Customer service

[choppadude]

I think we can all agree that there is an incredible number of new detectors on the market in the last several years and the amount of “bells and whistles” available is almost overwhelming. I have owned most of these units and really love the performance and variability of them. Performance wise I believe the playing field is more level that it’s ever been in the last couple decades.
After looking at performance and price my deciding factor is customer service. I don’t think I have made one big ticket purchase in the last 10 years without researching the reviews. These reviews give you a good idea of how dependable a product is, how well it performs and if there was an issue, what the company did to rectify it. I’ve seen a few doozies where customers were just left out in the cold.
Recently I had the opportunity to interact with both Nokta Makro and Minelab customer service reps and service centers.
For Nokta Makro it was not an issue with their product but more of an owner computer issue that would not allow me to download the 1.09 update on My Legend. They were very accommodating and resolved my issue in a very short amount of time 100% to my satisfaction. This all occurred right around the Christmas Holiday but that never slowed down the process.
With Minelab, I had purchased a new Equinox 800 and was unable to to get the wireless headphones to charge. After contacting the service center I was provided with a return shipping label and received a new replacement set very quickly.
Both companies make awesome detectors and both seem to know how to take care of their customers.
I will also add that I have had similar experiences over the years with Garrett and First Texas.
I guess us guys in the metal detecting hobby are pretty well taken care of by the manufacturers. (Que the long list of horror stories lol!)

 

[JackalopeZL1]

Nice to hear about good experiences this day and age. With so many companies dropping the ball it is refreshing.

 

[robby4570]

Not a horror story, just a disappointment story and a minor inconvenience here.

I received my new CTX3030 a couple days ago, and wouldn't ya know it, the battery is bad! So a call to the dealer (Rich at Colonial) got me a link to file a service ticket, then a call to make sure the ticket went through. About an hour later an email from the repair center, I attached my PDF of my receipt and got another email in reply with a shipping label. All in just a few hours. So I'll box up the battery, attach the label and drop it off at the post office Tuesday and hopefully I'll have a new "good" battery by next week sometime... in the meantime, I went out and did my first hunt with the new machine using the AA pack and some rechargeables I had at the house.

So, yeah, I'm disappointed that I got it with a bad battery but I'm happy I got the AA pack and can use the machine. And I'm pretty happy with the service so far...

 

[Cherry Picker]

I guess I've been very lucky over my 50 years of buying & abusing detectors. I have never had a detector or part fail me yet. The only time I sent one in was my Whites DFX, after 12 years of use, I sent it in over the winter to be freshened up. The handle foam was worn out screen had some scratches. Normal wear for a 12-year-old very used detector. They replaced the PMB, a new display screen, handle, and coil all at no cost. I was very happy.

 

[Saker]

I agree. Lots of great detectors out there, all very capable machines. I had great experiences with Garret, Minelab, and XP customer service. All minor issues but they each took care of it quickly and were pleasant to deal with.

 

[Diga]

One great thing about social media, is that people are now able to share and expose their experiences with companies. As such, companies are much more vulnerable to criticism that can negatively impact their bottom line.

Before social media and the internet, a company could ignore customer complaints with little to no repercussions. Now, they have to respond positively to them. For example, remember the airline that busted that guy's guitar, and wouldn't compensate him for it? Well, he quickly had a cheque in hand once he made the issue public.

Being screwed by a company and getting nowhere with them? Write a post about it on the company's public Facebook page, or Google reviews, and it's almost guaranteed that a "higher up" in the company will quickly contact you to get the issue resolved.

 

[Monte]

Two more months and I wrap up fifty-eight years of detecting. I had only a couple of minor issues with some early Tesoro's in the late '80's and they were quickly taken care of.

I lived within a 2 to 2½ hour drive from White's Electronics and have to admit i had far more issues with defecting new units, bad brand new coils, and was able to take a day, make an early morning drive to the factory and get things fixed. They were good at taking care of it when I was there, but you would never believe the number of times I paid them a visit. Multiple times every year.

When they were running well, up to about the start of 2015, I didn't mind owning a White's model I liked simply because when they worked they worked well, but when things went south I could take a detector and/or coil to the factory to get serviced. But once the rapid changes in CEO's started and they had lot of terrible engineer changes I was done with them.

I have only had a couple of Minelab service needs and they were okay. But the best of them all, since I started using their detectors about '74 or so, has been Garrett Metal Detectors. They have been absolutely 'the best' for Customer Service.

Monte

 

[robby4570]

Not a horror story, just a disappointment story and a minor inconvenience here.

I received my new CTX3030 a couple days ago, and wouldn't ya know it, the battery is bad! So a call to the dealer (Rich at Colonial) got me a link to file a service ticket, then a call to make sure the ticket went through. About an hour later an email from the repair center, I attached my PDF of my receipt and got another email in reply with a shipping label. All in just a few hours. So I'll box up the battery, attach the label and drop it off at the post office Tuesday and hopefully I'll have a new "good" battery by next week sometime... in the meantime, I went out and did my first hunt with the new machine using the AA pack and some rechargeables I had at the house.

So, yeah, I'm disappointed that I got it with a bad battery but I'm happy I got the AA pack and can use the machine. And I'm pretty happy with the service so far...

Ok, so it took me a couple weeks to get the battery and charger (minus the power supply, this will come into play in a minute) boxed and shipped via USPS (their choice) with an expected delivery of "Monday" (day before yesterday). Wellllll... the post office delivered it to "the front porch" on Saturday! So it sat on the porch until Monday I called and they acknowledged that they got it Monday morning. They called today to tell me they could find no problem with it but since I didn't send the power supply (see?) they figured that was the problem. Dan told me he was sending my battery, charger, and a new power supply back to me... this was The Detector Center in PA. apparently Minelab's repair center.