LaserGlow Going Downhill

[hwang21]

Another poor experience with LaserGlow to report... I ordered a LaserGlow Lyra Sol 5mW with custom engraving, and everything was smooth until I opened the box and the beam was hitting the aperture, making a splash to the side of the dot. I contacted Scott Browes about it and he said they'll fix it up if I RMA it to them, so I did (paying shipping both ways).

After they received the laser, they told me the laser worked fine and they couldn't see any splash with the dot, quote "the laser is within all specifications and we were unable to reproduce the splash shown in your images." I thought this was strange for the beam to realign itself during shipping, so I told them to send me a picture of the laser dot, which they refused to do. Instead they gave me a beam profile report, which didn't include the splash to the side of the dot. But since they said they couldn't see any splash and couldn't do anything to the laser, I said alright fine ship it back to me (paying for shipping costs again).

I received the laser fine, but when I turned it on the splash was still there! Exactly the same as what my photos showed. So I basically just paid for shipping to do nothing to the laser! I immediately requested a full refund for the laser, which they said to RMA the laser to them (I paid for shipping again). Finally, they refunded me part of my laser- taking out a restocking fee and whatnot. So I basically lost $60 through LG and ended up without a laser or any satisfaction...

Shipping costs and timeframe were reasonable, but emails took a week or more to get a reply most of the time, especially if my email contained complaints or RMA requests. Emails for information or laser specs were replied to within a day... Thoroughly painstaking process, followed by them claiming that they couldn't see any splash when there was...

Pic: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67636717/Lasers/LaserGlow Lyra Sol 5mW/LG Sol.jpg

Overall, 2/5 stars if not 1/5 for LG... expensive lasers and not great experiences. I had a similar experience with a LG Libra last year, splashy dot and relatively poor customer service. Seems like a lot of previously great companies have gone downhill recently... Lazerer, LG, O-like, etc...

A positive note- my experience with Optotronics with their 175mW+ 532nm laser pen was flawless and I have a way overspec laser :beer: my LG experiences pale heavily compared to my experience with Opto...

As always, the best lasers for sale are right here on the Forum... I have yet to have a bad experience through B/S/T here on the Forum. Just be wary of scams/frauds, although I have yet to have that happen to me from LPF

 

[Robpar]

Damn! This is the second post about laserglow.

 

[crazyspaz]

How very disappointing. Laserglow has long held a reputation of excellence, would be a shame to see that go down the crapper.

 

[trencheel303]

I suspect that Laserglow cater mostly to larger customers and businesses who want to spend a lot of money on lasers and basically want the vetted products. It doesn't surprise me that as a hobbyist, and someone who really doesn't make them money that they aren't going out of their way to help you. If you were a university who had just spent tens of thousands, I can guarantee the approach would be different. Us hobbyists are probably just an annoyance to companies like this.

Personally, I've never liked them, x2 since they ignored my queries.

 

[crazyspaz]

Could be. You are certainly right though, hobbyists and people who want a pointer for a presentation or something make up an extremely small percentage of ANY laser company's business.

Personally I never cared for them simply because price. Even though everyone says "Oh yea great customer service, and it comes in a great case," I could never justify spending 100$ on a 532nm pointer.

 

[IsaacT]

I have never been a LaserGlow fan. Mainly because I do not like forking out unnecessary cash for identical products I could get for cheaper.

 

[trencheel303]

Could be. You are certainly right though, hobbyists and people who want a pointer for a presentation or something make up an extremely small percentage of ANY laser company's business.

Personally I never cared for them simply because price. Even though everyone says "Oh yea great customer service, and it comes in a great case," I could never justify spending 100$ on a 532nm pointer.

I never got the great customer service thing though. Situations like this thread aren't that uncommon if you go looking for them, and it's pretty widely acknowledged they ignore messages. Even LPFs greatest Laserglow fan, the Greenlander, acknowledges they tend not to reply to messages.

I think it's very telling how caring a business really is when you gauge how they treat small customers vs large ones.

 

[mortuus]

Sounds like they dont want to take responsibility for their lasers, i mean their prices arent exactly cheap most of their lasers sad they go this unhelpful road.. best if all just avoid them. Never saw anything id like to buy from them at those prices anyway.

 

[Rifter]

for the premium they charge that complete lack of customer service is completely unacceptable.

I for one will never order from them again, and consider myself lucky my Libra and anser and googles order from them went flawlessly.

To bad because they are Canadian but its not worth the risk especially for the price if this is whats going to happen if you have issues.

 

[Cel]

Well their heavily overpriced lasers aren't worth buying even with a good customer service.

For that price I would expect flawless performance, awesome design and good customer service.

 

[mortuus]

Nope, i prefer cheaper products that will last a while or if i ever need send it back customer service to me isnt something i focus much on when buying.

 

[Justin]

Hi Hwang21,

I don't monitor this forum very closely anymore, but another user sent me a link to this thread. I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction, and while occasional mistakes are inevitable for any organization I feel that your RMA was certainly not handled correctly. I just had a meeting with our entire sales staff to clarify how these sorts of issues should be handled in the future, and the conclusion of that meeting was that if a customer is unsatisfied with their purchase we should do whatever we can, within reason, to make it better.

Regarding the pointer itself, since these are designed as presentation pointers a small amount of beam scatter on one side may be present, and most of our customers don't care, or even notice. When used in their intended setting this would not be visible. However, since you were unsatisfied with this performance I feel that we should have offered to exchange it for you, as it is a premium product and you should rightly expect to be satisfied with it.

After reviewing our email records, I agree that in several cases your messages were not replied to in a timely manner. Our policy is that all messages should be replied to within 48 business hours, at most. I have spoken to all of our staff about this and made my expectations very clear. If anybody on this forum feels that their messages are not being returned within this timeframe I would like you to contact me directly so I can investigate.

Some people have said that we didn't reply to their emails at all, but I'm sure that our staff are replying to all of the messages that we actually receive. (Our email logs support this.) We have recently seen some of our outbound messages disappear (especially those going to larger organizations), and it's important to remember that emails are not 100% reliable. If we didn't reply to you, it's entirely possible that we didn't actually receive your message, or that we did and you didn't receive our reply. Server-level spam filters are becoming very aggressive these days and it's quite common for a legitimate message to be blocked. Once again, if you have sent us messages and received no reply, please call us, or contact me directly so I may investigate. We would not knowingly ignore a customer's message under any circumstances.

Hwang21, since you were not satisfied with your purchase and did not receive an appropriate resolution, I would like to personally apologize to you. This is not how I want our customers to feel, and I'm going to send you a separate message so that we can hopefully reach a resolution.

If anybody feels that they are not receiving the level of service that they expect from Laserglow, I would encourage you to contact me directly so that I can investigate the matter. I don't directly handle customer service anymore, but I am responsible for it, and I want to make sure that Laserglow retains the same positive reputation that I worked so hard to cultivate over the years.

Sincerely,

 

[hwang21]

Communication with Justin established... we shall see where this goes. I'll keep this thread updated :beer: