[TedW]

Point well made, Loren. Not to dismiss this thread at all, as it does serve to warn us small timers to stay away from them. But at the same time it's good to realize why it is the way it is. Laguna is not going to change how they deal with regard to small shops and hobbyists, and what you say about where they make their real money is exactly why. It's good to keep these things in perspective.

 

[nwbusa]

I don't really buy that argument. If Laguna sells to retail customers then they've made a business decision to invest in that segment of the market. I'm not saying that they should treat Joe Hobbiest the same as a commercial account, but to entirely dismiss any customer's concerns is just poor management. Who knows? Maybe the executive of one of those big commercial accounts is a LumberJock and reading this now…

 

[Loren]

I've only bought from them once and it was a part for a used
Robland machine. The deal was not a hassle and the price
was fair.

I live in So Cal - dealing with them is no big deal for shops
here. In other areas you might want to look at other dealers
selling other lines but with closer offices. It's only common
sense. Buying from a West Coast supplier when you live
on the East Coast is risk in some way. There are other
vendors of lines of industrial Euro machines in N. America.

I wouldn't be seduced by special pricing or shipping offers -
if you are going to buy new machinery buy from a dealer
you feel you can work with in terms of regional and trucking
concerns. I buy all my stationary machinery used so I
have nobody to complain to. I'm used to it.

 

[MonteCristo]

I think Loren and TedW's last comments help to explain why Laguna is stiill in business. And sadly the business world often involves playing hardball. But, as nwbusa points out, Laguna is playing a dangerous game. There are a lot of small shops, including mine, that wouldn't go near them if a guy decided to expand.

Laguna got its start selling European imports - a savvy move. But back then the Chinese weren't a factor. Now the lock that Felder, Hammer and all those guys had on quality complex machines is being seriously challenged. Look at the incredible success of Grizzly. They probably selll more in a day than Laguna sells in a year. And some of that isn't just toys for a small shop.

Besides being morally wrong, I think treating only select customers well has never proven to be successful in the long run. As to the suggestion that Laguna is indifferent to all this negative flack from the likes of us on LJs, I am not so sure about that. My run in with them resulted to a phone call from none other than Catherine Helshoj herself. If we meant nothing to Laguna, I doubt that would have ever happened.

Sadly, I am not a spring chicken anymore but I am pretty sure I will last long enough to see Laguna tank. I'll have a glass of wine to celebrate when that happens.

 

[TedW]

nwbusa, I'm not suggesting that it's good business practice to dismiss the small time customers, just that they may have made a conscious decision to put low level CS staff in charge of this particular sector. Personally, I think it's a really bad decision.

They still have the opportunity to make things right by sending me a bunch of free tools, but they better hurry up before I change my mind.

 

[Dennisgrosen]

its crazy if a company tread hobbyist and small shops like that
if they make tools for that secment of the market
have they forgotten that a hobbyist can go pro
and the small shop maybee will grow to a big company one day
all big company´s have started in a backyard by a hobbyist with an idea

they have to respect us more
I´m pretty sure Torben is from the same country as me hearing his accent in the vidios
and if so I´m ashamed of being a Dane

Dennis

 

[knotscott]

It's cheaper to get things right the first time. If that fails, it's cheaper to make things right the second time than to alienate good clients who tell everyone they know what happened. The power of the internet has got to be biting them in the backside….this isn't a new issue.

On a side note, 6 or 7 years ago, a good friend of mine was looking at big 16" bandsaws. He looked at Jet, Grizzly, Laguna, and Minimax (among others). The Laguna guys at the Woodworking Show kept badmouthing Minimax, but the Minimax rep wouldn't utter a negative word about any of his competitors, even when we told him what the Laguna guys were up to. My friend respected the Minimax rep's composure, and bought the MM16….he loves it, has received great customer service and impressive performance from it.

 

[Richforever]

I didn't buy my bandsaw from Laguna because of bad reviews on customer support. Now days, a company that isn't balanced in quality of products, care of employees, and customer support just won't last very long. Balance is the key.

