I believe they all come from the same location, I am waiting on my 6th replacement in less than 12 months and half have been referbs and the rest have been new because it has happened so much to me, and I believe every single one came out of Texas. I wish they came from Seattle because I am in Kent WA, about 20-30 mins from their headquarters…
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That’s an interesting point of view . If I worked at Glowforge, I would look at feedback like yours to validate my lack of good service .
What annoys me is when people are gladly willing to accept terrible service - no number, no messaging or chat service and no SLA.
With feedback like yours, why would Glowforge strive to invest and improve in this department ?
That’s shocking and scary . Why do you think you have gone through so many ? Is it cheap parts and a poor build ?
It seems like bad quality control and I think stuff gets damage during shipping also. Their customer support drives me crazy only being by email. You really should be able to call and get it fixed immediately.
That explains a lot about how you look at things.
What annoys me is when people do not do research on product before buying, and then blame that product for not changing fast enough. The customer support of a small company is not even going to come close to the enormous companies you compare them to. Let alone a small company that is in the growing pains of becoming a medium sized company.
Glowforge’s customer support did not change when you bought it. It has actually gotten quite a bit better from the historical posts I have read and people I have talked too.
Sounds like you wouldn’t. I am glad you do not work for Glowforge. Everyone I have talked to at Glowforge has done all that they could to make sure I was happy with their service. I felt surprised if they responded to my email or posted a reply to my message outside of business hours or on the weekend. I felt like they really cared. You clearly feel different.
My words are not going to change how you feel. Your feeling are not going to change mine. I am okay with that.
Some people try to look at things from another’s point of view. Some assume everyone is out to get them because that is what they would do. Some people only care about themselves. And some people really just want to help, and others cannot comprehend that.
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I’m pleased with Glowforge’s service. I have had several warranty replacements and the turn around was pretty good. I do know the opaque nature of the delivery system can be frustrating.
I wonder how many issues are caused by shipping. They have tweaked the packaging a little, but they are running at the end normal shipping with this size and weight.
It’s a small company. They need to build out customer service, but not overbuild. I remember reading some things about Gateway Computers. Their services call centers grew huge quickly. It’s not like you can over design it and then respond to volume at a moment’s notice. I know nothing about the economics of customer service, but I can guess that the customer’s needs are important, but still only part of the equation.
They build a quality machine, but one that has a few pinch points that color the whole discussion. Lid cable, carriage wheels, wifi tech, exhaust fan design. Lid glue. Then there is the long road to full feature rollouts for the passthrough.
Then there is the whole filter pivot.
I do not understand how an email isn’t answered by a person within 24 hours. I do understand that once the thread gets going, email still is a tedious process for back and forth. I do understand that they just can’t justify setup up a call center. It would have to be quite large and would never make up for the loss of business or customer satisfaction with email only support.
I have my car in the shop for an HVAC repair. I chose not to go to the dealer the first time the air conditioner went out because it was just too difficult to manage the 60 miles to the dealer during lockdown. I went with a local service shop. They fixed it. Lots of money was spent. Two weeks later it went out again. This time took it to the dealer. Oh, yes, your evaporator leaks again. That is because somehow you missed a service bulletin that would have reprogrammed the HVAC control not to freeze up and crack your evaporator. And we will make this a warranty replacement. Sorry, our bad. I can’t imagine the cost of something like this for these 2017 Impalas. Oh, and the dealer had the same issue. They ordered the part and when it came in, it was the wrong part. Just like the local service station. Somehow the system was pulling up the wrong part and they didn’t know in both shops until they went to try and put it in. I guess a giant company can factor in all these losses. But man, it’s got to be hard.
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If you read my post in its entirety , a company providing much cheaper smart ovens , presumably smaller or the same size as Glowforge is providing significantly better customer service . So it’s hard to understand why a company selling $6,000 printers can not do the same .
It’s simply about standards and adapting to change . The forums, social groups are littered with negative posts about customer service and the company falling behind . Being a part of the solution is not about accepting what is available (when it is lackluster) but demanding what is standard even with companies smaller than GF.
I’m glad you enjoyed their service , your right though neither of us are going to change our opinions here and we should agree to respectfully disagree.
That is exactly the point of this post . I don’t understand why they want to be in a more premium segment and provide CS over email with no real SlA
I did read your post in its entirety. You never named the company. You only assumed they were the same size. The only companies I saw named were Apple and Amazon.
Do you feel that I have been anything other than respectful?
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You’re going to get a lot of pushback from people who have been on this forum since the Mesozoic, not necessarily because Glowforge support is on fleek, but because we are just so weary of this topic. It is a running joke at this point. Mah business! Dan owes me for my downtime! I have a $5000 paperweight/doorstop/boat anchor! I demand to speak to someone in charge, on the phone, stat!
You may even be right, but you are not original. And if I were head of customer satisfaction for Glowforge, maybe I’d give a darn, but honestly if they have a problem and they haven’t gotten the message by now, one more thread with almost the exact same words as the last 50 isn’t going to turn the tide. Use the search button if you want to see what other people think. There’s no shortage. Or take the time to hang around here, read all the topics, like and comment, help people out. That’s what the folks arguing with you have been doing for the past 3 years. Maybe you’ll have a more nuanced view when you’ve read over 40,000 posts like bill.m.davis has.
