Magellan GPS Branding Mistakes Poor Customer Service
Last night I watched an episode of “The Loop”, a TV show on Fox. It’s one of my favorites, very witty and funny. During the episode one of the main characters had to call his credit card company. The show portrayed a split screen with his call being transferred to India where the credit card company has outsourced its apparent “customer service”. A woman answered the phone with a very thick accent (ah, because she’s from India) and said her name was “Sally Malloy”, can I help you. The woman then proceeded to use “catch phrases” such as awesome and dynamite all the while not understanding a word the man was saying. Very funny. Sad but true is all I have to say unfortunately.
Segway to Magellan GPS and my own personal experience with them. Last December 2006 I sent my Magellan Roadmate GPS unit in for repair. I paid the repair fee in advance in November 2006 of $150. Come May 2007 I still don’t have my paid for unit returned. Where is my unit I ask myself? So I call “customer service” at Magellan GPS. That’s where the nightmare begins. I was transferred to a company in India who takes care of Magellan’s “customer service” and “tech support” (how thoughtful to their customers huh, sending customers who paid for their product to people that barely speak English). A man with a thick accent answers the phone and after 4 tries finally spells his name to me: Derrick Emanuel. Okay, I ask “Derrick” where my unit is. He puts me on hold for 15 minutes…how sweet, thanks big D!
Finally he comes back and through much interpretation tells me that they have it and someone will call me back within 24 hours. At least that’s what I got out of it, understanding that he could barely understand me and me him (Magellan GPS obviously cares deeply of their customers huh). No one ever calls me back (big surprise huh, the guy barely spoke English).
I call back, speak to another barely speaking English “customer service” person and finally I ask for a supervisor. My supervisor comes to the phone after making me wait 20 minutes on hold. His name is “George Jordan” or Jordan George, who knows I could barely understand a word he said. He tells me that my unit is there and will be fixed. I say, no way Jose (I don’t think he got it) I want a new unit overnighted pronto (again, not getting it). The solution Mr. Vite (Oh, that’s me Mr. White), Vee vill be sending to you a refurbished GPS unit for free of charge. I ask, why would I want someone else’s crappy unit? Send me a new one and refund my $150, I ask. I mean really, you’ve had my Magellan GPS unit for 7 months. That’s it, take it or leave it.
I call Corporate in good ole US of A. I Ask for customer service and they transfer me where? India. I hang up, and call back. I want to speak to someone who is living in the United States in customer service I ask! Then the real fun begins… I get Robert Davis(rdavis@magellangps.com), “Quality Assurance” something or another. I explain the situation to him thinking….alas, I’m saved. Nope, sorry….we’re going to make this harder on you Mr. White (at least I understood that).?
First I have to prove I mailed my unit there (even though India confirmed having it). Fine I say, I expect poor service like this so I save my UPS receipts. I’ll show you, and I fax it over. Two days go by and nothing (nice service huh). Finally I call him and he says we’re shipping out the refurbished unit and that’s it.??
To recap: Magellan GPS keeps my unit and the $150 I paid to fix?my original unit?and sends me a refurbished unit while making me wait 7 months.?
The Fix: Listen up all you companies that care about your branding this is important. When a consumer buys a product?in good faith treat them like you appreciate it. In this case I bought my device from a retailer and had a good experience. But when I had to deal with Magellan GPS I had a very poor experience. It’s obvious that Magellan cares more about their bottom line than building a positive brand image. Why else would a company outsource its customer service to India? Customer service in my case was the first touch point I had with the company, like most consumers.
How sad that Magellan values its customers so little.
Secondly, empower your customer service to make and say good choices. Teach them to be empathetic to your number one assest (that’s the customer). In this case they should have said:
Mr. White it’s unacceptable that we’ve had your unit for over 6 months, that’s not the norm. We take full responsibility for this. I can’t image how frustrated you must feel.?
That’s a better way to handle it not this (this was emailed to me from Robert Davis and is a quote):
“Mr. White, Magellan apologizes for the inconvenience. As per our conversation today, Magellan will replace your RoadMate 700 with a RoadMate 2200T. Magellan will attempt to ship the replacement today by UPS NEXTDAY Shipping.”
