If you have a missing or damaged component inside your English-language Stonemaier Games product–no matter where or when you bought it or how long you’ve been playing it–you can fill out this form and we’ll send you what you need.* We use software called Jira to manage this process, as we have 7 replacement parts helpers in 5 different regions around the world.

Serving our customers this way is incredibly important to us, but we can serve them even better if replacement parts (and replacement parts requests) aren’t needed in the first place. Recently I talked to a few people connected to this process at Stonemaier Games, and we compiled a list of product design mistakes that resulted in quite a few replacement parts.

We learned these lessons the hard way, so I’m hoping this will help you avoid these mistakes from the start. Some of these are as simple as packing components in a way that makes them easy for the customer to identify.

1. Meeples and Minis with Protrusions: Some of our most common requests are for broken meeples or mechs where we got a little too detailed, and those little details snapped off in transit or gameplay. Whenever I get sample meeples or mechs, I try to snap off any protrusion–if I can, I either remove it from the design or bulk up its connection point.
2. Missing Tokens and Clasps: It is common when we’re including either a lot of the same type of token–50 glass beads or clasps for dials–that 1 is missing in production or 1 goes missing later. So we often include an extra token, but we list the lower quantity: We make 51 tokens but say that there are 50. So even if 1 is missing, you still have the “correct” amount (though, honestly, for these types of tokens, it’s incredibly rare in gameplay that the full quantity is needed).
3. Matching the Insert: In Libertalia–a 6-player game where each player has their own deck of cards–the cards are packed in 5 card bricks. When opening a new game, you see 5 bricks of cards in 5 of 6 slots in the insert, and 5 of the 6 player colors happen to be visible in each brick. This leads to assumptions that the entire green deck is missing before opening the cards. Something similar happens in Scythe, a game that can only ever feature combat between 2 players, so we only included 2 combat dials–players assume the other 3 are missing (partially because the 2 included dials have specific faction colors).
4. Matching the Trays: The first few printings of Wingspan included 4 clamshell trays (2 for an assortment of eggs and 2 for an assortment of food). There’s no need for each type of food token to be kept in a separate compartment, but we soon learned that many people assumed that the trays were only for food and that a tray was missing (there are 5 types of food in the core game and only 4 trays).
5. Packing Choices: We hear from customers that they think they’re missing the action cubes in Wingspan Asia, as those cubes are packed in the same bags as larger tokens of the same color. Similarly, some customers struggle to find the gray temporary worker in Viticulture, as it’s packed in the same bag as some of the player tokens (it previously came in a separate bag with the first player token).
6. “Missing” Cards: In the solo mode for Libertalia and Scythe: The Wind Gambit, there are “missing” cards that aren’t actually missing. For example, there is no Automa card 37 in Libertalia for design reasons. This is explained in the rules, but when looking through the cards, it’s a common mistake for people to see cards 36 and 38 and assume they’re missing card 37.
7. “Missing” Components: In Scythe: The Rise of Fenris, there’s a big warning label when you open the box that tells people not to look inside the spoiler tuckboxes. However, it happens all the time! One of the tuckboxes has a “missing” component that’s actually in one of the other tuckboxes–oddly, people seem to open that tuckbox but not the others; if they did, they would find that “missing” component.
8. Dents in Boards and Mats: I learned early on with Viticulture that if sharper components (like meeples) are packed next to a board or mat, they might press into the cardboard over time, leaving lots of little dings and dents. Instead, we now pack them elsewhere in the box or we fold the mats inward, with the gameplay elements on the inside. However, this also leads to the occasional confusion from customers who don’t know the mats are folded–they see the faux leather illustration on the outside of a Wingspan or Wyrmspan mat and think they received a misprint.
9. Card Sorting: It’s inevitable that customers will lose or damage cards over time if they play a game frequently, and we’re here to help. With Wingspan, we originally didn’t have any type of card sorting system, so if a customer requested a Peregrine Falcon, our replacement parts helpers had to look through every card to find it. In reprints we alphabetized the cards, which significantly sped up this process. In games where cards don’t have a name, we number the cards and sort them as such.
10. Publisher Assumption: When we were working on the Pie in the Sky expansion for My Little Scythe, I didn’t go through the component list with the right mindset, and it resulted in me never asking our manufacturer to include faction-specific tokens for the 2 new factions (everything else was there, including the minis). This was before we sent pre-production copies first to the designer and to my coworker, so no one caught the mistake until everything was printed and shipped. We tried to fix it after the fact by making a pack of the missing tokens for our webstore, retailers, and distributors, but we still hear from customers all the time who buy the expansion from a retailer and don’t get the tokens. It was an important wake-up call for me to never assume anything and to add as many checks-and-balances as possible during the pre-production process.

