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Why Does Garhauer's Service SUCK?

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
Hello All,
I removed the traveler on my E38 and sent it to Garhauer, IIRC, 9.5 weeks ago to have them make me a new one. The original lead time quoted to me should have had the traveler back in my hand the first week of April. Since that date has come and gone I have repeatedly been told that the traveler will ship at the end of the week. Weeks pass and no traveler. Three weeks ago Guido stated that there had been a problem in manufacturing and it was delayed. Fine I said, I understand it happens. When I spoke to him on 4/24 he assured me it would ship and I would have it by Friday. I called Friday and was told the traveler was out for anodizing and would ship that afternoon or Saturday 4/28, he would ship 3 day and I would have it by today. I call again today and supposedly the traveler had finally made it to the shipping dept. and will go out tomorrow so with 3 day it would be here on 5/7. I told them I need the traveler this weekend and ship it 2 day. No problem I was told. If I don't have the traveler in my hands by Saturday I am canceling the order and then calling the CC company to stop any charges from Garhauer. I could understand if they had given me a realistic lead time but I feel I have been lied to. Repeatedly. And I don't like it. I love their product but the crap I have to go through is not worth it. I should have gone with a local shop and Harken or Schaefer product. Even if they come through thats the last order I place with them. As of Monday I have to move to my mooring or I have to start paying for the slip I am in. Garhauers inability to keep their word is now going to start costing me more money. Sorry, had to vent, rant off. RT
 
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Rob Hessenius

Inactive Member
Garhauer?

RW- I feel your pain. I'm sure Garhauer is not trying to delay you. It sounds as if the right side is not communicating with the left. I'm sure you want your traveller as much as they want your dollars. Sounds as if you have been more than reasonable in your statement of needs of your traveller. Hopefully they will produce your traveller by Saturday. Best of Luck. Rob Hessenius
 

Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
They are letting you cut in line.

They are letting you cut in line.

I understand that you are upset over the perceived delays. I have been upset with them in the past for shipping errors, ordering errors, and occasionally their lead times being understated. However:

Since something like last October traveler order lead times have been 15 weeks out. I have ordered several in that time frame, and they are running about 15 weeks. (Every time I have called them in they have told me 15 weeks, I pushed on Guido once, about 8 weeks ago, and he said he could get me one in maybe less time, but from the sounds of his voice, I knew he was trying to make a long time customer feel better, and that it was already too busy for him.)

Sounds like they have gone the extra mile to get you a traveler as soon as they could. Their shop isn't that large, and they do amazing things.

Harken makes great travelers, but then again the end control sheaves for the Harken traveler will cost you more than the entire traveler from Garhauer, including car, blocks, control blocks, line and the works. I am sure that I could sell you a new Harken from stock in my shop delivered to you day after tomorrow ups red. However, I suspect that one of the reasons that you didn't want a Harken to start out with was that they were about 4x the money?

Mark, and Guido do their best, (Guido makes all the travelers by the way). They have priced some of their items below market value and so they have a lot of demand for those items. Their travelers are one of those items.

Now as for shipping, and always getting everything right when you get it, they can stand some work, but generally around here we give them some slack for making anything we ask for no matter how strange. (Go ahead ask Harken for a custom block, I tried once, lets just say it was an experience I will not repeat). Mark had the same block in my hand in 2 days, for less than 25% of the Harken off the shelf equivalent, and the best part, rated for 3000 lbs more working load......

Now let me tell you that when I have customers that are in a real hurry and have to have the stuff done yesterday, I generally sell them Harken products. Also note that I make a lot more on Harken Products. A LOT MORE. For the customers that are willing to order in advance, and are patient, and want a superior product at less cost, we slide them into Garhauer.

Have I had them mess up things so that I had customers breathing down my neck? Yeah occasionally that has happened, but less than it did a couple of years back. They are working at getting better on the customer service aspect when it comes to timing. As far as all other aspects of customer service are concerned they blow the competition away.

Need stuff shipped to New Zealand cause your rigging duties have called you there? No worries, Mark and the gang came through and sent it there. Then sent a second order without charging shipping cause we had a miscommunication.

Garhauer stands by their gear, they say they have a 10 year guarantee, I have returned stuff to them that was at least 15 years old, misused on a customer's boat, they replaced it, and upsized it one unit, so that the customer would not blow it up again. Cost 0.

There are a lot of vendors out there that deserve to be totally trashed here on the boards. I don't feel that Garhauer is one of the bad companies, and I order a lot of stuff from them.

