Service Question

I dont like the sound of this, my church was getting ready to switch to all Elation...

Hmmm....
This really concerns me since we are about ready to drop about 15 to 20K on their new moving heads.... Design 575

Also, I have sent several emails to their sales contact, and have NEVER received a reply. Fortunately, John Lopez has made an effort here.

It looks like I might go with Martin or Robe.
They cost more, but at least provide support.

What good is throwing a LOT of money down on something that may turn out to be "throw away" lights.

im sorry but i will have to disagree with u. elation does not make "throw away" lights. no way no how. how do i know? cause i know this company and their products. and they stand by them proudly. i really would not let 1 mishap effect my purchase decsion. i would buy the product and get my take on it first hand and not let 1 persons complaint take over my product decsions. im sure if u do go with elation you will not be dissapointed! and all lights come with a standard two year warranty. meaning no matter what happens they will fix it free. my two watts on it! peace! sincerely jingles!

Well what good is a warranty gonna do if they dont have anyone that knows how to service the lights?? Is this true that they have lost the technician that knows what hes doing? I hope someone from Elation on this forum post soon, or they will lose our business!

Believe it or not i love elation fixtures, I have 26 fixtures and i am very satisfied ,I would really not recommend going with martin or robe, these are all international fixtures, it is very hard to get tech support from either of them, elations tech support is really helpful to me, and ive have the lights varing from 1 to 4 years old and out of all the fixtures ive only had 3 with very minor problems and they worked great again. I put these lights through alot of heavy usage and they work fantastic,with them working great it paid off,When we go on tour with various bands, they end up loving the lights and buying elation plus there friends, by doing this it has caused sales of over 100 fixtures, Thanx elation for the hard work and dedication.

I can assure all of you that we have five very dedicated, knowledgeable and proficient technicians in our service department.

As any company does, we strive to provide the best quality products for our customers, and we evaluate and improve our fixtures continuously.

I assure you that if you give a call to our service department they will take care of you.

Specifically, one of our techs, Ramiro A. has worked in every facet of the moving light industry for years and has asked that if anyone has a specific issue or problem, to give him a call directly at 866.245.6726 x144.

Elation is a service oriented company, we pride ourselves on our relationship with our customers, which is why we have this forum to speak directly with you, and that's also why we provide an industry leading 2 year warranty on all of our products.

Thanks again to all of you for taking the time to visit our forum and post.

Mike,
Thanks for the feedback from Elation in this thread!
I'd like to edit my previous post, but it will not let me.
It's obvious you guys are working your best on offering a great product at a decent price.
I am staying with Elation !
By the way, thanks for updating the info on the new design series. We're definately buying these. They look great. Do you have the Design Wash 250 manual available for download?

BTW, looking forward to the Design Spot 575 !
thxs, Steve

Hi Guys,
We should be posting the user manual today or tommorow.
I have the hard copy because the fixtures are now in stock. I just need the PDF.

Best regards,

Thanks John !

Youve also won my vote, thanks for the quick responses to this untruth!!

Justin

Michael thank you for the reasuring words. We have 12 Power Spot 250's, and 6 Power Spot 575 fixtures. We have gone thru more then our share of lamps exploding in our 575's, and several belt issues with our 250's, etc. Now our fixtures are all out of warranty.

Honestly, we have seen a dramatic change in your service department, since your lead technican Mike left. This guy really worked hard, and took care of us. We had the pleasure of meeting him at LDI in Florida, and he shared a wealth of his knowledge, and better yet, treated us like people, and took the time to talk to us and go over specific issues we had.

Since his leaving your company, we have called and spoke to a host of people, and quite honestly there are several that do not belong in your service department; maybe they were just temps, but they really seemed to be lacking technical knowledge of your products.

At this point, we're really up in the air as to weather we're going to keep our Elation fixtures, or go with SGM Giotto's.

Thank you once again for your reply.

That is very very true, I had 3 fixtures that i sent to elation and got back 3 weeks later and 2 out of the 3 were'nt working properly, and it was very obviosly easy for me to spot the problems, not even the techs spotted it , the first light came back worse than i had sent it, the second light had a shutter problem, so i called tech service and had them reissue a ra for a light that wasnt fixed properly and he blamed it on shipping that it had maybe been dropped, but none of the boxes had no signs of damage, and the tech said that they tested the lights and that they working fine before they shipped it out,and believe me they werent, The one with the shutter problem i fixed it my self, hopefully elation can get some new techs because i spent over $600.00 just for repairs and didnt get my $600.00 worth, I've been an elation buyer for years and love the fixtures and ive never seen the techs do this bad of a job for my lights that had such a minor problem, come on guys shape it up.