Hopefully this list will help you avoid the same mistakes; there are even some we still need to address better at Stonemaier Games. If you have any insights about replacement part requests, please let me know in the comments!

*Box Dings and Dents: If you ordered a game from Stonemaier Games and the box arrived with dings and dents, we’re truly sorry. You paid for a mint-condition product, and we didn’t deliver. That’s on us. For some people, a dented corner won’t impact the fun they have playing the game. For others, it will. A replacement box for a dented corner is actually a replacement for the entire game, a process that involves having you send your game to a reviewer of our choice–we provide the label–and we send you another copy of the game. If you would like to go through that process for a game ordered from our webstore, please email your order number to contact@stonemaier.com. Photos of the packaging and damage help us share feedback with our fulfillment centers.

Also read:

• Replacement Parts
• Replacement Parts: Why Would (or Wouldn’t) a Company Offer This Service?
• 10 Production Secrets for Tabletop Games

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.

I’m constantly trying to learn about customer service practices so I can better serve our customers at Stonemaier Games. I spent the last week traveling across Ireland with family, and I thought I’d share some quick notes about customer service (mostly very good).

• Tullamore Distillery: We walked in here with only around 30 minutes to spare, which we mentioned to the person working the main desk. Within seconds, she offered us a 30-minute whiskey tasting, and we had a wonderful time learning about Tullamore from her.
• Sean’s Bar: The proprietor sat down with us for 5 minutes to share the history of Ireland’s oldest bar and the story of Irish coffee. He later gave a similar speech to a bigger group in the same room, and I noticed he intentionally changed the wording since we were within earshot.
• Linnane’s Lobster Bar (Newquay): We got a little messy eating crab, lobster, oysters, and mussels here, and an attentive server–not even our primary server–noticed and offered us a bowl of water with lemon to rinse our fingers.
• Oscar’s (Galway): We had a late dinner, and the server was keen to alert us to the exact remaining quantity of a specific dish before it was gone.
• Sheridan’s Cheesemongers (Galway): The person behind the counter was incredibly helpful in recommending three made-in-Ireland dishes that complemented each other (two cheeses, one cracker, and chutney).
• Midleton Distillery (Midleton): The young tour guide frequently invited questions and called back to previous questions, yet he kept things moving along.
• Manna Cafe (Killarney): Each of us ordered a different coffee drink at breakfast here (which was ample and delicious), and to help us tell the difference, each came in a different type of glass with a unique design on the foam.
• Table 45 (Dublin): When we arrived fairly late in the evening, the manager warmly let us know that the kitchen was only open for 25 minutes but that we were welcome to sit down and order tapas (which we did).
• Sweet Salt (Dublin): When we showed up at this highly rated cafe for 6 coffee orders, multiple members of the team swiftly shifted into barista mode.
• Guinness Storehouse (Dublin): This is a superbly designed self-guided tour that consistently moves people from one area to the next (with the one exception at the end of the tour where the free pint of Guinness takes people so long to drink that the room is very, very crowded).
• Fish Shop (Dublin): We ended up here after searching for the best fish and chips in Dublin, and despite initially being told that we needed a reservation, the owner invited us back inside after seeing scrambling on our phones to find an alternative.
• Gamers World (Dublin): After hearing my American accent, the person working the register discounted the game I bought by 10% (not because I’m American; it’s something related to taxes and duties). Also, it was neat to see them carrying many Stonemaier games, for which I thanked them.
• Cafe Nero (Dublin): I ordered a ristretto without knowing what it was, and after seeing us puzzled over meager contents of the cup, the manager offered to give us any other drink. We assured him it was fine–I wanted to try something new, and now I know! (It’s a very condensed shot of espresso.)

Many of these experiences are small, but they can have a big impact on the overall experience. What’s a minor-yet-impactful positive customer service experience you had recently?

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If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.