Cannot Reach Customer Service

Dr0n3

I've attempted to contact Polk Customer Service because I purchased a Surroundbar that came without a power cable, remote, or optical cable. After receiving a busy signal the first several times I called I finally get to the interactive menu and once selecting the correct options I get a recording telling me they are closed and then it recites the business hours to me, which makes no sense as it is well within their business hours. This is an automated recording that begins immediately as if their support line is turned off during the middle of a weekday... 1:30PM EST on a Wednesday.

I then called Polk's online support and was basically told my only option is to keep calling their technical support since my purchase was from a brick and mortar store. I asked how I am supposed to get in touch with a department that is closed during the hours it is advertised as open and was told "they might be in a meeting". That leads me to believe they just turn their phone systems off whenever they something better to do than help the people that make their business successful. I asked if there was an online warranty claim form I could submit or email and was told there was not.

Does anyone have any advice? I left a voicemail with my information, but I'm sure I'll never be contacted. I would just exchange their product, but it was the last one the store had and there is not another one within hours of me. I suppose I'll keep wasting my time calling a line that's turned off and then eventually give up, return the product, and buy a different brand sound bar altogether.

polrbehr

FYI, I literally just tried calling them, it took all of 1.5 minutes to speak to someone.
1-800-377-7655 Option 1 when prompted.

Don't give up on their customer service, they have some of the best around believe it or not.

tophatjohnny

Amen, be patient. CS with Polk is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shodgson

Not to polk the bear to much (lol), but at this current moment, i am extremely disappointing with Polks Customer service. It didn't take long to get a hold of them, but they were not helpful.

I ordered my center channel and surround speakers yesterday, got an email today saying I had to call and confirm my order before they would ship. When I call they say they cannot ship to the address I want because it is different from my billing address and I am a new customer. So why was a new customer able to put in two different addresses.

Because I travel a lot for business, I ship everything I have ever ordered online to a family address, they are retired and just hold my stuff until I am back in town. (they are basically a package storage facility for a lot of my family) I was told that the policy is to protect the customer, meanwhile i was the customer, on the phone, requesting this. So if they ship to my billing address, there is potential i am not there, and will not be there for 5+days. Could rain, could get stolen, or best case it gets held at a shipping facility with a deadline for me to pick it up before its returned (which there is potential i miss) I sure hope My email to customer service gets a better response than my phone call.

polrbehr

@shodgson, I would contact them again, there must be some way to figure this out.

I mean, suppose you were ordering a gift for someone on the opposite side of the country, would there be an issue with you making the purchase and having it shipped to the recipient directly? I would hope not, new customer notwithstanding.
Keep us informed when you get this resolved.

shodgson

That is a very valid question. Say a parent ordering a child who is away at school a present for his dorm.

I would understand not shipping it without confirmation, but when the customer (Me) calls, confirms what i want, have already paid (yes they already charged me), and escalates through management... i think they need to revisit their "policy".

I feel like i need to call them, tell them to hold shipment on this order, and ill order a "Polk Audio" sticker to ship to my billing address, but then ship my speakers where i want them shipped.

I will keep you updated.

Anyone know how to tag or add customer service to this thread?

[Deleted User]

I'll forward this thread to the CS contacts at Polk.

shodgson

Thank you. I have never had so many issues ordering something online.

Even trying to just order these was a nightmare. I would add items to my cart, the cart would show I had items in it, but once I clicked my cart, it would say it was empty. So I would start over, and re add the items. Then when I go into my cart, there was twice the amount of items than what I wanted. No big deal, i can change the quantities, so i did. And to my surprise, it went back to saying my cart was empty. It took me an hour to get my cart right and order 5 speakers because of this.

[Deleted User]

As to the problems getting through to Polk CS, they are aware of overload conditions happening because of limitations to the telephone system and are working to overcome them. Getting more phone lines licensed. This combined with a company wide staff meeting on Wednesday afternoon, requiring the temporary turning off the phones, created a logjam and the resultant busy signals happened.
Apologies to everyone effected.

shodgson

Well ladies and gentlemen, its official, as of 30 min ago Polk Audio has the absolute worst customer service I have ever had to deal with. And I order a lot of stuff online.

When I called this morning to confirm my order and was getting nowhere, I asked to speak with the manager. The manager explained the policy over and over, and in the end said the best he could do is to see if he could request signature on delivery and not just leaving it at the front door. I was still not satisfied, but he said he would look into that and get back to me so I could decide if I wanted to cancel the order or continue with what he came up with.

4:00pm rolled around and I had not gotten an email or phone call from him, so i called customer service, and i will say i am completely sorry for the wonderful lady that answered the phone. (FYI, i did apologize to her and let her know she was not in the wrong, but the guy before her was.)

I told her I was supposed to hear back from him and i wanted to check what the status of my order was. And she optimistically said, well it looks like everything is ok with your order and it has shipped. To which i asked which address it shipped to. It shipped to my billing address.

So while i was already getting mad, i asked if there was signature required on the shipping. To which she replied no, there was not. That the best she could do is request it get returned to the shipper (Polk) if no one is there to get it. Again she seemed optimistic when she let me know that the good thing was that it will be there no later than Monday afternoon. Well guess what, i will not be back to my billing address until Tuesday afternoon. So now the options are, my speakers sit on my front porch for a minimum of 24 hours, or they get returned to polk, they issue a refund, and i have to order again, and even then, they will still not ship to an address different than my billing address.

