Have you ever noticed... - tech support

Dear AF,

I have found the customer service at Mike Valentine's company to be friendly and helpful. I was just talking to them as I am availing myself of their upgrade program for my Valentine One, which I purchased in 2000. They told me that my old unit works fine almost everywhere but that New York is one of the few places where "POP radar" is being used.

david

I was a garmin owner early on, the support was so bad that i sold the unit and never returned, and not even interested in trying one again.

In todays age I see members here saying Garmin's email is not a priority for them, well thats a crying shame(why bother having a tech support email address if you not going to answer it?).
Why does it take any time to get to talk to a agent when you call?, why does a American company have agents off shore you struggle to understand?
To much rigmarole to go though to get map updates, much easier to just download them (quarterly).

You guy's might say your happy with your tech support, but thats only because you don't know good support. Try another GPS company thats trying to take a giant down and see what your missing.

Am I bashing Garmin, Nope, Only stating my experience from the past and your experiences from messages here in this thread.

Bob

Always talk for your own experience in anything.....

that the whole of a corporation's service area is staffed with all sorts of individuals, and we all run into them on a daily basis, whether it's your local bank, or McDonalds. Sometimes, you just can't fix "stupid" This becomes very obvious any day of the week! It appears you were directed to either one or more sub-par individuals, and that's too bad. I guess that is why there are more that one GPS manufacturer.

I have been in the"service" industry for over 34 years, and realize that clients are like the common cold, you leave them alone, and the eventually go away

That we all have our own ideas on what service is or is not, I sincerely believe you were given the service you said you got, and you reacted by changing GPS's. We all probably would have followed your lead. Enjoy them!

The exact point I was making, couldn't have been said better myself. from a representative of the industry.

You Hit the nail straight on the head, and being in the "Service" industry for 34 years I must say that was the weirdest reply I have seen in support to help your industry.

I would imagine support at the local Bank or McDonalds is not a problem because I can go face to face with a CSA.

However"I have been in the"service" industry for over 34 years, and realize that clients are like the common cold, you leave them alone, and they eventually go away"

I do enjoy my GPS's, I deal with company's that have the best support, and get the sniffles when I don't, But you can bet one thing for sure. I don't go away, and I'm not stupid.

Just got off the phone with TS and while they couldn't offer me any resolution for my 1490T bricking, they didn't give me any reason to feel worse by making it hard to get an RMA.

I'm more upset that my original concern materialized: that the newer Nuvis seem to be inferior in quality to the older ones. For that reason, I've been carrying my old, basic, run of the mill, no frills 200W on every trip since I got the 1490T. From the beginning the 1490T had some minor annoying issues, but not being able to power up again, was of course, the last straw. Luckily, I did have the 200W to pull out on my last trip.

Anyway, this post is about Garmin's tech support. Step 1, getting advice and an RMA has been okay. Now let's see if steps 2-4 (getting the UPS return label, waiting for a refurb unit, and a working 1490T) are as easy.

With the holidays, I figure that the turnaround time is fair. Now charging it up to see if it works.

BTW, the "Newly Overhauled" label is what was on the sealed package...all favs lost...sigh

As I've chronicled in this thread, my experience with the Garmin tech support/customer service has been pretty good. The unit may be another thing, but the service itself pretty good. That leads me to this post. Last week I got a handwritten addressed envelope from Garmin.

While I thought the less than automated envelope was unusual, I figured that it was some kind of post service survey. It was actually my micro-SD card taped to a printout of my service requesst! I had forgotten about the card until after I sent it in, and decided that it was probably one of many that Garmin could add to its inventory (meaning I figured lost to me forever). So my thanks to Garmin for their honesty and for my late Christmas present!

Well, I have both Garmin and Bel products and I've found that both have very good customer service and tech support! I'm especially impressed that when you call you actually get to speak with someone here in the good ole USA, I do NOT do business with companies that outsource their support to 3rd world countries. And yes, I check before I buy: no US support=no sale!!!

NP