I am in the process of deciding what brand I will put on my boat. I am either going to put a Humminbird 998c and 898c or Lowrance HDS 8 and 7 with SS on at the end of the month. One of the biggest concerns for me was customer service if I were to have a problem as I have read all kinds of horror stories of waiting for close to an hour to speak to a person at Lowrance. So, today I decided to call both companies customer service lines and the results were not what I expected. I called Lowrance first. I followed the prompts and to my surprise, I was talking with someone within 5 rings. I told the guy what I was doing, checking to see how long it took to get in touch with a customer service agent with both companies. The entire phone call took 2 minutes. As soon as I got off the phone with Lowrance, I called Humminbird customer service. I followed the prompts and waited, and waited. After 15 minutes went by someone picked up the line. I said hello about 5 times, she could not hear me so she hung up. I called back and waited another 16 minutes, a woman picked up the phone and I told her what I was doing, I also told her that I just waited 15 minutes before and someone picked up the phone and couldn't hear me. She told me they have been having issues with their phones today. I informed her that my phone call lasted 2 minutes with Lowrance and over 30 with them and that this was one of the biggest deciding factors as to which product I am going to spend $3500 on. I guess it could have gone the other way on any day, but I thought it was very interesting since it is Lowrance that gets such a bad report on customer service. I expected the results to be the exact opposite. Just thought I would post my results incase someone else is in the market and this is one of their concerns. I am in no way affiliated with either company but would gladly consider any offers made by either .

That just goes to show you that Lowrance is still capable of providing good, quick service. All you ever hear about is the bad things on stuff like this most of the time. You shouldnt need customer service for either units buying them brand new. Crazier things have happened though I guess.

That's how you are making a decision on spending $3500 worth of electronics???

They are available to answer immediately because everyone has given up on them. Good luck and dont get your units wet.

That is good news for Lowrance! I don't have anything against Lowrance but I switched from them to Humminbird 3 years ago due in part to their terrible customer service then. The other thing (and this was the big one) was that at the time Lowrance didn't have side imaging yet.

I want both companies to do well, the competition between the two only benefits us consumers IMO.

Jason

"That's how you are making a decision on spending $3500 worth of electronics???"






No, it was one important issue though. I wanted the Lowrance but have heard poor things about the service. In my opinion, the bird units don't even come close to the Lowrance units, especially in standard sonar. I also like the fact that the SS transducer is stand alone and not a 2-n-1 ducer like the birds. That being said, a unit you can not get serviced is not worth spending big money on. I would hate to have $3500 in Lowrance electronics that, if I had an issue, I would have a hard time getting repaired/replaced. If I had made the calls today and the response was the opposite, I would have thought really hard about settling for a lesser unit in the Humminbird. Again this is my opinion, some guys out there love their Humminbirds, I just think Lowrance has a better product. In the end, both brands will have their fair share of issues. I have seen people have issues with both and have to have both replaced multiple times, there will always be problems if a human is involved, it is a fact of life. The key is being able to get ahold of a person to get the problem resolved and this was my biggest reason to not buy Lowrance.

do you not understand that they had massive tonados and devestation in that area? I would be more worried about warranty repair times, costs of warranty, the way the company stands behind thier product out of warranty.... I think you are not being wise in your approach given the circumstances with the weather disasters.

Yes, he said he is, and it is a valid point.

I too have heard all of the horror stories about Lowrance, but I was also told that the difference, at the time I bought my Lowrance set-up, was worth the possible added hassle. At the time, Lowrance was way ahead of H-Bird on their resolution and on being able to link units together. It is my understanding that H-Bird fixed the resolution issue with a big update, but I have no info on the linking of the units and multiple big transducers.

Since then, I have had 2 issues with 2 of my 3 HDS head units.... Yes, I have 3 HDS units on my boat. 2 - 5's and a 7.

The first issue was when my first unit was about a month from being out of warranty. I called, got through in about 5 rings, and the tech walked me through all of the possible fixes, determined that I needed a new unit, mailed the new unit and emailed me a return label the same day, got the new unit, shipped the old one immediately after. No problems with that unit since.

The second issue was after one of my units was out of warranty. I called, immediately got through again, went through trouble shooting after telling them that it was out of warranty. The tech stayed on the phone with me for about 1.5 hours and after re-loading the unit 3 times and going through all of the settings, we got it working. It was a pretty simple fix, and a setting that should have never changed, hence the trouble finding it. We had to go through each and every setting to find it.

My set up is working great, all of the units are linked and communicating through the SS module, sharing waypoints etc...

So, yes, he is asking what our experience has been before he makes a 3500.00 investment, and made an active effort to find out for himself....

Terrence b.... The only thing I can say to sway you one way or another is the reason I went with Lowrance. Having multiple head units lends itself to the Lowrance set-up. The one SS module can service up to 3 units - expandable, also all 3 units only have the 1 transducer for the SS module, where if you go with Hummingbird, you will have one on your console unit and one on the front unit, unless they have re-designed in the last year. Also, I don't know what the process is for getting the H-birds to communicate. With Lowrance, all you do is plug them all into the SS module.

My 2 units on the console - HDS 5 in-dash and HDS 7 next to the dash, share the regular transducer for depth and temp, the front one is located on the trolling motor for the front HDS 5. They all share the single transducer for the SS module.

My thought is that if any of my units fail out of warranty, it is cheaper to buy the component and I can up-grade if I can afford to at the time.

Hope this helps.....GOOD LUCK!

I've had to deal with 'birds customer service on 4 or 5 different occasions in the last 18 months. Because of their response, I'll NEVER buy ANYTHING they make again. I have heard from some guys on here that they have been fantastic when dealing with Humminbird - this has definately NOT been my expierence. In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, they're as bad as calling Sprint's customer service. Blew me off, lied to me, sent me the wrong sh!t (on more than 1 occasion).

Lesson learned, never again.

Look at a map SkeeterRonnie, those tornadoes were not even close to Eufaula, get real.

By the time you need any warranty service, they could have re-built the factory.

If you go with HDS, just make sure to update both of your units before hooking them up to the SS module. It is very important that they are both on the same software version. When I update them now, I power them up individually and update, then turn them off and move to the next one. After, I power up the SS module, then turn them on one at a time waiting for each to finish booting before turning on the next one. Prevents any confusion and then I can turn them on and off at the same time etc... I just learned to be careful when updating.

you are correct. AL is just the next state over from GA. my bad.

Ok, just wanted to make sure my results weren't affected by a natural disaster over 200 miles away. Just called Humminbird back and waited another 20 minutes to ask them if the recent tragedies had an effect on their ability to take customer service phone calls and the response was "None whatsoever." So, as I stated above the tornadoes were nowhere close enough to impact the results of my experience with Humminbirds customer service. Just thought the air should be cleared of mis-information.

Being satisfied with a product purchase has a lot more to do with factors other than just whether someone in tech support area answers the phone in a certain amount of time.....

Reliability of the product is the most important factor because you won't likely be calling anyone for tech support if the product works out of the box and forever keeps on working.

A customer oriented service repair policy is next important because if you do have a need for even a minor or simple internal repair and they don't provide any replacement parts or servicing information, you will have to depend on them for all repairs.... Repairs which increasingly are either Flat Rate charged or not even provided at all offering instead an expensive exchange/upgrade program costing more money to be spent.

So how many rings you wait on the phone is not that big of an issue if whenever you do get answered, a knowledgable and customer oriented service organization fully satisfies your concerns for calling.

I also have read the nightmare stories about lowrance but my two personnel experiences have been great with lowrance( sent my unit in and got it back in ten days)