Thank You and have a Great Day,?
Robert Davis, Quality Assurance Engineer
rdavis@magellangps.com (email him if you want)
How cold and?uncaring huh?
No responsibility, no empathy, no nothing!
Lastly, I paid $1300 for my device new 3 years ago and they shipped me a refurbished unit that costs $399 of which I paid $150 for because they never refunded my money to fix the old one.
Magellan does not care about you so why care about them?
I just bought my wife a new GPS unit for her car from Garmin!
In conclusion: If you want to speak to someone in India about your Magellan GPS unit and be treated like a number buy a Magellan product, otherwise avoid them.
Just to add on I found a lot of other complaints on similar subjects, check them out online.
But here are some excerpts:
“I emailed the company twice requesting a Return Authorization and heard nothing back. I then called their toll free tech support line that connected me to a country somewhere in a distant galaxy with people who could not speak English very well (sadly, my native language!) Without speaking Klingon, it took about 45 minutes for the customer non service representative to provide me with an R/A number, and another twenty minutes to spell Fort Worth, TX. I should have known. ”
“I can’t even begin to approach the lack of customer service. I just don’t know where to start. They do not speak English or understand it. Forget English as a second language I think it is more like a 5th or 6th. They offer ZERO customer service support!!! I have no problem with any company using an off-shore call center, but please be certain they can speak and understand English. I spent just about 30 minutes on the phone trying to find out if or when the cradle would be available for shipping. The CSR could not get past why my phone number was not important to the question I was asking…”
“Customer service is terrible! It took two months of phone calls and emails to get an answer from Magellan. One tech support request was never answered. Another was answered with helpful steps to reinitialize the unit, but this failed. In the support answer, Magellan stated that if this does not work ask for authorization to return unit. I asked. No answer. Sent another tech request explaining I needed a return authorization. I got back the same document stating to reinitialize my unit. I called tech support. I could not understand the broken English spoken by tech support. I was transferred to another tech. He said his supervisor would call me back with the return information. He never called back. Call again today (again could barely understand the person’s English) and was told Magellan no longer fixes the Roadmate 760, but would give me a $149 credit toward a model 2000. I did not want a higher priced model. He said could not get credit toward a comparable model. I hung up and went to a store and bought a different brand.”
“It is impossible to get through to customer service to complain about the lack of support. It is very frustrating that this unit has been broken longer than it has been operational. Technical support is from the dark ages. I can’t believe you can’t get through to a live person in Customer Service without being transferred back to technical support in India.”
“Dealing with magellan was a very horrible experience i sent this item back to their service center because of the unit freezing and just showing a blank white screen and they sent me back the unit in exact same shape what a waste of time effort and money customer reps came from india and sometimes rude avoid this product avoid this company”.
?
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September 5th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
holy crap my magellan just went down, why fix it. ill go get me a garmin
September 7th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Dear Scott,
I found your discussion of Magellan most interesting after spending two hours today trying to communicate with a most courteous and apologetic idiot who had neither knowledge nor authority to be of any use. Magellan has to be the most arrogant company I have ever had any dealings with.
I have about $600 invested in a Magellan Explorist XL and related software, which did work o.k. for about a year.
Now it no longer communicates with my PC.
Do you know of any company that services Magellan hand-held units other than Magellan? There is no way I’ll give these people my credit card number after what I’ve learned.
Thanks
Bill Stuhler
–
?Facts are stubborn, but statistics
are more pliable.?
Mark Twain
October 30th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Another frustrated user. India tech support ………
A gentleman in Magellan media relations, Raphel Finelli is courageous enough to post his cell # on the website. It is 408-250-1778. Give him a call, perhaps he will be moved to work on relations with the paying customer. His e-mail is rfinelli@magellangps.com.
Dick Vetter, frustrated owner of a Magellan Roadmate 6000T
November 8th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I returned my GPS to be fixed was told it had a warranty. Then after they admitted to losing the GPS tells me that I dont have a warrantly and refuse to replace it though they were the ones to lose it. They offered only a lessvalued GPS at my cost dhipping and handling too.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Magellan is the worst case of lack of care or concern for their customers. Go out and tell 10 people about your experience with them!
