Minelab's New Service Center

[El Dorado]

My new 4500 battery took a dump 3 weeks ago. I first called Trina in Las Vegas. She told me all service was now going through the new repair/service center and gave me Awot's (new service manager)direct phone number. Called him on day 1 and left a nice message, he did not return call. Called back on day 2 and left another message, no return call. Called him again on day 3 and left a rather blunt message. Guess he figured I was not going away and finally called back. His first question to me was how did I get his #. I told him Trina gave it to me. He then said " I usually don't take calls". WTF, he is the Service Manager...... He then passed me to Darin, the service tech. Darin, the service tech told me to send the battery in and he would immediately send out a new one. After being very very patient(over 2 weeks), I called Darin yesterday. He told me that he thought it was already sent out but would find out what is going on and call me back. As of today no return call so I tried calling the new service manager Awot... he never answers the phone and is very bad at returning calls from messages on his voice mail... just like the old service manager. Now I called Darin to find out what is up and why he did not return my call. Darin said Awot was supposed to return my call yesterday.... He transferred me to Awot. All Awot could tell me was Gloria (don't know who she is) was sick and he could not get any info about my battery.

No repairs were needed so this should have been a very simple swap out. No one at the new service center seems to know what is going on at all. Awot the service manager does not even know his employees duties. As a service manager he should be very familiar with each and every process that he manages. I asked him why he couldn't just get a battery and ship it to me...... no answer accept that Gloria was out sick and it will be looked into when she returns. Hell, I get better service from my beer distributor and only buy a keg every other month from him. Minelab USA has learned nothing about proper customer service. Considering new 4800 and 5000's will be out soon, I would be very cautious about getting a new one... remember the recall on the new 4500's? If that happens with the new detectors I pity the owners having to deal with Awot.....

Minelab Service, get your head out of your a$$ and get this right. American Customers deserve real Customer Service.

[Dakota Slim]

It's like just about everything else these days. Service is what you get when you bring the neighbor's bull over to see your cows.

[adam]

Thats frickin rediculous Steve. Thanks for exposing this issue, as Minelab needs to be aware of these situations going on in thier service departments. We all paid good money for our equipment, and deserve a functional product with stellar service to back up our purchases. Thank god you didnt send your detector to them Sure am glad I am using SD ,and I pray I never have any issues with it..

Adam

[carter]

the only way this will e v e r get straightened out is the Minlab Dealers are going to have to put their foot down and tell Minlab to get it right

Joe public can scream and yell all they want but Joe is a voice blowing in the wind and you can tell it does not mean jack

anyone who reads this must remember Some Day you may need help from the service center

[matt]

That bites Steve.

[sourdough]

I was thinking of upgrading until I read this post, thanks Steve for clueing all of us in. Now I know that I'll wait to see if there are any changes to their way of doing business before I'm willing to drop that kind of cash down. As much as I would like to upgrade, I will wait.

I wonder what it will take to get it through their heads that service means as much as the product does.

[El Dorado]

Sourdough... that is the exact response Minelab USA needs to respond to and get good after sales service for us here in the USA

Great service = more sales

[LuckyLundy]

Steve,

I don't know about upgrading with the same old customer service. How can a company produce the best detectors and let their customer service/repair side of the house bring them down. I'm on the sidelines, until this matter is totally fixed. What maybe 2 years?

LuckyLundy

[sourdough]

Now I can't tell the future, but I DO think until they get their service department under control, they are going to lose quite a bit on new sales because of the bad REPUTATION they're getting with their service.

The word is out MINELAB get it right, WILL YOU? (double spank)

Like I've said, I would like to upgrade, but NOT untill they get this problem taken care of.

[Nuggetslayer]

Sorry to hear that Steve. The problem that we have right now with electronic prospecting is Minelab has a strong hold on us. If we want the best detector out there, we have to use their machine. I wish someone would come out with a machine just as good, so the battle could be over customer service like every other product on the market. Over the years I have come to learn that a product is only as good as its customer service. These machines are $4000.00 and $5000.00 a pop, its not like we are buying a cracker jack box unit out of Radio Shack. With that said, Steve I bet ya a $1.00 if you had a problem with your Radio Shack detector that company would have the store give you another one off the shelf or a detector sent out via UPS the very next day. When companys are fighting for sales customer service is the only thing that can put them above the next. Being in sales for many years I learned something, "You can only screw someone one time!" We all have to remember we can't blame Chris or Rob or who ever is selling us the unit for Minelabs bad customer service. These guys go above and beyond to sell us machines, and help us use them. There isn't a whole lot a guy can do with his hands tied behind his back, so make sure the finger is pointed in the right direction, and thats at MINELAB!!!

[PVGOLD]

Hi All

Nuggetslayer, Well said!

I feel for Rob, Chris and Bill. These guys have

all gone the extra mile for most of us at one time

or another, obviously doing their best and wanting

to provide top of the line product.

Best Regards

Herb

[tundra]

Hi All

Nuggetslayer, Well said!

I feel for Rob, Chris and Bill. These guys have

all gone the extra mile for most of us at one time

or another, obviously doing their best and wanting

to provide top of the line product.

Best Regards

Herb

AND don't forget about Doc's Detecting

Rodd

[rexb]

Hmm, you would think that should have been a simple fix, what you've described there seems to be a rather horrendous attitude coupled with very flawed organizational problems down there. Don't bother me with doing my job, I have more important things to do. Maybe dealing with the Australian service dept. is worth the distance related hassle, but probably not always worth the extra the shipping. Sounds like they need more organization, leadership, know-how or something in the U.S. service center.

