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GPS Woes/Customer Service Raves

Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
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Location
SW Austin
Two weekends ago I went for a ride and my Garmin Zumo 550 refused to power up. Dead as a doornail.

14 days ago I contacted Garmin customer service. Within 24 hours they contacted me and tried to help me troubleshoot the problem to no avail.

13 days ago Garmin issued me a warranty return number.

8 days ago I dropped by a friendly local mailbox store. For $17 the store processed my order, insured the item for full value, packaged it for me and delivered it via UPS to Garmin in Kansas within 48 hours. I spent all of 3 minutes in the store.

Today I received my Garmin back in perfect working order - 6 days (4 business days) after Garmin received it. Garmin treated me similarly several years ago with a 2610 - even though that unit was no longer even under warranty!!!

Everyone I dealt with at both companies was friendly, helpful and committed to helping me with my problem.

Good service deserves to be recognized and this was as good as I could expect from 3 different companies.

Kudos to my local post box store, UPS and Garmin.
 
Re: GPS Woes/Customer Service Complaints

I had the same good experience the first few times my Garmin iQue failed. This is the one that is also a palm pilot. I used it infrequently and when I did it seemed to have problems. The longest it ever worked was a trip to and back from Colorado. The battery would die in an hour, even when not in use. The GPS would stop working. The palm pilot would fail. After sending it back 4 times (maybe 5 or even 6 I can't remember) they started charging me a basic $50 fee maybe it got higher as time went by I don't recall because I quit dealing with them. This is for a product that has never functioned correctly. Anyway, I don't send it back anymore. I just keep charging the battery and don't use the GPS at all because it can't find the satellites.

Oh, and Garmin no longer offers this GPS in their line anymore. I wonder why? I never would have bought it the screen is too small. My got it for me for Xmas. It cost $590 as I recall. IMHO they should have offered me a credit of some kind on a new GPS since this one was such a lemon.

I am not at all impressed with Garmin's treatment of customers. They just kept patching this thing together and it was never reliable.

Pat McDonald
 
Re: GPS Woes/Customer Service Complaints

I am not at all impressed with Garmin's treatment of customers.
Pat McDonald

Yeah, I've often wondered about such different customer service levels from the same company.

For example, I've read for years about the horrific way Corbin treats their customers. On the two occasions I've needed to contact them to solve problems, however, they've been remarkably responsive.

Luck of the draw on cust serv reps, perhaps? Dunno, but I really do seem to encounter great service much more frequently than I encounter bad service. I certainly fume about the occasional bad service more than I reflect on the routine positive events but I'm trying to balance the equation.... - hence this post.

-Fletch

ps, As I sit here and ponder this dynamic, I honestly can't recall a bad experience I've had with a motorcycle-related purchase. Now, don't get me started on the cable company...
 
My only beef with Garmin is the time spent on hold. It has never been less than 30 minutes. Once I get a human it has all been good.
 
My only beef with Garmin is the time spent on hold. It has never been less than 30 minutes. Once I get a human it has all been good.

Oooooh, I hate being on hold. Did I mention my feelings about the cable company?
 
Last time I called the cable company (last week) the auto hold system gave me the option for a call back. I just had to enter my phone number and in 14 minutes, just like they said, I got a call from a real person. My other option was to wait on hold that amount of time.
 
My only beef with Garmin is the time spent on hold. It has never been less than 30 minutes. Once I get a human it has all been good.

I don't mind the longer hold time with Garmin. They are taking the same time with the current customer I know they will take with me.
 
Last time I called the cable company (last week) the auto hold system gave me the option for a call back. I just had to enter my phone number and in 14 minutes, just like they said, I got a call from a real person. My other option was to wait on hold that amount of time.

TimeWarner-Austin? Nooooo. I need my little kernel of hate against TW. it's what allows me to value other companies. Well, there's always the County Tax Appraiser.
 
I had a problem with a Garmin GPS once... :flip:

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It was under this... :doh:

P1010536.jpg


:tab I called them, told them what happened, emailed them the first pic, and even though it was out of warranty, they said, "Send it to us and we'll take care of it for $100." About 5 business days later I had another identical unit. I don't know if it was new or reconditioned, but it looked brand new.

:tab Some time later, that second unit's power button started acting up and it would not always work. At this point, that second unit had seen some hard service and had some battle scars. When I got it back in about five days, all of the external bits had been replaced but the guts were the same (same serial # and unlock codes). No charge.

:tab I do recall long hold times, but like Kurt said, once I got through, it was all good. I just set the phone on speaker phone and went about my business, picking up when I heard someone say hello. It was on their dime so I did not mind.
 
Opps...sorry that was meant for AUSFLETCH.

Garmin gave no indication of what was wrong with mine or what they did to fix it. It just went away broke and came back fixed.

On a related note...I got the 550 as a very thoughtful gift from my wife and it's awesome but even after more than a year I am still more comfortable with the 2610.
 
I just got done dealing with Garmin as well. Once again, there was a long being kept on hold time, but excellent service otherwise.
 
try contacting from website I got a respone in a fair amount of time for tech advice. Power up problems first time hooked up to laptop and powered on second time had to take battery out for a reset.. Maybe that will help others. I have a zumo 450 not avaliable on their line up anymore since they upgraded to the 550 and 650
 
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