Marine Depot Customer Service Issues

[stevensmks2]

So I’ll start off my saying I have used Marine Depot a lot and I have spent thousands of dollars on their site. I’ve never had any issues until recently. I bought an Aquamaxx calcium reactor from them and after setting it up it started leaking a lot from the recirculation pump and spilled quite a bit of water on my floor. It was very obvious where the leak was coming from (the o-ring on the intake side of the pump, see picture). I contacted customer service and explained what was going on in great detail and that the pump is bad. They responded a few days later and asked me to send a video of the leak. This kind of annoyed me because I had already disconnected everything and I really didn’t want to hook it all back up just to have more water leak on my floor so I could get a video of it, especially because I described in great detail where the leak was coming from. So I explained to the customer service rep that I already disconnected everything and didn’t want to hook it back up to take a video. Heard nothing back for like 5 days. At this point I was really annoyed so I emailed their customer service department and told them I didn’t appreciate being ignored and that I wanted something to be done. The next day, instead of hearing back from the customer service depart about my grievance, the representative I was talking to earlier finally emailed me back. He didn’t apologize for the very late response, he just asked me to send him photos of the O-ring to see if he could see any causes of the leak. At this point I am very annoyed and just want to send the item back and get a full refund. I am done with marine depot and will only be shopping with BRS from now on. Has anyone else had any issues with Marine Depot?

 

[MarineDepot]

Hi Stevensmks2,

I would like to apologize that this situation occurred, but I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. Let me start by saying we will be happy to accept the return for the skimmer and our team should be contacting you shortly to set that up.

Just to provide some context, I did some digging here with our customer service team and learned a bit more about the situation. We initially received your email Thursday 1/31, but it was unfortunately received after our hours. Once our team returned on Friday 2/1 we responded to your original email and asked requested a video of the problem area. We commonly make this request with technical issues so that we can diagnose the problem and either fix it on the spot or send the replacement parts needed, saving the need to ship the whole product back and wait for a replacement. Having already disassembled the reactor, I entirely understand the desire not to have to put it back together. Again, we unfortunately did not see your reply before we closed on Friday. I do apologize that you did not receive a follow up until this morning, but we do give our teams the weekend off, which caused the delay. It truly was not our intention to make you feel ignored, but I entirely understand that not hearing back for days can result in that.

Once we returned to our office this morning I understand that you spoke with one of our agents who requested pictures of the part of the pump that was leaking. Again, I apologize that we unable to respond immediately. Mondays are by far our busiest day of the week for support, but as the customer that is in no way your fault and should not affect the service that you receive. Although we do occasionally receive back products that are broken from the manufacturer, these cases are pretty rare. In this instance, we were trying to see if the leak was being caused by a pinched O-ring which is a common problem and a quick fix.

I do see that we received pictures of the damaged part today as well but unfortunately did not have time to respond to them as they were only received on our end around twenty minutes before this post was made. As I stated earlier, we would be happy to accept the reactor as a return, or as our team said in our reply to you, we can also send out a replacement for the part that appears to be the problem. Once again I would like to apologize for the frustration that this has caused and for the experience as a whole. We do pride ourselves on our service, making it hurt more to know that we failed you.

-Steven@MarineDepot

 

[stevensmks2]

Hi Stevensmks2,

I would like to apologize that this situation occurred, but I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. Let me start by saying we will be happy to accept the return for the skimmer and our team should be contacting you shortly to set that up.

Just to provide some context, I did some digging here with our customer service team and learned a bit more about the situation. We initially received your email Thursday 1/31, but it was unfortunately received after our hours. Once our team returned on Friday 2/1 we responded to your original email and asked requested a video of the problem area. We commonly make this request with technical issues so that we can diagnose the problem and either fix it on the spot or send the replacement parts needed, saving the need to ship the whole product back and wait for a replacement. Having already disassembled the reactor, I entirely understand the desire not to have to put it back together. Again, we unfortunately did not see your reply before we closed on Friday. I do apologize that you did not receive a follow up until this morning, but we do give our teams the weekend off, which caused the delay. It truly was not our intention to make you feel ignored, but I entirely understand that not hearing back for days can result in that.

Once we returned to our office this morning I understand that you spoke with one of our agents who requested pictures of the part of the pump that was leaking. Again, I apologize that we unable to respond immediately. Mondays are by far our busiest day of the week for support, but as the customer that is in no way your fault and should not affect the service that you receive. Although we do occasionally receive back products that are broken from the manufacturer, these cases are pretty rare. In this instance, we were trying to see if the leak was being caused by a pinched O-ring which is a common problem and a quick fix.

I do see that we received pictures of the damaged part today as well but unfortunately did not have time to respond to them as they were only received on our end around twenty minutes before this post was made. As I stated earlier, we would be happy to accept the reactor as a return, or as our team said in our reply to you, we can also send out a replacement for the part that appears to be the problem. Once again I would like to apologize for the frustration that this has caused and for the experience as a whole. We do pride ourselves on our service, making it hurt more to know that we failed you.

-Steven@MarineDepot

Thanks for reaching out and offering me a refund. I think you guys might need to hire more customer service representatives. Every time you guys email me I respond within minutes but it takes you days to get back with me. I’ve never had that issue with any other online vendors.

 

[MarineDepot]

Thanks for reaching out and offering me a refund. I think you guys might need to hire more customer service representatives. Every time you guys email me I respond within minutes but it takes you days to get back with me. I’ve never had that issue with any other online vendors.

I do appreciate the feedback. We do recognize that the current wait times can be problematic and are working on growing the size of our team to support our customer base. As we continue to grow we want to make sure our service is able to grow with it. I again appreciate being informed of these types of issues so that we know where we need to focus our attention to correct areas that aren't fully supported.

-Steven@MarineDepot