Guy
:)
 

Chris Miller

Sustaining Member
They're another great case of really good products, poor people and service skills. THey sent me the wrong stuff, promised to send the right stuff, never did, had to call and have it overnighted to finish my project (which they didn't want to pay for, but did after a description of how poorly they had handled my order- which was nice), still haven't contacted me about sending them back the wrong items that came...
I've come to expect a certain amount of this from the marine industry over the years... That's why I go back to (and tell everyone I see) about places where I get good service.
Too bad they've got your original, too- that's got you over a barrel... :confused:
Chris
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
They are letting you cut in line.

If they are "letting me cut in line" then why didn't they just come out and say that? What is the point of letting me cut in line if I end up with everyone else anyway? Just give me the real lead time the first time I ask.

I understand that you are upset over the perceived delays.

Perceived delays? The delays are real and created by them! A customer has expectations that a provider of goods will keep their word. I am upset with them for not telling me the truth.

I have been upset with them in the past for shipping errors, ordering errors, and occasionally their lead times being understated. However:

Since something like last October traveler order lead times have been 15 weeks out. I have ordered several in that time frame, and they are running about 15 weeks. (Every time I have called them in they have told me 15 weeks, I pushed on Guido once, about 8 weeks ago, and he said he could get me one in maybe less time, but from the sounds of his voice, I knew he was trying to make a long time customer feel better, and that it was already too busy for him.) Again, if you are so busy then say so and let the customer decide for themselves. I was a manufacturing manager at a Fortune 100 company in a previous life and this kind of crap would have cost me my job.

Sounds like they have gone the extra mile to get you a traveler as soon as they could. Their shop isn't that large, and they do amazing things.

Harken makes great travelers, but then again the end control sheaves for the Harken traveler will cost you more than the entire traveler from Garhauer, including car, blocks, control blocks, line and the works. I am sure that I could sell you a new Harken from stock in my shop delivered to you day after tomorrow ups red. However, I suspect that one of the reasons that you didn't want a Harken to start out with was that they were about 4x the money?

I don't care for Harken since I really don't like plastic and they are using more and more of it. I am not a fan of Schaefer either as I don't care for the way their gear looks or feels. Garhauer product looks great, is very well made and the fact that its cheaper than most is a plus too. The reality of it is I would have likely paid MORE to have Garhauer. My season is much shorter than you guys have out there in SoCal. I have maybe 6 months of sailing. The more time this costs me, the more owning a boat becomes a frivolous expense.

Mark, and Guido do their best, (Guido makes all the travelers by the way). They have priced some of their items below market value and so they have a lot of demand for those items. Their travelers are one of those items.

Now as for shipping, and always getting everything right when you get it, they can stand some work, but generally around here we give them some slack for making anything we ask for no matter how strange. (Go ahead ask Harken for a custom block, I tried once, lets just say it was an experience I will not repeat). Mark had the same block in my hand in 2 days, for less than 25% of the Harken off the shelf equivalent, and the best part, rated for 3000 lbs more working load......

Now let me tell you that when I have customers that are in a real hurry and have to have the stuff done yesterday, I generally sell them Harken products. Also note that I make a lot more on Harken Products. A LOT MORE. For the customers that are willing to order in advance, and are patient, and want a superior product at less cost, we slide them into Garhauer. I am not in a real hurry. At least I wasn't. I made the order based on their lead times that they stated. How can this be construed at my problem? I did order in advance. How can any company give a stated lead time and then DOUBLE it and expect the customer not to freak?

Have I had them mess up things so that I had customers breathing down my neck? Yeah occasionally that has happened, but less than it did a couple of years back. They are working at getting better on the customer service aspect when it comes to timing. As far as all other aspects of customer service are concerned they blow the competition away.

Need stuff shipped to New Zealand cause your rigging duties have called you there? No worries, Mark and the gang came through and sent it there. Then sent a second order without charging shipping cause we had a miscommunication.

Garhauer stands by their gear, they say they have a 10 year guarantee, I have returned stuff to them that was at least 15 years old, misused on a customer's boat, they replaced it, and upsized it one unit, so that the customer would not blow it up again. Cost 0.

There are a lot of vendors out there that deserve to be totally trashed here on the boards. I don't feel that Garhauer is one of the bad companies, and I order a lot of stuff from them.

Guy
:)

If they had simply been truthful about the lead times I likely would have just held off on the traveler upgrade until next season and sent it to them at the end of the season and they would have all winter to do it. But thats not what happened. I removed the traveler and now they have it and who can say when I will get it back. At this point money is not the issue in any way, shape or form. If I don't see a traveler by weeks end the order will get canceled and I will go to a local provider. There is quite a large local sailboat hardware market here with Newport just across the bay from me. Likely it will cost me at least 4X that of Garhauers unit but that sure beats not sailing. Actually I don't care if it costs 10X. I want to sail. The boat is in the water, the bills are all paid. Looking at the damned thing instead of sailing it is not an option. April is gone. If I am lucky I have part of May. Then its June, July, August and September and the seasons gone. If a new traveler cost me $4500.00 do you really think I would care next fall when reflecting on what a great season I just had?

