Customer service: Ehiem Vs. Hagen

[Victor]

I just thought I share my recent experience with both these companies, Ehiem and Hagen.

The other day I was looking through my bin of equipment, hoping to find a usable heater. I came across a broken Ehiem Jager 250W and a broken Hagen Elite 300W heater. Both heaters are around 5-6 years old and has been broken for awhile.

It felt like such a waste to just throw them out so I decided to fire off an email to each company to see if I am lucky enough to get them to replace it or repair it even though it was definitely out of the warranty period.

The good news was both companies replied to me within 5 hours and both companies offered a replacement for free. The only bad news was Ehiem needed a proof of purchase (in this case, a receipt) in order for them to process the exchange. Unfortunately, the Jager was bought at King Ed's and King Ed just types in the prices of their items with no real indication of what the product was, so it was next to impossible for me to dig up and identify a receipt that I likely threw away the day I bought the heater. Hagen, on the other hand, was quick to tell me to send it off to their offices in Quebec and have it replaced free of charge with no further documentation.

I guess you can look at this experience in two ways. You can say Hagen has awesome customer service and ehiem has "ok" service OR you can look at it as a story to remind yourself to keep all your receipts for as long as your product is physically present =)

Either way, it looks like i'll have one of my two broken heaters revived =)

[Raf]

kinda cheating the system IMO....

[Victor]

kinda cheating the system IMO....

How is it cheating the system? Exactly what is the system lol

[Momobobo]

Strange that they would offer a replacement for it...so therefore buying one heater from eithier company means you can get replacements for life? Interesting :0

[tony1928]

For alot of companies out there, they are more than happy to take care of a customer who actually has taken the time to contact them. In those cases, its worth their while to do it. Just common good business sense. I've dealt with Hydor a couple of times and they are fantastic as are Deltec. Good reputation is worth more than a few bucks. From a consumers point of view, it never hurts to ask.

[Victor]

I had another experience with hagen where they sent me replacement diaphragms for my broken air pump. Rena also sent me a part for free that I was missing when I bought a used XP3. Generally, big companies are willing to take care of customers who have invested money into their product

[hlee72ca]

Hagen is well known for their customer service.

[Sprucegruve]

everyone of those companies mentioned are great with comoster service IMO.
but i keep all my receipts

[Victor]

Just a quick update. Hagen emailed me today and informed me that the heater that I sent to them was broken in half. I had it shipped via xpresspost of Canada Post in a bubble envelope that they told me to use instead of the box that I originally brought in. Another thing to learn from this is to never ship anything made out of glass in a bubble envelope and to never listen to Canada Post.

Anyways, they wanted to test the heater to make sure it was broken before issuing a replacement, but obviously with the damage it was impossible for them to do. The good news is that they are still willing to replace it for me.

GO HAGEN!

[Algae Beater]

this is what creeps me out about the aquarium industry. if this was a discussion about a car or television or nearly anything else available to the consumer, the manufacturer would tell you to bugger off. but here we have a case of two product grossly out of warranty being replaced. Does no ones else see the ramifications throughout the industry because of this ?

i agree with raf.

this may seem like and awesome score ... but there is no such thing as something for nothing.