November 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am
I have paid $550.00 for a Magellan 2200T unit which arrived defective. I have called Magellan over and over again trying to talk with someone who SPEAKS ENGLISH and got nothing. Now it’s too late for me to file a charge back and for me to return it back to the store where I initially purchased it. Each time I called, a “Mary Smith” or a “Scott Williams” with a heavy Indian accent told me that my replacement unit will ship tomorrow…..2 months later, I am still waiting for my unit. The best part of it all is that I work for an on line merchant that distributes Magellan products, so we have our personal “account representatives”. I tried calling them too, NO ANSWER!!! All that this company does is takes your money and then you are on your own. So if you are thinking about buying a Magellan product, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Thank you for these comments. I was about to buy a Magellan, but now I will stick with another brand.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:05 am
I purchased a 6000T from Walmart about a year ago. On October 29th, I purchased a map upgrade which required a firmware upgrade from version 1.15 to 1.16.
I followed the upgrade instructions when I selected the SD card to receive the update on rather than the USB which should have been selected. The unit was waiting for an SD card. At this point I thought rather than have a problem with my unit, I would telephone your support. This I did and I had the misfortune to speak to someone called ?Peter Wilson? who rather then trying to understand what my screen was displaying, just instructed me to press the reset button. I expressed my concern and he assured me that it was the correct thing to do. I did as instructed and the unit just came back with a blank screen no matter how many times I powered it up and down. I mentioned to ?Peter? that all I got was a blank screen and he casually said ?your unit is broken. It must be a power problem. See if it works in the car?. I mentioned that I was using the AC adaptor that was supplied with the upgrade and also that the batteries were charged and in addition the green power light was illuminated and so this can?t be the problem. ?Peter? insisted that it was and that I should try it in the car. He just wanted to get rid of me.
I called back and spoke to numerous people trying to get them to understand that my device was broken because of negligence within Magellan?s support. These people were devoid of any emotion whatsoever and just came to the conclusion that the unit was broken and that I should send it back to be repaired. I eventually spoke to a supervisor who said that they would raise an RA and gave me a number. I mentioned that this was not my fault and I should not have to pay for shipping as I would already lose the unit for 2 weeks plus. The supervisor said that I would receive a label within 24 hours. This was in excess of a month ago now. I call back support, speak to what seems to be a robot, spell my name letter by letter, explain the same thing again, getting the usual ?sorry? and that I should wait another 24 hours. I then tell them that I go through this every day and that I know I?m not going to get the label. They say ?yes you will?, I wait again and the cycle begins the next day again. I have noted a few of the people involved in my daily ritual:-
Peter Wilson
Nichole
Julie
Max Davids
Sam Richard
Jenny
Walter Shy X 2
Nester
Justin Richardson
Jack Taylor
Jerry Craig
Ashley
Kevin
The last 2 people on this list hung up on me.
During my conversations, I gave a Hotmail account as they thought that maybe a spam filter could be the problem. I know that it would not be a problem as I have never had an issue before. I did get excited when I opened an email from Vishaal Isaac from Magellan in my hotmail account on December 6th. Unfortunately this was a survey to see how well support was performing. I went to complete the survey as I wanted to let them know how bad the ?service? was but I just got ?Page not Found? when I clicked on the link. You really couldn?t make this up if you tried!
I really can?t believe that a company could outsource to a company such as Slash Support to save a few dollars. I would sooner pay an extra $10 and not have this terrible experience. This seems to me to be corporate suicide. What is Magellan thinking? In my 25+ years in IT, I have never seen anything like this and it is shameful. Any number you try at Magellan will result in a voicemail being taken or me being transferred to a robot in India. Nobody at Magellan seems to care.
After reading everyone elses experiences, I am scared to send it back although the unit?s dead anyway. Maybe I?ll go to Walmart although the unit?s out of warranty and shout load about them dealing with this dreadful company.
