store, I’ll take you out to lunch, or you can come over to the showroom, and we’ll get you some lunch, and I can pay you back for all your patience this last week. Thank you.
Thad: Sounds good, my pleasure.
Alan: Alright, Thad, we’ll see you.
Thad: Take care.
Alan: Bye bye.
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