Unhappy with Garmin sevice?

[nzfisher]

Purchased a Blue Chart g2 chip for the 5212 navigation system. Arrived DOA. Garmin magnanomously offered to sell me another one rather then sending a replacement. They require the old chip in their hands before they will send you another even though they verified that the one they sent was POS. I guess they assume I would clone the bad cheap and sell it to the competition. However, they are happy to require you to pay in full prior to shipping the merchandise. This is pretty sad service for an otherwise technically superior company. And yes I talked to a supervisor and still no joy. Any other unhappy experiences? I am looking to send a letter to management as I find it hard to believe they can treat clients this way and not have more unhappy end users.

 

[knotflying]

Well, I can see both sides of this issue. They don't know you and may feel that you won't send it back to them. I believe you can download it on an SD card on line. Will they at least let you pay for the downlaod and then refund you when they recieve their SD card back?

 

[baz]

This really has become a standard practice these days when returning a product for whatever reason. Some will take a CC number and hold that open until they receive the faulty product back from you within a stated period of time. In the meantime they will send you a new or refurbished unit and you use the packaging to return your faulty product.

As Jim posted, there's two sides to the story. Some companies can be tough dealing with when you want to return their product.

I assume if you did pay for another SD card that Garmin will credit you somehow when they received the DOA SD card back ?

 

[nzfisher]

Baz,

I did pay for another card with the presumption that they will rebate when they receive defective card. This maybe what we have grown accustomed to but it is not excellent customer service by quite a stretch. When someone has made an error, uncalled for affront or in this case sold you a defective product they are in a one down position having not met the consideration for the contract. To put the customer in a position of having to fork out more money for their error is a policy that should not be acceptable. In polite society when one errs, you apologize and try to make it right. This is how I ran my business for 25 years and grew an every increasing customer base rather then leaving open wounds along the way. Everyone makes mistakes, it is how they are resolved the measures the quality of the people who run the company and set policy. As a case in point I use the example of Ranger Tugs. As we all know boats are problematic in their very nature with all of the systems crammed into a corroding floating box. Stuff goes wrong but Andrew and Kenny provide excellent customer service so the wounds of disappointment heal very quickly unlike the treatment I received from Garmin. As I get older and life gets shorter I see no reason to put up with it and in the next boat, it will not have a Garmin system.

 

[knotflying]

Baz,

You are so right about how customers should be treated. I ran my business like yours and bent over backwards to please them. It blows my mind at how some people operate and I can't believe that they stay in business. However I am retired at 58 :lol: and they are still working.
My experience with Garmin has been pretty good in the past, but that was when their stock was at 85. They have done a few things recently that makes me scratch my head. Good product is one thing, but good service is everything. Did you know a satisfied customer may tell 4 or 5 people about how satisfied they were, but a dissatisfied customer will average telling 9 to 10 people about their dissatisfaction? I think you just broke that record! Hopefully Garmin will get back on track.
By the way, I have the G2 vision and don't really think it is worth the money. I know that wont make you feel any better.

 

[baz]

Jim: I think you meant to respond to nzfisher and not baz (me).... 🙂

No matter, I agree with you both.

In this case Garmin dropped the ball badly in terms of Customer Service.

I've yet to receive bad Customer Service from Garmin. Let me give you two examples...

1)
Early on soon after purchasing our R-25 in late 2009 I had a serious issue with my Garmin Auto Pilot when using the Heading feature. My employed unique finger touch on the button to change the heading was such that the auto pilot would negotiate an aggressive circular pattern (man over board I thing) rather than simple change the heading by 2º. This had a serious safety aspect to it as you can imagine. I chatted with Andrew and he gave me the Garmin's technical person's phone number. I called and was greeted with very friendly voice/person who stated he would fly up to Seattle and meet me on my boat to check things out. He had other things to do in the Seattle area so it fitted in with his schedule. When he arrive one Wed morning at my boat the first thing he found was that the shadow drive cylinder was installed to high in the wiring cupboard behind the helm panel. He said he would goto Ranger Tug and instruct them on the proper installation of the shadow drive cylinder. The shadow drive cylinder must be at or preferably below the large black hydraulic tank behind the wheel. He relocated it for me.