Needless to say, I will tell everyone I know about this and put my story on as many forums I can. In addition, I?m tempted to buy a http://www.magellan-sucks.com website and put everyones stories on it so that when people search for Magellan, they will see the real face of this shameful company.
How can Best Buy, Walmart and Target etc. deal with this company???? It is totally beyond me?Maybe we all need to let them know how much this company stinks.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Any customer service in this company?
I have tried multiable times trying to talk about my issue
unable to get a manager or a supervisor!
the only contact I can find is your 1-866-339-0488
all together have 7hrs tied up just to get a question answered?
been sent every direction and back
talked to 10058 could not understand
10130 Susan
10024 Lisa
Vincent
Durkin
Thomas 10172
10054 could not even catch the name
Peter
I talked at 6:58pm 1/7/08 to 10062 Sasha from tech support who Peter transferred me over to
gave me a new customer service number to call 1-800-699-4477
I called and found out was a sex talk line 6:58pm 1/7/08
wow !!!!!!!
this is great customer service!
I didn’t even get a chance to thank her when I called back was on hold for 1/2 hr and gave up!
I can’t understand trying to get some info is so hard with a company this size!
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I too was suckerd by Magellan. The unit I had (road mate 700) was great the few times it worked. My story is the same as everyones here. I sent it in and it was recieved October 18, 2007. As of today Jan. 22 no unit. I did give them my credit card number. When I last called back in Dec. I told them I wanted my credit card number OFF my account. I have put my bank on alert in the event that Magellan tries to charge it.
Oh I also got a “survey”. HAHAHA what a joke. It leads to a page that doesnt exist. Really how on God;s green edarth can this comapny survive.
I had gone to Best Buy and asked them who they ship their Magellan units to for repair. THey said they get a credit from the company and dont’ have them fixed. HAJAJAHAHAH
I so wish someone would sue the pants off Magellan. That is one lawsuit I would be apart of.
BTW if you are looking for a GREAT GPS try the Garmin nuvi 660. I got one a few weeks ago after checkign out the company. Seems that their headquarters is in Overland Park Kansas. I called thier customer service up to see how it was. THey were GREAT!! Even thought at the time I wanst a customer they treated me with respect and answered my questions. If you have to have your unit repaired it has a turn around of 1 week!!.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:32 am
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February 14th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
magellan gps units…
Garmin is one of the most trusted names in the gps industry, and owning a Garmin gps unit is a great step in the right direction with some of the best navigation technology around….
October 9th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
What a nightmare! I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to test Garmin, Tom Tom and Magellan GPS units for my job. For my money, I really liked the Garmin units (nuvi). Easy to use, lots of features, nice display, small size and I have not had any trouble with the Nuvi 360 I purchased as a result. Just a note, the Magellans were kinda complicated to use compared to the Garmins.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:37 am
This blog/thread started June 25th, 2007 and guess what… nothing has changed. I have an explorist XL and rely on it for hunting and hiking. I also have a garmin etrex because of its weight. Garmin…no problems what-so-ever! Explorist… is giving me a GRAY screen of death. After numerous calls to India I recieved a much less unit because the explorist is no longer supported. Not the one they said they were sending! Then they said they will send me a comparible unit as long as i pay $125.00, shipping, and send the old explorist back, at my cost! This thing is only a year old and is in perfect condition! I dont understand why companies think it is ok to send our tech support jobs to countries that, 1) dont speak english, 2) no nothing about they product they are supporting, and 3) lie to you about their commitment to you. LONG LIVE GARMIN!!!
February 7th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I have/had an explorist xl….got the white screen of death while using it. Called tech support and the only support I got was a suggestion to buy a new one. The xl is not only no longer made but they don’t support or repair. Tech was more then willing to connect me to purchase a new one. I’ve read too much online about magellan……Soooooo. Several days later after doing online research for a replacement for this gps…i purchased a garmin 60csx. I love the thing. It does a much better job compared the xl and was cheaper. I can overlay maps and since we use it for snowmobiling found a mapping program that works well with it. Now I’m looking online for what i can use the old magellan for…so far it seems i might be able to use it for pictures…lol…expensive photo holder.