Good luck with them Luis; we've honestly just about given up with our fixtures. All of them are now out of warranty, and are starting to go down. We would always talk with there lead guy Mike, and he'd manage to take care of us, and get them back to us quicker then we thought we'd get them. Since his leaving, we've lost our faith in Elation Service, as we have not had good luck talking to anyone there, and getting our fixtures repaired. We're not going to pay that kind of money to have them not be repaired as they should be. I belive we have to find a different means of getting them repaired, or just keep them for parts for the others, and eventaully move to SGM Giotto's, as we had planned. Good luck again Luis.

Dear kre8er and Luis Ramirez.

Please e-mail me directly eric@elationlighting.com with your concerns. I can assure you, we have the staff on hand very capable of supporting our products and your investment in Elation.

Specifically for more advanced support - Ramiro Aguilera is very capable of providing advance technical support and has over 10 years experience with Martin, Robe and now Elation. He can be reached directly ramiroa@elationlighting.com


Best Regards,

Thank you so much eric, I appreciate your help.

Hey kre8er to be honest with you I love these fixtures alot and i would not move to giotos, reason being is that they are italian fixtures and it would take forever to get the fixed,The fixtures i got blow them away and for the price to, I can even send you pictures of my shows, that show how good the elations are, Now whats good is that eric loader re-directed me to the main tech Ramiro, so i would go with him if you have any problems with the fixtures. Thanks Eric.


LUIS RAMIREZ
RAM PRO AUDIO AND LIGHTING

Luis,
I am sorry I didn’t post sooner; actually I wanted to look into the situation before I posted a reply. I am the customer support agent that originally issued you the Return Authorizations for your 3 fixtures.

Let me start of by saying I have complete faith in our technicians and there capabilities. We have a very low return rate as far as fixtures being returned more than once. I can assure you that each and every unit which leaves our service center is tested thoroughly and tested to specs. To say that these units were not tested out before they were shipped is incorrect. I personally saw and made sure of this before they were shipped out. Let's be honest these fixtures were not sent in the best of conditions. These fixtures were tampered with and did not appear to have ANY preventive maintenance done to them. Furthermore, these units were received missing screws and replaced with non-compatible dry wall screws? Your lights were almost irreparable, but our technicians were confident that they could repair these lights despite the poor state they were in.

Unfortunately we were not able to cover your fixtures under warranty (for the reasons listed above) and this is also the reason why I personally inspected these units and made sure they were working before shipping them back to you. At around $600 in total repair charges I wanted to make sure they were working.

I'm not exactly sure what happen to your fixtures between our service center in Los Angeles and your residence in Laredo, TX.
I'm not here to place the blame on anyone else but I did say that it could've been possible that your fixture may have been dropped in shipping. The truth is these are fragile pieces of equipment with fragile components. The slightest drop, fall, or what have you can damage your fixture, whether the box is damaged or not, believe me I've seen it before, it may not happen a lot but it does happen.

I’ve learned that part of customer support is handling the situation in front of me and taking care of the customer at that point in time. When you called I recall that we were able to point you in the right direction over the phone on how to take care of that shutter problem (on one of your fixtures). On your second fixture (which we were going to need to service again), I went ahead and made sure that we issued a UPS call tag (so that you would not have to cover the shipping back to us). I also made sure to keep an eye out for your fixture so that when we received it, it would be put into priority repair as soon as it was received. By now you should’ve received it, or should be receiving it within a day or two.

I apologize for the inconvenience of having to send your fixture back for a second time but I truly believe we've done our best to make sure you that we repair your unit and have it back to you as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Rafael Chico Jr
Elation Customer Support

To be honest with you, I kept those lights in tip top shape. The reason you say that you think they were never serviced is because they were in storage for a month collecting dust and i misplaced the screws before shipping, as for the dry wall screws, I left those on there because that was the only thing that held it together for shipping reasons,and now if i didnt leave those on there you would've taken my fixture out and it wouldve came apart and messed something else up and have a bigger expense. I do nothing but take care of these lights, I maintain them once a month,Obviously some of these fixtures are almost 4 years old some 3 and 2 years old and a couple that are less than a year old, and out of all those years ive only sent you 3 of the 26 that we have So that shows i keep up with maintaining them.As for the heavy scratches and heavy mounting marks i can assure you that these fixtures go on some heavy touring 4 to 5 days a week every week,These arent club lights, so they are in and out of cases and thats what causes the heavy scratches Also as for them not being covered under warranty is because i have no reciepts-is that store policy? I appreciate u for your quick response, thank you.


LUIS RAMIREZ
RAM PRO AUDIO AND LIGHTING