[wonderer]

Sorry Steve about your issues with ML service ..........

MineLab Service dept. should assign a tracking # for all received idems...from when they hit the door (& the e-mail tracking # should be e-mailed or called & given to the customer) each step should be followed by an outomatic tracking system (waiting for service, being serviced, fixed & sent to shipping.......when shipped e-mail costumer with tracking and delivery information..

ALL Managment, Employees or Staff should be able to access statice of machines & be able to inform the costumer.

wonderer

[Paseclipse]

I was in the same boat as Sourdough and was thinking about upgrading to the latest and greatest too until I read this post. I think I'll hold off on buying a new detector for now because my 4000 is working just fine and I don't want to deal with the nonsense of having to send a brand new unit in. I still remember some of the nightmares I heard about getting the 4500's serviced and I wouldn't want to go through anything like that.

Since Minelab moved their manufacturing facilities to a new location, there's a high probability some of the first units to go out will have problems and will need to be serviced. This is where a good solid service department does their job and it sounds like Minelab USA's people are incapable of doing it right.

It's just to bad when you get a corporation who cares more about increasing their profits in the short run rather than keep their long loyal customers. I often wonder if what we've been seeing with Minelab lately is the beginning of the end of a good product line. Hopefully it isn't and they get the problems straightened out.

[El Dorado]

Sorry Steve about your issues with ML service ..........

MineLab Service dept. should assign a tracking # for all received idems...from when they hit the door (& the e-mail tracking # should be e-mailed or called & given to the customer) each step should be followed by an outomatic tracking system (waiting for service, being serviced, fixed & sent to shipping.......when shipped e-mail costumer with tracking and delivery information..

ALL Managment, Employees or Staff should be able to access statice of machines & be able to inform the costumer.

wonderer

That would certainly help them and the service manager when he/she need to answer questions. I did a very similar thing when I was the Service Director for a giant company. I would have or could find answers very fast......also knew the status of most if not all service requests.

[hotrock mike]

I wanted to chime in here with my experiences because minelab has dropped the ball with helping the customers whom they should be reliant on. I have been unable to get any response from minelab by phone or email regarding sending my machine in to fix a problem which popped up 2 months ago. This obviously isn't an isolated problem because I've yet to talk with anyone who has a good thing to say about minelabs service. I do want to add that I love my machine since it worked well for almost 2 years and found me a lot of gold. I just want reliable service on something which cost about as much as a car now.

Anyone know someone in Sudan who can fix my minelab? I assume they must fix them themselves over there. They're probably better at it by now than minelab is.

Like nuggetslayer said earlier it has nothing to do with Rob. His service has always been great.

[grubstake]

Hey Steve! Send it to China, maybe they can get it fixed! ha! Ha! Iknow its not a funny thing, remember when the post office lost mine for a month, I had a tracking # and it kept going from Ca. to North Caralina, and back about three trips, the very day I was going to file an insurance claim, it got to Minelab, then it came back, turned on once and would not turn on again, Back to minelab for two more weeks. Boy that sucked big time, I lost 5 weeks detecting. Grubstake

[shep]

I put a reply to this over on Bill's forum and not gonna type it over again. Should of used Word and copied and pasted, but didn't think I would draw it out that long, but as usual did.

Minelab does need to rethink their thinking. They have the best detector out, but poor service will hurt them in the long run.

Shep

[carter]

can you figure out why in a nation of over 300 million there is no place to get units repaired

we can put a man on the moon but no one wants to repair detectors ? are there just not enough units in the field for someone to make a living doing a repair business. there are numbers of high tech people out of work these days sure wish one of them would start a shop. I think I would pay to get my ML repaired and not have to go through a l l that mental pain trying to get it fixed.

[Denny]

El D great post and i feel your pain, My 4500 has made 3 trips ,It seems to run better but it is hard to believe in something once doubt has entered the situation, My dials for settings ,well when i turn them in one direction ,the unit will scroll one way then another, this was one of the original issues, {and still is}also the lack of being able to achieve a smooth threshold. What are these guy,s thinking, it is the most important part of the hobbie to believe in your equipment, I have owned new 3000/3500/4000/and 2 4500.s . I have also trained 35 minelab useers, and been responsible for over 30 unit,s being sold,, And i aint no dealer.you think they would want me happy to buy a new one, I do not want special treatment just proper and honest service, There is no way that i can trust them at this point,it will take quite a bit of time before i can justify a large purchase, i would need to see and here of the problem being fixed, I also hear of others problems , like this the do not even send the right detector back to the original ownwer, that tells me they do not even care,Sorry to the dealers but i would not buy a new minlab at all.

[El Dorado]

I sure hope that someone in the right position from Minelab does read or hear about threads like this one. I am sure this will also be a topic at the dealers meeting coming up soon.

[El Dorado]

To be fair to AWOT: He did leave a voice mail yesterday that I would be getting a new battery overnight. Yeah righ! Well just a few minutes ago UPS brought me the new battery. Guess he figures out how to do his job even if someone is out sick. Thanks you minelab. BUT If i was not proactive and kind of the squeaky wheel, who knows how long it would have taken them? ? ? ?

[grubstake]

Great, that you did get your battery. Shows someone is whating the forums. Grubstake