Unit Arrived Damaged / Support Ignoring Me!

Unit arrived damaged, GF promised replacement over 2 weeks ago. Now ignoring and not responding to all correspondences in an attempt to resolve this. This has to be the worst experience I have ever had with support. Posting as my last attempt to resolve this informally.

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You should know that it is normal for it to take some time for the replacement unit to be built and prepped to ship. They will generally contact you when they hear from the manufacturer that your replacement unit is ready to go.

Until then, they can’t answer the question of when your individual unit will be ready, so I think emails are put on hold. (And they don’t make exceptions…that’s just policy. The most you will get is that they are looking into it. Additional emails do not speed things up.)

Hang in there. I know it’s anxiety producing - but they will get you your unit. (Sorry the first one arrived damaged…that sux.) :neutral_face:

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Thanks for the response but I am not sure that’s it. Businesses do not operate with emails “put on hold” to answer simple questions from customers. I didn’t spend $5.5k to be ignored after a replacement was promised immediately, not when the replacement was ready.

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This one does. It’s a brand new startup that is still trying to fill a huge lot of international preorders and backorders for the last couple of months.

Your order will be a priority though, I’m sure they try to get replacement machines out as soon as they can.

Good luck with it.

thanks for the info. unfortunately, no matter how you spin this, there is no excuse for ignoring support emails, particularly ones where something was promised and then there being no indication of action towards it, now 20+ days since incident.

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Not trying to spin it - thought you might appreciate knowing that you weren’t being overlooked.

They will eventually see this and respond directly.

@Jules I have to agree with OP. If you look at the log he posted, Support has not replied to multiple emails he sent after 12/7.

There is no way to justify Support completely ignoring the customer contact. If there is nothing new to report, they should at least issue a personal reply stating that. It’s still bad news, but it’s a whole lot better than radio silence, which has to be infuriating.

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I’m not liking the sound of this… and I agree with you. No excuse. Mine just showed up this morning with glass pouring out of the handle holes in the box. Didn’t even open it and had FedEx (part of the problem) take it back.

I’ve emailed support and left a voicemail, and I’m annoyed that all I’ve gotten is a bot email in return. And it’s only been a few hours so far! So, I can’t imagine getting nothing back after twenty days. Beginning to think I’m better off getting a refund.

Good luck to you.

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Glowforge is not a “brand new startup” by any means. At the same age, Amazon had already gone public and earned a well-deserved reputation for great customer service. Besides which, customer service isn’t something a company can just kick down the road and “figure it out later.” In my opinion, the excuse of being a new company goes out the window as soon as they have real paying customers.

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A replacement was promised on Dec 3 and radio silence since but I’m not being overlooked? All the while, new customers can buy theirs? cmon @Jules

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One of the staff is replying to you now.

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I’m very sorry for the frustration. It appears like we haven’t received any of the replies you sent to our last email on 12/7. I’m investigating why that happened, however, the most important thing is that you receive your replacement unit as quickly as possible.

We’ll follow up with you in email with more details shortly but I wanted to let you know that we’re looking into this now and again, I’m very sorry for the experience you’ve had so far.

I’m going to leave this thread open in case we have further difficulties communicating via email.

I bought mine the 11th…

I was in the same boat. The emails they did answer were polite, professional, helpful, and all around great. I was confused by the all-or-nothing behavior, so I followed up and it turned out that none of the replies I sent were going through!

They use a service called Zendesk for customer support tickets. The Glowforge staff seems 10/10, and I suspect Zendesk is to blame for the mixup. In the end, I suppose they’re still responsible for the service they use dropping the ball, but from what I’ve seen from Glowforge so far I bet they will fix that ASAP.

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thanks, @jae. I also called and left 2 very detailed voicemails explaining this so I am not sure how this got lost. I’ll keep an eye out for your email.

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maybe but probably not since the unanswered emails and radio silence only began after the unit arrived damaged.

Well it’s high time they fired whoever is manning that desk! From all that I’ve read this is not even close to the first complaint about lack of communication. They manage to get back to you within a day with a reply that is only meant to stall you for another few days. Totally unacceptable customer service in my opinion. They are willing to invest your money for over 3 years but then completely ignore our concerns with regard to this machine we were originally expecting 2 years ago.

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Anyway you can at least confirm that my messages have gotten through? Seems like it’s kind of hit and miss on what messages you’re receiving…not off to a good start here.

Maybe my experience is atypical. I ordered a Glowforge Basic in November and it shipped ahead of schedule. When it arrived broken by UPS, I opened a support ticket and received a response the next day, on a Saturday! When they get the email, they’ve been great. Even now, I may receive my replacement unit before the 01JAN19 date that my original order was supposed to arrive by.

I just checked and we received your message this morning. You should be hearing back from us shortly.