Festool USA not answering the phone. At all.

[ghostofhoward]

After my Kapex went up in smoke for the 4th time last week, I have been trying to contact Festool usa to speak to a repair tech. Unlike the good ol days when Lester would answer and help with the process, no one has answered the phone at all. I have tried about 6 times and left a couple of messages. No reply, nothing. I even tried speaking to an operator and that didn't work either. Anyone have any clue what's going on there?? Pretty strange and a complete 180 from the previous service I have had from festool.

 

[Arvid]

since its your 4th repair maybe they have flagged your number and are avoiding your calls, lol you've been flagged

 

[ghostofhoward]

since its your 4th repair maybe they have flagged your number and are avoiding your calls, lol you've been flagged

lol. I don't think so. It certainly wouldn't be a great idea.

 

[onevw]

I have called Festool several times in the last year and never received a return phone call.  Not a good way to treat your customers.

I guess its time to go in person to Germany for visit to the president, this approach has worked before with other large companies. It was quit a lot of fun to see the reactions of the top people when we showed up with the press in tow.

Rick

 

[ear3]

Sounds like [member=57769]TylerC[/member] should be flagged on this one.

 

[glass1]

I actually spoke with a tech this past Thursday or Friday.

 

[ghostofhoward]

Sounds like [member=57769]TylerC[/member] should be flagged on this one.

Yes it does.

 

[awil66]

I called last week for a replacement part and was told they are doing a complete computer changeover. They could not process any orders. Was told I would get a call back.

 

[Bob Marino]

I called last week for a replacement part and was told they are doing a complete computer changeover. They could not process any orders. Was told I would get a call back.

This is correct. Tyler can certainly chime in here and add clarification.
As they are doing this computer and warehouse change over, a monkey wrench has been thrown into order processing  and delivery.  Hopefully this will soon be remedied.

 

[antss]

I'm still waiting for a return call from a message I left in early December .

It was left in a specific person's mailbox with a specific question, and nada too.

It would appear that FT is going through some growing pains, because I sent a sander in for warranty work and it went smoothly. Turnaround was five days incld. shipping.  But, I didn't need to talk to anyone. Generated a ticket and label on line , dropped it at UPS, and retrieved it off my doorstep.

 

[gunnyr]

Festool seems to be struggling on the customer service front.  Premium products and prices generally indicate premium customers service, not so with Festool right now. 

I took a look at the FestoolUSA twitter feed and find they have not posted a tweet since August!  They have nearly 15,000 followers, that's 15k folks who have said "talk to me".  Crickets.

Many thanks to the work that [member=57769]TylerC[/member] has done.  Now the rest of the organization needs to get busy.

 

[Thebesciak]

I sent a DTS sender for repair while ago and I called them today and left them a message, I hope they will respond soon...
if not
I will fell like a dealing with a very bad Senco CS....

 

[RustE]

I sent two messages through their online "Contact Us" form in the past weeks that have not been answered.  Both times I got an e-mail confirming that the message was received.  Hopefully I won't need to charter a carrier pigeon.

 

[antss]

All that sounds like growing pains.  People spread too thin or not empowered or given enough resources to do their jobs.

I've seen it before first hand at German Co.'s  The bigwigs fly in and demand sales increase but don't really have clue or workable plan about how they're going to meet the increased demand in the traditional timeframe, with the same or better quality, all while delivering the lofty service.

- and tell em the good part Mortimer : you don't get any more personel and your budget is only increased 2.5%, barely covering inflation. . You just have to work smarter and harder. Oh, and don't forget the 5% price increase to the customer.

People do their best, it's just sometimes their hands are tied by the decesion makers. 

 

[Runhard]

They're probably busy trying to calculate how much they want to raise the prices on all their products, even the ones that haven't been updated in years.  [tongue]

I haven't needed to contact Festool in years, but when I did they were very quick to respond and help.

 

[rljatl]

All that sounds like growing pains.  People spread too thin or not empowered or given enough resources to do their jobs.

Yep, I'll bet it's the flood of new customers buying imperial Festools.  Better be prepared for the flood of new people on FOG, too.  They will have lots of questions about which imperial sander to buy.

 

[TylerC]

I want to shine a bit of light on what's going on. Nearly everyone in our office is absolutely swamped right now for a few reasons. For me, the last two weeks have been among the most stressful and exhausting of my professional life. I can 100% gaurantee you that if your calls aren't being answered/returned quickly, it isn't out of indifference or laziness. Nobody in our service team is slacking off.

There are two big things happening simultaneously:
1. The service team has to shut down for a week(ish?) at the end of the year for inventory and operational reasons. This creates a backlog in the first week or so of the year.
2. (And this is the big one) We are overhauling all of our technology systems right now.  Most departments (including service) are starting all new systems this week and last. As there always is with something like this, there's both a learning curve and various issues/bugs to work through.

I understand that -- if you need your tool repaired quickly -- you don't care about what's happening behind the scenes. Fair enough. But that's the reality. Those dudes are working as hard as they can.

 

[RJNeal]

Here's my two cents. I'm glad their doing the switch over. But it would have been nice for an announcement that this was happening.
Rick

 

[TylerC]

I took a look at the FestoolUSA twitter feed and find they have not posted a tweet since August!  They have nearly 15,000 followers, that's 15k folks who have said "talk to me".  Crickets.

We're moving away from Twitter. Despite a good number of followers, our engagement has never been very good there. It's also a dying platform that I don't see having a comeback. Our social media focus right now is Facebook, Instagram and YouTube (if you consider YouTube to be social).

 

[antss]

1. Outside inventory auditors.  Most of the big retailers use them. Your service folks don't want to do that job anyway.