There’s also the possibility that it isn’t that bad. They’ve sold a lot of machines. We only hear about the bad experiences. Mine was a day 1 hour 1 preorder. It was one of the first non-prerelease machines to arrive. I have never had the slightest problem with it.
It’s not fair of us to be so dismissive of your negative experience. But it’s the nature of bringing up the same topic at a party that’s already been discussed to death. At best, people will roll their eyes and walk away.
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Scale. The Glowforge company is a relatively tiny company with a relatively high price, complex product and low margins. Your oven manufacturer is a relatively large company, with a relatively cheap, simple product, and high margins. They can afford to hire more people, meaning faster response times. They also can provide free replacement products more easily without affecting the bottom line since they have more income coming in due to higher margins.
Glowforge still takes care of their customers, it just takes longer.
As far as using a Glowforge for a business, anyone who chooses to do so with the information freely available and who also chooses not to have a backup plan is asking for problems. No one wants to hear it, but businesses always have to have backup plans. Either it means a second machine that is only used when the first goes down, even if the business will expand to fill capacity, or it means a policy on how to communicate to customers in the event the machine goes down, and a savings account for when that happens.
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Sorry to be blunt, but you got your machine in May. This forum has been going on since 2017 or earlier. A phone number would be great. We all want to be heard immediately. We all want perfection.
Don’t make people repeat themselves. People have posted their thoughts on Glowforge service. Read them.
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I can tell you think you’ve written a well reasoned essay and responses fairly evaluating the situation. However, you’ve made a number of invalid assumptions.
The internet and the world at large are completely overrun with the complainers. There is little impetus for anyone to just say “all is well”.
This is a meager two data points that are greatly dissimilar, any college statistics class would fail this argument immediately.
That is almost the entirety of this forum, both the good and the bad covering multiple years. By asking this question are you saying you haven’t read it any of it?
Most of your replies are clearly slanted toward “I’m looking for people to validate my own experiences”. While that is is certainly a valid endeavor, you do not display any interest in hearing another viewpoint.
Whether a business should have a backup plan or not has been hashed to death all over all the various GF groups, here and otherwise. I don’t even run a business with mine but I still know of several laser services in my area. This isn’t business planning, just life planning and living. There’s always a solution to whatever situation one is facing.
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I have had my GF less than a year now. I spend many hours a day on it and this forum (all while running a successful home business with my wife). I open every new post on this forum and try to help those that I can with what I have learned from experience and the information shared by others. I’ll be honest, I feel for you that have had difficulties and frustrations but I have stopped spending time on those posts that want to bash @dan and the staff. For the price point of this product it is an engineering masterpiece. I spent a great deal of my professional career in technology and industry and therefore maybe have a greater understanding or appreciation of just what it takes to get a product to market and aftermarket support. Anyone wanting to build a business around a new device, product or technology had better have a contingency plan for downtimes or machine failure. I hope you get your problems resolved and are up and running very soon but just a friendly word, why drink the bitter water of a glass half empty when the glass half full is cool and sweet?
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This. Also, every interaction I have had with any representative of Glowforge has been absolutely positive. They care. They do their best to help. They are dedicated to their product and company. I once had the good fortune of being a part of a team who worked together as though we could read each other’s minds; who were so close and tightly knit that we both worked and played together; we were a family. It was magical and wonderful and we did amazing things together.
What I see of Glowforge’s staff reeks of that same magic. I envy them that, and I also know that for as long as they keep the magic, they will have success in their endeavors. I appreciate a leader who is able to make that magic happen, to cultivate and nourish it and keep it alive. Growing too fast is death to that kind of team. You have to find the right people, not just whatever warm body shows up with the proper skills. I would much rather see them grow slowly and carefully, because that’s what’s going to keep the magic alive.
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This. I’ve had few reasons to contact support, but each time they have answered in a reasonable amount of time and usually have be back up and running in a day. I had one warranty replacement (on the very last day of coverage!) and received the refurb in less than a week. The only other hardware issue encountered was resolved in 3 days with a part mailed to me.
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A bit ago they hit 1,000,000 prints in a single month, and if you take the number of support tickets/complaints during that time, you’d see they are a small fraction of the overall experience. (Even smaller when a large chunk of those tickets are user error.) That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who’ve had bad service or equipment or justified frustrations, it’s just an example of how we only hear the negatives because other users didn’t post 1,000,000 times to say things worked great.
Yes, service isn’t on demand like the service I can get on my LG stove, but I can say I’ve never had more ethical or a genuinely courteous service experience than I’ve had with GF. There’s a lot of room for improvement and getting it sooner than later would be great, but you bought a relatively inexpensive hobby laser to run a business and you decided not to have a backup plan. I have sympathy for you and hope things get resolved quickly so you’re back in business, but going with a lower end laser instead of a smaller $20,000 commercial laser is on you.
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My Glowforge issues have been few and minor, but I have always gotten prompt, helpful service.
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Update on my HVAC repair saga: The tech’s father died of COVID-19. Quarantine means that he can’t come in and work on my car. they might be able to get someone to do it. Two weeks and counting.
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