I have my own contracting business. Right now I am booking 4 months out. Some customers are willing to wait, others go elsewhere. It would be wrong for me to flatly state that I can start in a month. I know its not going to happen and they had to as well.

Guy, I don't want to get into a pi$$ing contest with you over this but I don't see how this is trashing Garhauer. I am simply stating facts about the situation I am currently in. If I ever choose to do business with Garhauer again then I will be sure to order way, way, way, way before I actually need a part. I also think it would be a disservice to anyone else who is thinking about purchasing Garhauer product NOT to let this issue be known. They have great product, etc. etc. etc. EXCEPT when it comes to being realistic about lead times. I sure wish I knew that 10 weeks ago. RT

FWIW, I just checked and the letter I wrote to include with the traveler when I shipped it was dated 2/14/07......
 
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windjunkee

Member III
We had a new traveller manufactured at Garhauer also. It took FOREVER. I think we took the track off and drove it to Garhauer with our order in early February '06 and didn't get it back, correctly done, until June. We were never told 15 weeks. We were told "a couple" weeks by Guido. When we would call, they wouldn't return messages. Despite what we ordered, the first time round, they sent us a track that was FAR too beefy for our little boat and we would have lost use of the cockpit locker if we had stuck with it. Thus, we sent it back and had them do it right. We like the product, now that its on the boat, but the service absolutely sucked.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2 Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA
 

Bob in Va

Member III
P R

I hope someone at Garhhauer is reading this thread. What would it cost to have a consulting firm provide this kind of info about your business? My very limited experience with Garhauer is somewhat in the same line - great product (solid vang) at an excellent price, long wait while they made up the two end brackets to fit my spars based on the templates I sent them with the order. I know it didn't take weeks to make them, more like a day, so that must mean I'm on a list with lots of other orders ahead of mine, and most of them for lots more bucks than mine. No sweat in my case, as I already had a soft vang, but it would have been real frustrating to lose sailing time if I'd had to wait for an essential part. I contrast that service with the rigging supplier who quoted me two weeks for a backstay, then had it on my doorstep in three days when I told them any sooner would really help me out. They got my next order too.
 

Sean Engle

Your Friendly Administrator
Administrator
Founder
It happens all the time...

I hope someone at Garhhauer is reading this thread. What would it cost to have a consulting firm provide this kind of info about your business?

Sadly, the dominating culture of many companies are set by the founders or their kids. In that environment, the 'way we've always done it' is the often the only way they know how to do it. Because of this, they are often reluctant to make a determined effort to change the culture (and operational method) of the organization - in an attempt to become stronger - due to a fear of failure or the unknown, etc.

It's too bad that a discussion like this can go on - will probably be dismissed by the management of the company in question - and in the end the original strength of the company (their culture/output) is often the very thing that will bring them down (look at -the original- Sailnet, for example); just because of their unwillingness to genuinely change.

My $0.02...

//sse
 

msc1212

Member II
I ordered a pile on garhauer products in February including a rigid boom vang, the easy glide Genoa tracks and a traveler. It took a few calls to Guido to get these shipped before the end on April but he did ship them and they're terrific. Everything fit and they produced some extra items for me that they didn't charge for. Guido was helpful and polite but sounded exasperated on the phone simply because of the volume he was dealing with. Garhauer seems to be suffering from an age old problem in business- they're over-selling themselves. No doubt in the future they're either going to have to back clients off even farther than they are now, or they're going to have to raise their prices. I,for one, would rather wait and have a good product that I can afford.
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
The traveler arrived on Friday, 2nd day shipping as promised. It is, as I expected, a beautiful piece of work. I was able to get it installed this weekend and it fit perfectly. I would have gladly paid "Harken" or "Schaeffer" prices for Garhauer quality that is clearly better.

So is Garhauer off the hook, IMHO? Not quite. It really is a shame that Garhauer is as good as they are yet hobbled by poor customer relations. I have a MBA with a concentration in operations and worked in manufacturing for years. Given that Garhauer quality, design, etc. is so good its obviously not that that is holding them back. Restructuring pricing and hiring a good manufacturing manager would likely move them to one of the top positions in their market. I feel bad for the people that have to work there as undoubtedly they are too busy, aggravated, etc. trying to perform to unrealistic deadlines and expectations. I'm am guessing that if in fact they allow people to "cut in line" that the production line is quite haphazard and they are constantly firefighting to keep customers happy. Realistic lead times would do wonders to smooth out production. I hope they figure it out. Their product is certainly worth it.

RT
 

timday5

Member II
I wonder if they would hire me to be their customer service guy once I'm done with this Navy gig. I may consider working for parts...
 
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