Is Glowforge Support Really Up to Par?

I am starting this thread in the hopes of having a discussion to hear your thoughts about Glowforge customer service and if it really is at par for the price we pay for these printers?

Without being overly long winded, I belive that a Glowforge is a mid-high end product. I have reached this conclusion due to 2 reasons:

  1. The price point falls between the cheap chineese lasers and the more expensive ones growing businesses buy

  2. The Glowforge is purchased by people from many walks of life, unlike a Ferrari or Bugatti. Hence it is fair to state that for a vast majority, dropping $2.5 - $6k on a purchase is a notable purchase.

Given the price segmentation of the product into a mid-high category, one would only hope for ‘premium’ customer support, especially for a company based here in the USA.

From reading posts on the forum, social network groups and through personal experience I am left with the impression that service is lackluster at best. There is no number to call, emails go unanswered for long periods in between and there is no option to ‘message’ or ‘chat’ live with an employee. The exception ofcourse is if you want to buy a Glowforge, the business has certainly prioritized customer outreach to leads and getting on a call with someone is only a few clicks away.

In my experience, my Glowforge business had taken off recently and given that the product is my means for creating product and then selling, having the printer go down is basically like closing my doors (albeit temporarily).

I contacted support about the Glowforge on this forum, and even pro actively made videos and troubleshooted to save steps when i finally got a reply. Initially I was pleasantly surprised to see a response from none other than Dan Shapiro himself. The team reached out the next day and we have had Several emails back and forth between now and then. But responses are painfully slow and there is no way to tell if or when someone will respond.

Loosing a source of income can be terrible, but loosing it during Covid with the loss of jobs around the country and it makes it that much more devastating (what about people that lost a job and this was now their primary source of income till it broke).

Not only is our Pro (only a few months old) being replaced by a refurbished unit, but it is clear that the company puts cases like ours on the ‘back burner’. I say this because the other day someone posted about ordering a GF on Monday and it showing up on Wednesday (virtually overnight).

Its easy to tell that Glowforge is doing well and i would be the first to say that i am glad for the success they have built because it truly is a Magical product but the catch is - it has to work. As someone with experience managing teams that respond to customers through various forums round the clock I can tell you its never easy, but its always worth it. You can replicate a product, but never the ‘quality of service’ a company delivers, its an obsessive focus on a customer and their experience that sets companies like Apple and Amazon apart from the pack .

Language like this is popular on many company websites - Head of People, Head of Customer Success all talk to the focus a company would ideally like to place on the customer, and many times companies try but what use is it when their method of execution falls so far behind?

As a contrast, 2 days ago my Smart Oven failed and i contacted the company. 3 minutes later i had a response. The company stated they are sorry for my trouble, the error is unfixable and despite my oven being over a year out of warranty they will either ship me another $550 oven or give me a check for the same (again - this was out of warranty for over a year). 30 minutes and 3 emails later we decided to go with the refund (i strongly believe there is an upgraded model around the corner). But guess what, when it drops - i am going to be the first in line. My simple experience with this company has made me a customer for life.

Is Glowforge trying? I have no doubt. Service was polite, friendly and showed a desire to help. But a week later i am still printerless, the doors to my business are still shut loosing me hundreds of dollars a day and all i know is the person that placed their order on Monday got theirs faster than i got some of the responses via email. Your move GlowForge.

What about the rest of you? What have your experiences been like? What do you think about their lack of support options (phone, messaging) and their quality of service?

1 Like

The P&S forum section is for opening support tickets, so if your intent is to provide feedback to GF, they will see this, note the feedback, and close it.

If you want to have an ongoing discussion, you need to post in a more appropriate forum section (suggest Everything Else.)

Thank you so much! Really appreciate it.

Hi @arjundrexel. Thank you for your feedback. I’ve also sent you an email regarding your shipment and will follow up with you there.

I’m going to close this topic.

Thanks