Garmin support destroyed.

[Roger Long]

There's been a rumor that layoffs and reorganization have destroyed Garmin's once good product support. I haven't heard anything definitive but is sure seems true today.

About a month ago, I posted about getting, "Due to unusual call volume, we are experiencing wait times of of 30 minutes.", messages when trying to contact them by phone. I tried daily for about a week and finally gave up.

The GPS I was trying to call them about just died completely and I purchased another of the same model. I've gone to their web site and de-registered the old one and registered the new one. However, the Garmin web site won't let me obtain unlock codes so I can load my Blue Charts into the new unit because it thinks it's my third unit; not the permitted second (they are also loaded on my 3205). I went through something similar a couple years ago and it had to be resolved by phone which was done quickly and expeditiously.

I called about 20 minutes ago and have been listening to Muzak and a cycle of messages telling me to go to their web site. God help you if you have to buy a new Garmin in the middle of a cruise and are trying to go through this process in a poor cell phone area or standing in a hot phone booth feeding in quarters.

They have had a month to get their phone support working again and all that's happened is that the message about wait times had been changed from "over 30 minutes" to "over 35 minutes).

It's an I-hate-Garmin-day. 30 minutes and counting.

 

[Maine Sail]

Very sad

This is very sad. Garmin, historically speaking, has been one of the best in the industry for customer support. I think the longest I was ever on hold with them was about one minute.

It's a good thing their products are reliable. Fortunately, I have not needed to call them now in about two years.

 

[Roy10289]

I have a Garmin GPS that I purchased 2 years ago. Have had no problems with the unit but have been in contact with Garmin online for advice. I feel they make a great product and hope that they will not let customer service degrade.

 

[Roger Long]

This is very sad.

A human voice came up on the speaker phone about a minute after I posted so I'll give them credit for being 4 minutes ahead of what the tape promised.

I told the rep my problem and he said they didn't have a policy for that and he would probably have to consult with supervisors. "I'm not saying it's true but, since you haven't sent the old unit in for repair, you could be selling it to someone with the charts loaded."

"FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, I BOUGHT THE EXACT SAME UNIT BECAUSE I COULDN'T REACH YOU A MONTH AGO BECAUSE YOU WOULDN'T ANSWER THE PHONES. I'M PAYING FULL FREIGHT FOR A NEW ONE BECAUSE YOU'RE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH."

"You should have emailed."

"I did"

"Oh. Well, we might have to have you send the old unit back before we can send you new unlocks codes."

"I'M GOING SAILING TOMORROW. I HAD TO HAVE A NEW UNIT SENT OVERNIGHT BECAUSE I COULDN'T REACH YOU. WHAT THE *$#^*#* DO YOU DO WHEN SOMEONE HAS A UNIT DIE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRUISE?"

This went on for about 10 minutes at which point the rep suddenly became very helpful. He had me give him my account password and reregister my old unit. After about half an hour, he emailed me new unlock codes that are supposed to work with my new unit. One area was missing but I don't plan to go there this year. I sent a reply email asking if he could fix that before next year when I might want to go to Cape Cod.

I'll let you know if the new unlock codes work.

 

[kloudie1]

Similar problem about three months ago with my little car dashboard unit.. I bought girlfriend a refurbished unit .same model as the one I had ... registered hers properly and upgraded the maps.. Then MY unit still under warranty failed .. I sent it back and immediately got a refurbished unit from Garmin as a replacement.. Problem was that they messed up the serial numbers and had the new unit replacing my girlfriend's unit and me still having the old failed unit.. The system would not let me update the charts in the new unit.. Took three phone calls and about half an hour total to get those guys to understand.. and fix the mess.. The guy who finally did the fix was one of their software guys .. very nice and knew what he was doing.. The previous two folks were pretty useless.. I hope I never have a problem with the GPS MAP 545 on the boat!

 

[Roger Long]

I hope I never have a problem with the GPS MAP 545 on the boat!

Yes, better pray. They sent me the new unlock codes by email in a bit map screen shot. Retrieving them from the Garmin server via Mapsource didn't work in the usual way, at least so they would register in the program and let the maps be unlocked. I saved them to a back up file which opens in Notepad but doesn't tell you which area the codes are for. Used the bitmap image to figure out which ones to cut and paste from that directly into the manual entry feature of Mapsource. That worked but, can you believe this run around?