Next he had the wonderful looking contraption that he used to ensure there was no air in the hydraulic lines between the wheel and the auto pilot's steering piston attached to the rudder. Essentially this was bleeding any air from the lines -- much like you do for the brakes on an auto.

Next we took the boat out and I was able to show him how the auto pilot would cause the boat to circle when I change the Auto Pilot's Heading. He was amazed, and so he took the helm and tried to replicate. He could not after trying several times. He asked me to take control and do my magic finger touching on the buttons. I was happy to do so and I was immediately successful in causing the Auto Pilot to suddenly go from holding a heading to make an aggressive circle... and added to this even though I grabbed the wheel to take evasive action the auto pilot would not give me control back.

The Garmin person was absolutely dumbstruck and could not believe what he was seeing.

So, by now we had been on the water for maybe 90 mins larking about like this.

The Garmin person, then decided to call the chief software guru at Garmin headquarters. He explained and both were puzzled for a short time. Then all of a sudden the software guru exclaimed the Auto Pilot was doing the correct thing... Duh I thought.

Apparently the software in the Auto Pilot's system was designed to interpret a 'double' button touch to mean 'man overboard' and to cause the boat to circle. My magic finger touch was apparently being interpreted this way. All very weird IMO.

No matter, between the Garmin tech person with me and the software guru the Auto Pilot system was re-configured to not do this. After this change all was well and my 'magic' finger touch did not activate 'man overboard' action.

This all took around 4 hours as the Garmin tech person after hanging the phone up with software guru exercised the Auto Pilot in various ways to make absolute sure it was working as it should. He had me do various things and wanted me to use my finger touching method to convince himself all was well.

The Garmin person then flew out of Seattle the next day to service someone's issues in Brazil.

I considered this to be top notch Customer Service and rapid response. Also Ranger Tugs benefited from this as well.

2)
At the Last Annual meeting in Bremerton Garmin had a team of people there for two days inspecting every bodies boat for proper cable sealing around the RADAR canopy etc. Bruce Moore arranged this and it was much appreciated by many at the meeting. The Garmin team (maybe 5 people in all) also made themselves available for going out on boats for sea trials for people who had questions about their Auto Pilots operation. I took this opportunity to have my auto pilot's compass calibrated so that my boat icon on the Garmin 5212 always would be aligned with my course line. This took maybe an hour of Garmin's time.

Again, excellent Customer Service by Garmin.

So, per the above it's very hard for me to say anything negative about Garmin's Customer Service. They are simply great IMO and from my experience.

 

[Crewdog]

I recently purchased an Inland Waters Southeast download to SD card with appropriate chartplotter info, and was unsuccsessful installing after 3 tries.

I called the Garmin customer support line, expecting to spend a long time with a tech support person, but the call taker said they would Fedex a card with the software.

Works great now.

I know it's only one small issue, but it was handled to my satisfaction.

My all time favorite Customer Service Award goes to Cabela's though, with REI and Apple tied for second.

Bill

 

[Bruce Moore]

2) At the Last Annual meeting in Bremerton Garmin had a team of people there for two days inspecting every bodies boat for proper cable sealing around the RADAR canopy etc. Bruce Moore arranged this and it was much appreciated by many at the meeting.

Full disclosure: I didn't arrange this, the factory did. I simply ran interference on the docks. The Garmin team, much to their credit, took advantage of one of the largest gatherings of Garmin installations, anywhere, to conduct preventative/corrective maintenance on a known issue. Hats off to them.

One more example of the benefits of the Ranger Tug community.

Cheers,

Bruce