This
is a forum for expressing the problems we faced getting service from someone
who cares more about the sale of an autopilot than building customer
loyalty. From a business point of view,
it’s OK to make engineering your #1 priority, but when customer support is #37
on the list, we’ve got a problem. Sure
the pilot works well and if you are lucky you will never have to deal with
Alpha Marine Services again. In the odd
event that you do need some help, I am sad to say that you are mostly on your
own, unless you want to buy more stuff and don’t ask too many questions. Or, several people have had good luck with
the rep for Alpha: Emerald City Marine
(details on previous page).
Where
do I start the story? We bought our
equipment directly from Alpha when they were located in Reno, Nevada. We purchased the 3000 control head, the
auxiliary control panel for the cockpit, a handheld remote that is also mounted
in the cockpit area, the compass and the ram unit that is attached to the
rudder. The simplicity and energy
efficiency of the unit are what attracted us, and we expected it to be very
reliable and easy to use, which for the most part, it has been. What we did not expect is the
confrontational nature of the after sale service when you have some question
about problems encountered while cruising.
The
first thing that happened affected the compass. It is not quite as robust as it could be. The cup holding the suspension oil fell
off--it is held on by suction. We
mounted it in an area that we have very little access to and next to it we
stored some toilet paper and manuals for the engine. This provided enough pressure to dislodge the cup, clearly our
fault. I called Chris at Alpha to
enquire as to the nature of the oil in the cup and was told that I needed to
send the unit to the company to have them service the unit, as the oil is “very
special”. Sending the unit in is fine
as long as we were in the United States, but we were in Mexico where shipping
is costly and problematic with no guarantees that you will ever see the unit
again. The exchange between Chris and
myself was very confrontational and I stopped the conversation to ask him what
is it that I have done to upset him and that we need to get this behind us
before we could continue with the problem.
I asked if he could send some oil to a friend who would bring it down
when they were coming to visit. No, he
said, I need to send in the unit. I
said OK, I would send the unit to him and assume full responsibility for
getting it to him. I asked him to sign
a contract assuming all responsibility for getting the unit back to me,
including getting caught up in customs or lost. After much debate on this issue, he said I could use 30-weight
non-detergent oil in the unit and it would be OK. We did that and it has worked perfectly ever since. My question is, why all the
confrontation? This phone call took 20
minutes and cost me $20, when a conclusion could have been reach in about 3
minutes. This is quite expensive on my
part and a complete waste of his time while doing nothing to assure customer
loyalty or satisfaction.
The
second thing that occurred is the remote unit in the cockpit failed. I called on the phone to see if there was a
quick fix or maybe I was missing something.
The call again was confrontational but we got through it without wasting
too much time. The result is that I
would send in the old unit at the earliest possible time to be repaired and I
also bought a new unit which he would ship to a friend who was coming down in a
couple of days. He did as he said: he
shipped out a new unit, but he did not review his records to see what I had
bought in the past. I had specified a
length of cable when I bought the original unit but he sent a unit with a cable
that was 6 feet too short. I called
Chris and he said that the unit would not work with a spliced cable, even with
the splice shielded from RF. OK. But I ignored his advice, spliced the cable
and it has worked perfectly ever since, even while sending email on the
SSB. He agreed to fix the broken unit
at his cost and put a new cable on it because I had to cut the cable to remove
the old unit. After six months while I
was in the states for Christmas, I called to ask where the unit is; he says it
has just been fixed and shipped and that my credit card has been billed. Sure enough the unit shipped the day I
called with the new longer cable installed.
The total cost was $280 with only two items listed: replace something in the unit ($187) and
31-foot cable ($93), that is all. I did
not think that charging me full retail for the cable (“nonstandard”) was fair
considering I had already bought a unit that should have included the correct
length cable, if he had taken the time to review his records. (It worked out to about $15.00 per foot for
that 6-foot extension.) I asked for
some credit, but Chris refused.)
Wanting
to know the cause of the problem so I could take some measures to avoid having
a reoccurrence, I called Chris for his opinion. He was very evasive and after some conversation he said that
maybe it was RF (something that I agree is not his problem). He was not at all forthcoming with advice or
inclined to share his experience or expertise to help me avoid the
problem. I hung up feeling that nothing
had been accomplished and still in the dark.
I
thought that this poor customer service could have been a bad experience that
for some reason only happened to me.
After talking with many cruisers I am sad to say that my experience
seems to be the norm, more so than I, or anyone I have spoken with, would have
expected.
I
hope that The Company may see some value in treating customers as partners and
change their attitude. It should not be
one of confrontation but of cooperation. Many of us out here cruising use the Alpha autopilot and when
asked would we buy another, the answer is “No!” If we were treated a little better, I think that the answer could
be a “Yes”.