The claim is bold. Maybe even brazen. But when a 14-person company competes against Sony and Bose, customer service isn't "department" — it's the backbone of the entire company. We can't afford for you to buy headphones and disappear forever into a phone queue.
A real person answers — and it's not a robot from the Philippines
When you send us a message, one of us fourteen will answer. In Finnish. Usually the same day, often within an hour. No ticket number, no "your request has been received and will be processed within 5–7 business days", no chatbot that asks three times whether you've tried turning it off and on again.
Okay, we ask that sometimes too. Because it actually helps surprisingly often. But after that, we move on.
Big companies outsource their customer service because it's a cost center for them. For us, it's the reason a customer buys from us again. And tells a friend. Every satisfied customer is an ad campaign that didn't burn a single cent — and the money goes where it should: the Death Star.
We repair, we don't throw away
This is where we truly stand out. When Sony headphones break, you're told to send them to Sweden or somewhere. Maybe you'll get new ones six weeks later. Maybe you won't.
At our place, Hannes and the rest of the service team sit in Kajaani and repair devices by hand. They really repair — solder, replace parts, test. The headphones are designed from the start so that they can be repaired. The cushions twist off. The battery is replaceable. This isn't an accident, it's a philosophy.
The warranty is 24 months. If the fault is ours, the repair is free. If the dog ate the left cup or you drove an ATV into a wall wearing the headphones, we'll sell you a repair kit at a fair price. In either case, the device doesn't end up in a landfill.
We're not perfect — but we admit it
Sometimes deliveries are delayed. Sometimes the factory in China does something weird. Sometimes Henri orders too little stock because the budget went into fixing the Alfa Romeo. It happens.
The difference is what happens then. We tell you directly. We don't hide the issue behind "supply chain challenges" or "exceptional circumstances". We say: we messed up, here's the situation, here's the timeline.
And if you're truly unhappy and nothing helps — you get your money back. No arguing, no forms to fill. We just can't afford to have someone walking around telling everyone how badly it went.
Why does this work?
Because we don't have a marketing budget to cover up bad service. Sony can treat you however it wants and still sell millions of headphones with advertising. We can't. We have to be so good that you tell others about it yourself.
That's a pretty good incentive.
If you want to test the claim, send a message to info@valco.fi or come chat with us on valco.fi. We'll answer. We promise. And if we don't respond fast enough, you have our permission to complain about that too.