I did originally but it just sent an auto reply that a ticket would be opened and it would take up to 3 days to respond.
That’s just the unfortunate reality of dealing with GF support. I waited 8 days for an initial reply to the last question I had. Then received a response in <24hrs to a followup.
Previous discussions took just a couple of days for an initial response.
There’s no way to accelerate or predict the process. It is what it is.
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Well now I know I guess. This is my first time having to deal with support directly.
Same boat, but I’m giving them a little leeway as the customer base is picking up and I’m sure there are a ton of tickets to sort through, on top of the long weekend. What sucks is that the person I’ve been talking to said he sent the invoice but didn’t (checked every inbox I have, including spam), so I’m stuck waiting for however long it takes for them to realize the invoice didn’t come through. Original email request was the 6th, and three different people have responded on the thread, meaning they must have directories that these sorts of things go through, which probably creates a bottleneck as well. I’ve had a handful of issues since the beginning and every time I’ve been taken care of, but it is a let down when the company has been around for 4 years and still takes over a day to respond.
I’m sure I’ll get a response today, and you may, too, just gotta hold out until then. Also, it’s cool to vent, a handful of people might jump on you, but they probably vented about something in here once or twice themselves, so just take it in stride. There isn’t anybody here who wouldn’t love for support to be near instant, but a lot of us have come to understand that no matter how much we complain or gripe, Glowforge is going to continue on the same path that they’re on, which is training new staff but getting more and more customers. Hopefully they’re able to overtake the customers with service eventually, but that isn’t going to be anytime soon.
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Glowforge alt account spotted
Yeah ben isn’t an alt account. We just see the same thing over and over again and the same answers explaining how GF support is slow… we all know it… and we just have to deal with it get old. He was being as nice as possible while laying out the reality of the situation. Simple as that.
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Honestly, it wasn’t meant to be venting when I wrote the original question. I just was uncertain if this was typical and wondering if I should be worried that they weren’t receiving my emails or if I missed something.
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Glowforge support is broken.
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I wasn’t trying to be mean with my response. I saw two posts with the same idea - losing customers - right together and wanted to address both of them. As a small business owner myself I had to learn the hard way about backup plans and how to talk to customers about why I can’t meet their deadlines. Having a backup plan in place made it much easier and less stressful.
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I wish I worked for Glowforge! I wouldn’t be worried about job security. I actually applied early on but they only wanted local people. Oh well.
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Don’t say that dude or else you’ll get 50 replies saying that it’s your fault somehow
Hey buddy I was being sarcastic
At this point I think we all are. 
You joined the forum two hours ago. Many of us have been here for over four years. We are not Glowforge alt accounts. We are owners and users.
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Nope, I’m dead serious. It’s broken. I suspect they’ve outgrown their support methods, they have 18000 customers now. I can only hope they turn the metaphorical ship around, because right now it’s taking on a lot of water.
To answer @shunamanda … it takes a while, but if it goes too long you’re right to prod them. I once had an issue go without a response for 8 days. Luckily it was not high priority, when I asked about the delays a glowforge staffer apologized and things got kicked back into gear.
Glowforge misses a lot of replies entirely lately, you won’t get a prompt answer even in an ongoing case. Almost every interaction comes with a 24 hour turnaround even once your ticket is being worked. Case in point, when my machine was being troubleshot for what was ultimately a power supply problem, support asked me a simple yes or no question. I replied literally in minutes. No reply back from them for over 24 hours, and when I did get a reply it was always a different tech. This was the way it went for almost every interaction.
To me this shows that they are either overwhelmed, disorganized, or have bad internal communications – probably some subtle awful-tasting smoothie of the three. It’s not easy to grow a support organization, especially as quickly as they have to do it. While I may understand their struggles on an academic level, it still frustrates me to no end.
Broken.
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Having been in their position, I suspect you are correct. They are overwhelmed with support requests and are reacting instead of proactively addressing the issues. I also think they are relying on the forums for basic support, which is great for those customers who are able to get support from the forum, but as their customer base increases they are going to end up with the need to force customers into doing basic troubleshooting on their own. There are more and more new users who have no desire to be helped by the forum users and want only an official support response. Phone support won’t be a good answer until the product becomes profitable and the debt gets paid.
I bet they could hire some of the forum regulars to do first line remote support pretty easily and then the regulars could pass the ticket along to second level once it was found to be a requirement. If nothing else, five or ten remote support agents would be able to review tickets that were aging and update them with a reply - sorry for the delay, we are working on addressing your issue - and then filter the ones that needed a little more urgent attention.
Another option would be to start selling support with a shorter turnaround. This would take a little time to set up, but for those who are relying on the machine for business, etc. they could pay a little more and get the paid support reps who would only work on those tickets.
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I worked at a different startup in the same building they are in. It’s a really cool space 
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I’ve seen that myself with Glowforge. Never understood that. I’m a network engineer. When an issue/task/project is mine, it’s mine until it’s completed. That’s it. I own it. It’s mine. There’s no doubt about it. I’ve called the ball and everybody heard me. I can’t imagine just… what… walking into the middle of somebody else’s activity, having to catch up, get my wheels spinning on it after somebody else already has their own ideas on the subject… I just don’t get it. I don’t see how it’s possible to work that way on a consistent basis.
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I’m pretty sure every issue I’ve had that was worked via email, stayed with one rep. I don’t think the ones on the forum are managed the same way and probably only account for a small fraction of overall tech issues.
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I haven’t had an issue in over 2 years. But initially I had a few issues. I recall 1 issue I had THREE different respondents! Made no sense. Dragged things out way longer than necessary.
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