At this point i asked to speak to the gentleman who i talked to his morning and conveniently "He just left for the day". I asked for his extension, to which she said she did not know. I asked for his name so i could call tomorrow and ask for him, and she put me on hold and when she came back she said she could not give me that either.

• So they will not ship to a different address than a billing address even if you call them.
• They tell you they will call you back before they do anything and they don't call back.
• They go in and change your shipping address and ship the product anyways even after you called that morning and expressed your concern and didn't not want them to ship to that address just so they could avoid the confrontation of calling you back.
• They will not put you in contact with the person you talked to earlier in the day who blatantly lied to you.
• Their website is an absolute pain to order from. (see previous post)

I love the way Polk speakers sound, but at this point, if by some miracle i do get the speakers Monday, they will be getting returned and i will no longer do business with Polk. Nor will i ever recommend to anyone to buy their product. I'm sure for the little extra money to buy Klipsch, you get far superior customer service.

And if by some miracle someone at Polk does Care, my order is: Polk-105102



*

polrbehr

I can't help but wonder if ordering through their website is also handled through Vanilla...
I am shocked by this, it is totally out of character for Polk to drop the ball like this.

[Deleted User]

I've sent a copy of your post to Steve Kahn, the head of Customer Experience.

shodgson

@KennethSwauger although I appreciate that, and I really do, a day of getting screwed and treated like a criminal despite being a paying customer (whos bank was charged seconds after clicking check out) and multiple phone calls full of disappointment, what is Steve going to do? The three people I talked to at Polk already showed me their true colors.

I'm the Global Logistics Manager of a world wide company, I would never dream of treating any customer like this, big or small.

[Deleted User]

I understand and apologize for the way things were handled.

mrbigbluelight

Shodgson, without a doubt, you have not been dealt with in the manner that you should have been.
Period.
I'll say that again: PERIOD.

You've done everything that a reasonable, intelligent, PATIENT person could have done.
By you having done your part, you've pointed out a bottleneck and glitches in the Polk system.
Does that make you happy ? Probably not.
Should that make you happy ? IMO, no.

One of the things that Polk is known for is "Customer Service". As you have very professionally pointed out, that was absolutely not your experience. From start to finish, it was not. PERIOD.
You have displayed a great deal of professionalism in attempting to correct the problem.

Besides correcting these glitches for the future, I know what I would do if I were Polk for your situation.
Even if it meant correcting the situation for a customer that they have knowingly "lost", so to speak, I know what I would do if I were Polk.

A reputation is a thing that is hard earned, and easily lost. It is worth its weight in gold, IMO.

In any event, thanks Shodgson for your patience and for having shared your experience. It would be, IMO, a shame to lose you. Good luck !!

Meanwhile, Polk should, IMO, as a start, go into the back of the warehouse and open up a case of "Serious Derriere Chew" and apply it as needed. It'll be in a dust covered box, being as there have normally not been instances where it has been needed in the past.
So go on .... open up a case .....

As the saying goes, "A mind reputation is a terrible thing to waste".

Good luck to all parties involved.

shodgson

Well, my speakers did show up, at the address that i didn't want them to ship to, but they were there when i got back. Ended up having to change a flight to come back the night before i planned to. Fortunately for Polk, they make a great product and i did not end up returning them. One of the main reasons i did not end up returning them is because i received a phone call from one of the higher up customer service managers expressing his concern with how it went and explaining that it was not Polk who did this, but a third party they have dealing with their direct sales. He did say that they would be following up and digging into that policy and what they can do to prevent something like this from happening again.

I will say though, the last thing i had to order was one or maybe two subwoofers (7.2 system), but i still have hesitation about ordering through their site. Makes me feel like i should go through a big box store rather than risk having the same issue.

I hope everyone else has better luck with them than i did.

shodgson

@la2vegas I will most definitely go with a superior sub when it comes time to build my actual system for a house, but for now, its in my little townhouse. its a living room big enough for a 3.1 system that i somehow have successfully crammed a 7.1 system into. The sub i have now is an ancient Aiwa sub, that isn't horrible for the room, i just want more.

mdaudioguy

The Polk DSW PRO subs are better than some like to give them credit for. In a smaller room, one of these would be more than enough.

polrbehr

mdaudioguy wrote: »

The Polk DSW PRO subs are better than some like to give them credit for. In a smaller room, one of these would be more than enough.

+1, that 550 we heard clearly punches above it's weight class.
@shodgson, I would stick with that Aiwa sub for now, anything else will just tempt you to get your neighbors mad at you.

F1nut

I agree, the DSW Pro subs are quite good. The trick I found was to get more clearance between the bottom of the sub and the floor, which I did by adding taller spikes than the ones supplied.

DaveHo

Not surprised by your customer service experience. The third party vendor Polk has handling shipment of internet direct orders is worthless. I had serious quality issues with my my LsiM 705 towers & got nothing but the run around from them when trying to resolve it. I ended up having to pester Ken who put me in contact with Kim from Sound United who finally resolved things to my satisfaction.

Polk, you really need to re-evaluate who is handling you internet direct shipments. They are hurting your business!