@dan Why is it that you now advertise phone support however it goes straight to a voicemail? People are not getting timely responses back to their emails from support either. I am just another concerned Glowforge customer with a broken machine (3rd machine) with not idea what is going on with the support side of Glowforge.
Thanks
Glowforge support no longer monitors the forum. I suggest you email.
Support does not repair or ship machines.
They are dependent on the outsourcer for updates, and they generally don’t reply until they have information to share.
I understand that they no longer monitor this, they clearly are not monitoring their support emails either. It’s crazy to spend this amount of money on a machine to experience the issues that myself and some others have experienced right out of the box.
That’s the business model.
The machine worked when it was put in the box. They’re tested at the factory. Sometimes you can even see the evidence of that if you know what you’re looking for.
After that, they’re handed off to FedEx or UPS where that box will be rolled end over end and thrown around sorting centers and trucks for hundreds of miles before it gets to you.
Sometimes that means it’s no longer working right out of the box.
The alternative is to put it in a crate and ship it to you by freight. Now you need a loading dock or to pay extra for a truck with a liftgate, you need to be able to schedule delivery at a time you’re home, you need to live somewhere with room for a freight truck to maneuver, etc. And it’ll cost a lot more than FedEx/UPS shipping.
Glowforge chose to deal with a higher warranty cost in exchange for being able to use residential couriers that enable almost anyone with an address to purchase a Glowforge. They’re not going to change that.
Anyway, Glowforge support is not non-existent, it’s just slow. They have over 100K customers and only a small in-house support team, which is largely working remotely and people are out sick with COVID. Their repair and fulfillment partners are also dealing with staffing issues and COVID, which means a slower turnaround on scheduling replacements and everything like that. They’ll get to you and they’ll resolve the issue to your satisfaction. You’ll just have to have patience.
This is the issue and I understand and somewhat agree with your statement above. When the machine works, it’s great and we do enjoy using it. The issue comes up when you’ve had multiple machines (3) all within a year and have lost the part where you enjoyed using the machine. I believe your above is true with maybe one machine and getting a replacement in good working order however when you’ve been through 3 machines and not had a great experience the patience wears thin.
I posted this in another thread recently.
If your depot or driver treats heavy items like a football, they likely will for the replacements as well.
Not saying that’s the case, but as stated above, tens of thousands of these have been sold to happy customers. Very few, relatively speaking, have experienced issues. It’s unfortunate when it happens to you.
The communication issue I explained above. They have always been slow, but if it’s in regards to another replacement machine, it’s out of their hands.
My machine broke down jan 17th emailed called and posted on the forums thanks to our community they have helped me troubleshoot pretty much everything. No improvement my lid open error still on. Our glowforge community is amazing especially all those that helped me out and were kind enough to face time me and trouble shoot together. Big thanks to @MyDogsThinkImCrazy she went over and beyond to help me troubleshoot. Still waiting on glowforge to email me back it’s taken longer then normal as during christmas holidays I received an email with 2 days.
Just to throw my experience out there when the original lasers were shipping. My first one didn’t move. The second one, my route driver said, “Oh, that must be the one that sounds like broken glass at the depot. You don’t want that one.” The third one turned around halfway across the country. I’ve had this fourth one ever since. Late 2017? Ordered late 2015. Took over a month in all to get a working one from initial shipping date but they eventually got it there.
And it used to take them a week or more to get back to people outside of major holidays. 2+ weeks during the first November -January. Mostly it’s 1-3 days now. Still slow in comparison to many places but they’re dedicated to getting most things solved. A lot of places will answer you quickly and are dedicated to telling you off very politely.
The last time I needed help from support, and this was quite some time ago, it took 11 days for the initial response from a human (I received the automated response in minutes, iirc.)
It’s not just you-I called 5 days ago and left a message regarding an issue with a brand new machine. Since then, I have opened a ticket, responded to it and opened a second ticket with ZERO response. As they said in their automated response, if you don’t hear from us in 3 days, there’s something wrong. I agree.
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