Selected all the maps and loaded them. GPS showed them. Cool. However, the inner harbor of Portland, where I go often, wasn't shown. Re-did the transfer selecting all the maps. GPS give "Can't Unlock Maps" error. Shows nothing but the base map. Did it again trying to exclude the Cape Cod maps that they didn't give me the new unlock code for. Got a message saying a few maps could not be unlocked. Did I want to transfer them anyway or abort the transfer? No choice or software implementation to just transfer the unlocked maps. Loaded them into the GPS. Got the "Can't Unlock Maps" error and no maps. Evidently, if there is even one chart that isn't unlocked loaded onto the card, none of them will read.

Apparently I now have to figure out every chart number in the Cape Cod area and exclude it or do a complete new reinstall of Mapsource and unlock every thing from scratch. Either way, I'm facing a couple hours work. Can you believe this? Can you imagine doing this in the middle of a cruise with poor phone and internet connections?

I'm back to saying:

FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS BUY GARMIN!

Later:

OK, I drew a route starting way up the river in Portsmouth, out and around up the coast and way into Portland Harbor, then up around Nova Scotia through the areas I have unlocked charts for. Then I used the select maps around route function. This time, it didn't pick up any of the Cape Cod charts (which I paid for damn it and ought to be able to unlock on this new unit I had to buy bucause their customer support was too dysfunctional to let me get the old one fixed) and everything loaded. I think the new unit is now ready to go except for going through 20 menu levels and about 150 choices to be sure everything like units and display settings are set so that I don't have a distracting surprise on the water. Sheesh, at my professional rates, this would have been about a $500 fandango. Who needs this shit?

 

[jibes138]

Do you have any friends that are lawyers?

Perhaps a quick letter with an official header from a lawyer will help solve this. Most companies don't want to pay more in legal fees than the cost of fixing it. Maybe you have a kid that is a lawyer?
The other thought is send some friends from New Jersey?

 

[Roger Long]

Perhaps a quick letter with an official header from a lawyer will help solve this.

If bad product design and poor customer service was a crime, half of the population of Redmond WA would be in jail

To be fair, the tech rep worked very diligently to find a work around for what is an apparent bug in their web site registration process. I expect he'll take care of the Cape Cod region problem. He tried very hard to avoid involving a supervisor or the next level of support once he understood my problem (leaving today but I'm not going anywhere in this weather as it turns out) and history. He was afraid the people on the next level up the food chain would insist the old unit be returned before letting me load my new one. You can see the remains of a once great service program in this incident.

I took a photo of the failed battery connector that also shows the serial number and sent it to him by return of his email so he can show proof that the old unit broke. I kept it going for a while with a piece of metal stuck in between but it started flaking out on me which, for a navigation device, is not a good thing.

 

[Hugh4753]

Got the same 35 minute message. This went on for over an hour on 2 different days. I've come to the conclusion that they don't actually have anybody answering the phones just a message! Really frustrating.

 

[Ctskip]

This is just a sign of the times. Hopefully Garmin will be able to weather the financial storms. The jobs are becoming scarce and many businesses are cutting back to bare bones just to survive. Now is no time to bail on them. Now is when they need the support. It's up to the people to decide who makes it and who fails by our support in these difficult times. Hang in there, let their product will speak for them.

Keep it up,
Ctskip

 

[PilotAlso]

I have Garmin "everything". The boat, the airplane, the car, EVERYTHING.

I bought their first aviation GPS when they came out and have been a loyal customer since. Whenever I had ANY problem (rare), they did right by me UNTIL last year!

I spent 3/4 of a year with an unusable chartplotter due to fogging issues. Garmin support kept promising a repair/replacement was forthcoming. I spent hours on hold while being transferred to higher level support. Each and every one made a promise to research the problems and get back to me. No one did!

I resorted to posting a timeline of the situation (I had kept detailed records) on an internet forum. I stated that I would never buy a Garmin again and would advise anyone to look elsewhere for a GPS device.

Shortly after posting, I got an email from Garmin. The upper level person I dealt with went out of his way to make my situation right. I was happy again and thought that my situation might have been an isolated incident.

From what I've read here, I guess it was "business as usual" for the new Garmin!