 

[Tennessee]

So who is Kelby, who posted a few days ago about his CS guy who stepped out of church to help him out? A fake? I posted there that the deed was outstanding. Maybe it was not true? Kelby has under 30 posts. Was I suckered into thinking that Laguna is allright?

I will say to the person who said that Laguna sells mainly to the large shops, so does Grizzly, and very successfully. Shops like Gibson, who move more wood through their plant in a couple days than most of us do in a lifetime. It would appear that Laguna will eventually bite the dust if they depend on repeat sales.

 

[ssnvet]

I think the "premium product" marketing can backfire on some of these companies…. as customers expect a lot more when they shell out 2x the coin for their product. Then when the CS falls short people feel they got burnt and have the wrath of Thor in their bones.

If they're going to market themselves as a premium product and charge the prices they do, they really do need to get it right the first time and bend over backwards if they don't.

 

[Durnik150]

It would be interesting to see if Laguna has the spine to hop on here and give a reply. I guarantee that they are well aware of this string of comments and have their opinions.

What do you say Laguna, is it time to turn the corner and start fresh? Or not.

We'll see.

 

[lumberjoe]

I posted something similar in another thread as well. Background: I am an IT engineer/manager heavily foucsed on quality assurance and preventing repeat defects. I have had a ton of very formal and structured training over the years, specifically on interpreting feedback. Please read the example below:

You and your wife/friend/coworker/whomever go to McDonalds. There are 3 outcomes:

1. Your food is exactly as your ordered it, the right temperature, and served promptly.
2. Your food is not how your ordered it, it is cold, and took longer than your thought it should
3. Your food is exceptional, it was ready before you even pulled up to the window, and the employees were really nice

You are 87% likely to tell many people about #1, close to 0% likely to tell anyone (even the person sitting next to you while you are eating your food) about number 2, and only about 10% likely to tell anyone about #3.

Most unsolicited feedback is negative. It is human nature. If something is completely satisfactory and ordinary in every way, most people keep silent. However that is what the expectation is. We do not go to McDonalds to have our taste buds blown away. The same with tools. Most people expect them to do what they advertise. If that happens, it's no big deal because it is what you expect.

I bet if the site admins pulled a report of all the reviews here, more than 80% would be either 1,4,or 5 stars. 2, and 3 are commonly given when people feel they have an ordinary experience.

Moral of the story - Silence is the language of satisfaction.

 

[MonteCristo]

lumberjoe:

I think you are arguing that the 87% appies to #2, not the satisfied guys in #1. But, if you are arguing that Laguna doesn't have a systemic CS problem, I think you're wrong and I think the other replies here support that. As the saying goes, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck".

 

[lumberjoe]

You are correct. You will likely NEVER hear from the "number 1's", but rest assured there are MANY out there. I have no experience with Laguna directly, however as a generalization unsolicited feedback (reviews online, general forum posts that are not in response to a specific query as examples) statistically tend to paint an unrealistic picture - either overly positive or overly negative - never average. Categorizing something as a "duck" without a broad sampling of first or second hand experiences could be unfair. I'm not saying feedback should be ignored, but it should not encompass your entire decision making process.

To make things more complicated, you also need to take into account the size of the sample. A greater than average responses (positive or negative) should not be dismissed as statistical outlyers, but further analyzed and corrective actions should be taken if negative, and lessons to apply to troubled areas of the business should be realized if positive.

 

[MonteCristo]

Hi Joe:

I also have a background in statistics and I agree with your reply. In the case of Laguna, hoever, it is obvious that the number of "1 stars" is way too high. And it's got a long track record of "1 stars". When I rrealized that I was being stabbed in the back by Laguna, I did some digging and quickly found that experiences like mine had occurred at Laguna for years. When this all started, it is hard to say, but given that it can be traced right to the top of the company, my guess is that it started as soon as the company started to feel the heat that inevitably comes with the rough and tumble of the business world. Maybe sooner. Some companies try to do CS even better when this happens but it sure looks like Laguna isn't one of them

 

[Alexandre]

This is where you get a Rikon, Grizzly, Powermatic or a General International

 

[BenI]

Probably won't be buying any bigger woodworking tools in the near future but glad I read this post in case I do, definitely won't be Laguna.

