Light Monkey Customer Service Review

[SergeyKirikov]

Of course, I posted start and end of e-mailing. The whole letters I’ll send by request via e-mail.

In short:

First letter from me was JUST AN INFO! about product, which at this price can be improved. The answers were not even one time “sorry for that…”, but something like: “desalt properly” or "the screw is stainless steel but not stain proof...". I answered “I do desalt it after each dive. But it's strange to unscrew the lock screw and desalt it each time". Then they sent to me a story, that strobe was in water for one year and was working after that. I ADMITED that I like strobe very much and we advertise LM on briefings, like one of the best company But I was not speaking about general performance, it is really good, but about small detail which can be improved like other expensive brand (Orchatorch) do with small metal parts: titanium.

Look at the picture they sent to me:

Price 249USD for strobe is 100% enough to make it not good but perfect.

And as a result – insulation in person? How come? Nobody has right to do it!
May Corey is a good manager, but cultural and mental level...

 

[SergeyKirikov]

About refund and recycle:
Refund was made by DGE, not by LM.
Here two letters from DiveGearExpress:

1.
Sergey,
I was appalled to see what Corey Means, a principle at Light Monkey, wrote to you. While like many of us isolating due to Covid, I'm sure he and his business is under a lot of stress, that is no excuse for his behavior. Rest assured we don't treat our customers this way and expect professional conduct from our vendors as well. You'll be hearing from Joyce later today, by way of making our own apology to you for the unprofessional conduct of Light Monkey.

--
Regards,
Mark
feedback@divegearexpress.com

2.
Sergey,

Again, our apologies for the behavior exhibited by one of our vendors. Please believe that your treatment is NOT an example of how we treat our customers, nor how we expect them to be treated by our suppliers.

As way of apology from Dive Gear Express, we have created a refund and issued you a store credit for the $249.00 USD you paid for the Light Monkey BAF Diver Strobe.
Please feel free to continue using it or dispose of it at your discretion.


--
Safe Diving,
Joyce

I was surprised by DGE reaction as they are hardly be taken as a part of it, but this team is 150% client oriented.
I'm with them for more than 10 years and they keep the highest level of support.

 

[SergeyKirikov]

From Corey I received via messenger instead of apology just this:
"Thanks for the free advertising!"
"Please post some more reviews on different social media boards, it seems to be increasing our daily sales!"
"I think running into the holiday, we will run a special sale on the strobe..."
"It will be called the Sergey Sale"
"Just to appreciate you"

Dear community, everybody has right to have his own opinion.
Now I posted almost all the info about the issue in details and you have all the info to judge.
All originals e-mails I'll send upon request.

To be opened in person:

My full name is Sergey Kirikov
I'm the owner of safari boat M/Y JP Marine in Red Sea
www.divesafarimaster.com
Proved feedbacks about our work you can find in reviews on www.liveboard.com

 

[halocline]

I've had quite a bit of recent experience with LM's repair and warranty service. I bought a used HID light from them a few years ago, (with a warranty), the ballast failed, and due to their not being able to source those ballasts, they gave me a deal (about half price) on a new LED light head, and on a new side mount canister. If I added up the price of the original light and the cost of the upgrades, it turned out to basically be the same as buying the new light, maybe a little more. I was a little miffed at first because I hadn't wanted to spend that much money on a light, but the light is very good and they figured out a way to give me some value for the original light, which again, was a used light. So I can't complain.

The irony is that now I'm considering selling the light because I'm very interested in going cordless.

 

[rddvet]

The fact that you won't post the entire email string tells me there's more to the story. It also sounds like you've been posting this elsewhere. Lastly people who make goods don't really like hearing that they should make their product better by doing this that X company does. If you told me to use a titanium bolt instead of stainless I'd love to tell you to shove it up your rear, but probably wouldn't. I think Corey just has the balls and enough good business to not give a crap and will happily tell you what most other people would like to but wouldn't.

 

[SergeyKirikov]

The fact that you won't post the entire email string tells me there's more to the story. It also sounds like you've been posting this elsewhere. Lastly people who make goods don't really like hearing that they should make their product better by doing this that X company does. If you told me to use a titanium bolt instead of stainless I'd love to tell you to shove it up your rear, but probably wouldn't. I think Corey just has the balls and enough good business to not give a crap and will happily tell you what most other people would like to but wouldn't.

Short "story" from 17 or so e-mails from 3 LM managers has no exaggerations. Original e-mails I'll send by request via e-mail, as I've done three times. This is not one letter with all the info.
To have balls or not, like comparing or not, nobody has right to go to personal insulation in any case.

 

[SergeyKirikov]

Short "story" from 17 or so e-mails from 3 LM managers has no exaggerations. Original e-mails I'll send by request via e-mail, as I've done three times. This is not one letter with all the info.
To have balls or not, like comparing or not, nobody has right to go to personal insulation in any case.

Read again DGE answers to this case, they were in copy all the time.

 

[Curious_George]

think Corey just has the balls and enough good business to not give a crap and will happily tell you what most other people would like to but wouldn't

I disagree. There is never a time when it is appropriate to make personal attacks - business or otherwise. Even though we see it from some of our leaders and many are unfortunately becoming immune to it, we should all push back that this is not acceptable. If it was a family member, who would say - "it’s ok for you to get insulted, he just has balls"?

There is another former retailer - many remember on this site - who I think lost a lot of business because of attitude.

What does it hurt to be nice?

 

[Wookie]

What does it hurt to be nice?

Nice people work for other people. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but to succeed as an entrepreneur you need a certain amount of ego. And to succeed as a liveaboard owner, you also need a tremendous amount of ego.

This is just a clash of egos. Nothing really to see here.

 

[Zef]

I requested the email exchange via private message. The emails were sent and have been read.

Accepting that the emails have not been altered, I will state the following 2 things:

1. @SergeyKirikov did not seem to receive the initial response he was hoping for from LM, and he escalated the tone of what he wrote quite early in the exchange, being quite demanding and threatening. He contacted them with a concern that they responded to....he did not like the response...perhaps he should have been clearer with the the resolution he was looking for before lobbing accusations and threats, as at first what he was expecting was unstated. It is also apparent that English is not his first language and therefore there are some langue and cultural barriers present on both ends in the exchange that took place.

2. Corey's pejorative response was quite out of line from a business perspective. In business, your bad day is your competition's good day. A good experience is only spoken about a few times but a bad experience is a story retold at every opportunity. While Sergeykirikov was quite demanding and a bit confrontational early on...some of that, I would bet, is cultural and due to the language barrier and some of it might have been out of frustration with their perception of the product...doesn't really matter as I don't think it would have been hard for LM to have found a better way to deal with this situation, but I can't, for the life of me, find a business situation that ends positively for anyone when the business rep (owner or employee) calls the client/customer "you are a whiny bitch idiot".

Not sure whether the exchange will have a material affect on LM...most likely not given that they seem to have lots of satisfied customers. But I would not fault the OP for voting with his wallet and purchasing competing brands in the future. Even if LM wanted to shed this guy's business, and that may be the healthiest option for them all things considered, but there are ways to do that without adding fuel to a fire.

-Z