It's sad to hear that a company who's success was partially based on customer service is turning its back on the very thing that made it successful.

 

[Tim R.]

I have had ongoing issues with one of their products that was resolved last year. I had never been passed off from the person answering the phone. These people know what they are doing and if Garmin is paying them minimum wage then they are getting a great deal.

 

[Roger Long]

Whenever I had ANY problem (rare), they did right by me UNTIL last year!

"PilotAlso" I used to be one of those. I still miss it.

I think what we are seeing with Garmin is the transition from the equipment and service vendor model to a mass market widget company. As they move from relatively small and developing specialty markets to a mass market (zillions of dashboard GPS units), you reach a point where the negative effect of pissing off 10-15% of your customer base, who have already given you their money anyway, is easily offset by marketing to get new customers. Google "Rise of Microsoft". They have also made some very clever technical decisions so, damn it, I would still have to buy a Garmin if I needed another radar.

 

[Ctskip]

if Garmin is paying the phone answeres minimum wage then they are getting a great deal. Maybe thats why Garmin has to cut back. Ya think?

Keep it up,

Ctskip

 

[MrBee]

As Roger said, if thats what is going on.

I believe the old saying " Take care of your customers and your business will take care of itself. " When things are tough THAT'S when you need those Loyal customers to stay, NOT drive them away.

I don't own anything Garmin... and guess I won't.

Bee

 

[Roger Long]

Credit where it is due.

I think what we are seeing with Garmin is the transition from the equipment and service vendor model to a mass market widget company.

I returned from a weekend family visit to find an email from the fellow I dealt with at Garmin tech support with an unlock code for Florida so they've now made good on the whole deal even if it took a lot more effort than it should have.

Based on this small sample, I would say that the few customer service people left are top notch. At least they kept the best instead of laying off all of them and turning the system over to an Indian sweat shop trying to solve problems off of script cards.

 

[wonkodsane]

Save yourself some heartache. Get a cheap mouse type USB GPS and carry an old laptop (Really old. 6 or 7 years old, so you don't have to worry about it going overboard). Install this software and use the free charts available here and/or here. It requires some patience to get it installed and to upload the charts, but you won't be beholden to Garmin ever again.

 

[Cpt. Jon]

Save yourself some heartache. Get a cheap mouse type USB GPS and carry an old laptop (Really old. 6 or 7 years old, so you don't have to worry about it going overboard). Install this software and use the free charts available here and/or here. It requires some patience to get it installed and to upload the charts, but you won't be beholden to Garmin ever again.

I think that the author of this software, who says he has a catamaran trawler M/V "Dyad", had been anchored out in front of our house for a couple of days... Gonna have to check this out.

**EDIT**
Indeed that is them out on the boat anchored out. I have emailed them and offered them a trip to the grocery store etc, would be cool if they reply. I talked my neighbor and he was actually out talking to him yesterday and offered the same thing.

Sorry that this wasn't on topic, so back to the topic.

I have had only Garmin when it comes to GPS units and they have been great. Customer service has been tops on the one or two problems I ever had, and that is what has kept me coming back. It's hard to say if I will let others experiences speak for me, but it could influence my future decisions.

As far as I am concerned though, Garmin has some time to correct their course because I won't be able to afford any of their higher end toys like RADAR, AIS, etc for quite some time. So here's to hoping for a course correction, otherwise I can see a lot of people jumping ship and trying out other brands they normally wouldn't have.

 

[kenn]

I have a Garmin eTrex Vista, courtesy of eBay, which has been suitable for our small boat. So far, it's been great. I'm currently working on interfacing it with an Asus eee netbook running TangoGPS, as a low-cost chart solution.

(wonkodsane - thanks for the links. more grist for my geeky mill)

many businesses are cutting back to bare bones just to survive

Some... yes. In my opinion, many businesses are using the economic crisis as a convenient excuse to make workforce and salary cuts they couldn't otherwise get away with. While senior exec salaries still go up and bonuses still get paid...:cussing:

Oops, too gloomy. Time to sail.

 

[wonkodsane]

Kenn, I have installed and goofed around with it and it's got some way to interface with an autopilot. Going to see how hard it would be to hook up knotmeters, depth sounders, anemometers, etc through a USB bus and add functionality to the program. It's open source, so maybe I can hack away at it. The NOAA charts are beautiful.