Thank you for the post

 

[lumberjoe]

My responses are not defending Laguna in any way. I have never done business with them, and I am not in their target demographic. I can tell you a lot about customer service in general. My engineering specialty is in network voice applications, infrastructure and design. Have you ever called your cable TV provider or credit card customer service lines? I'm guessing a lot of you have. Often times you are asked to enter some account or identifying info. Most people think that the information is used to expedite your call and get you routed to the right department/CS agent. A lot of times the opposite is true.
In a LOT of cases, calls are NOT answered in the order they are received. Your account standing has a lot to do with how long you are on hold. If you are a "small" customer, you have a negative bill repayment history, or meet several other factors, you will be on hold longer, and you will be routed to less skilled and possibly off-shore CS agents. This strategy is called priority queuing. It's sad, but a lot of companies are not focused on providing excellent customer service to everyone. They want to keep their valued customers happy, and provide a minimum acceptable level of quality to everyone else. This could be the case with Laguna as well. I'm sure they have large customers spending well over 100k, and maybe even spending that frequently. If they lose a customer buying one piece of equipment, that could be acceptable in their business model.
I personally try to take my business where it is appreciated in my price point and target demographic. As an example, Woodcraft tends to be a little pricier than their competitors, but every time I walk into the store I received excellent service from everyone that works there and sometimes even vendors that stop by. Knowing what goes into customer service, that is a premium, not an expectation. If the woodcraft markup is something I feel is acceptable over the competition based on the service I receive, I will gladly pay it.

 

[stonedlion]

Having no experience with Laguna, I cannot comment on their customer service or their tools.

What I find interesting is what appears to be their aggressive attempts to suppress negative comments from customers.

I had already made up my mind before this thread came up, that Laguna was never going to see a dime from me, just on the strength of the CS complaints here on LJ's. This thread has only served to reinforce my decision.

 

[MonteCristo]

Hi Richard:

You are right on the money when you say Laguna aggressively works at suppressing negative customer comments, especially when it comes to their CS.

I notice on the other Laguna post that is very active at the moment that a link is provided to another forum. Some forums are touchy about referencing other forums so let's just call this other forum SAWMILL_RIVER or SMR for short.

SMR is the forum on which I first attempted to tell my story of horrendous Laguna CS. Things went well for a week or so. A lot of people responded, with almost all of them supportive, just like here on LJs.

My post on SMR resulted in a call from Laguna's head (business) honcho, Catherine Helshoj. I gave her details of my miserable experience with her staff in CS. One employee in particular had been rude, bordering on abnoxious, and had discounted my problems saying "well, you got the thing on your TSS, what's the problem ?". Well, the problem was that what should have tajken a few hours took well over a day because there were NO INSTRUCTONS, NO DOCUMENTATION, NO DIAGRAMS, no nothing. And it turned out that contrary to what Laguna had stated, the piece wasn't even designed for their TSS !!

When Catherine Helshoj heard the above she was anything but sympathetic. She backed up her employee 100% saying that he had been there for years and was a great guy. No "my goodness, I'll have to look into this" here.

What happened next showed me the kind of hardball that can play out when you rock the boat, even if you have every right to do so. Soon after talking to Catherine Helshoj, I tried to sign onto SMR (they require you to sign on or at least they did) and my account was blocked.

I GOOGLED the name of the guy who owns SMR and emailed one of his sites to ask what was up. No response. I then accessed SMR through another account and sent him a PM. No response at all.

Laguna Tools is an advertiser on SMR. Is it just a coincidence that I disappeared from SMR just after I had a run in with Catherine Helshoj ? IMHO, I don't think so.

It gets better. EVERYTHING ABOUT MY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE WITH LAGUNA TOOLS, INCLUDING ALL THOSE SUPPORTIVE REPLIES, VANISHED FROM SMR.

How's that for controlling negative Customer feedback !!!