Hello Folks,
I wanted to share with you my story relating to Heartlands customer service. The start of my interest can be found in this thread. The summary is that I had some unexplained cracks and damage to my RV during a long trip and the RV was out of warranty.
I followed the threads advice and sent pictures to heartland customer service. Within 2 days I found a reply to my email asking when heartland could ship my unit from WA state to their facility in Elkhart IN to repair the damage and ship it back. I signed all the required paperwork and a transport company showed up promptly to take my unit off the second weekend in July. Heartland customer service mentioned the soonest they could get my unit in for repair was Aug 11th, I was ok with the unit going early as I asked to have a 6 point level-up auto-leveling system installed while it was back east. This was easily worked in by the customer support representatives.
Heartland shipped the RV to Lippert to have the 6 point level-up system installed. While there Lippert identified the root cause of my issues with my coach. My 2012 Elkridge bunkhouse with 2 slides was supposed to be build with 12" I-Beams in the frame behind the axels. My unit was built with 10" I-Beams which are not enough to support the weight of the 2 slides behind the axles. Lippert welded 2" more additional steel reinforcement to the existing structure and installed the 6 point level-up system as requested (option I paid for).
Heartland then took the trailer back and repaired all the cracks and other damage to the RV as a result of the incorrectly built frame. I would suggest any early model Elkridge 37 Ultimate owners check their frame width behind the axels and contact Heartland support if they find a 10" I-Beam behind the axels to avoid the issues which I had.
Everything was ship shape and my RV was repaired - no cost out of pocket outside of the addition of the 6 point auto-level system which I requested. They even repaired other damage heartland had thought I caused (more on that in a bit). The transport company picked up the RV for transport on Saturday and I was contacted by the driver mentioning that there was a shredded tire and no spare with the unit so they could not transport without replacing the tire. I wasn't sure why they called me with this issue, but indirectly I am glad that they did. I immediately wrote an email to Heartland customer support knowing full well that they would not get it until Monday.
Here is where the fun stuff starts. I mentioned in my email that when the unit left my house it had 4 good tires (although good is a relative term since they were TowMax) and a good spare. Thus the blow out must have happened from the original driver while transporting it to IN. Customer support mentioned that the drivers are supposed to report blow outs immediately to heartland which they apparently failed to do, Heartland fixed the blow-out damage while they had the unit thinking it was left over of a blow out I had (not that the transport driver caused). A quick email reply got that figured out and I expressed a feeling that another blow-out was going to happen since both tires were not replaced after the original blow-out. Sure enough the transporter called a couple hours after my email reporting a blow out which caused more damage. Heartland apologized for the damage and not reaching out to me over the original damage\blow-out - which they fixed at no cost to me - and suggested that they ship the unit back to IN to fix the new damage to return it to me. They also told me that my RV was involved in an accident involving a semi which they would also repair.
So to recap up to this point. Heartland took a few pictures I took, offered to repair my RV at their cost shipping both ways and were willing to coordinate with Lippert for a 6-point leveling system to be installed since it would be back on the east coast anyhow. The remaining issues were not Heartlands doing, they were all the transport company hired by Heartland, however Heartland took ownership and repaired each and every issue again no hassles and no cost to me. Given the difficulties I have with my local dealers in WA state I asked Heartland if they would be willing to cover my gas expenses for the return trip from IN to WA if I drove to IN to pick up the unit and transport it home (expecting that I'll take better care of transporting my unit than a transport company will). They agreed and I set off to pick up my 37 Ultimate directly.
Normally this would be the end of the story, but I arrived in Elkhart 8/26/2014 and was able to meet up personally with the Heartland customer service representatives. They were very nice people and walked me out to see my RV. We talked a bit about the repairs, additional damage caused by the blow out to the 6 point leveling system (it destroyed one of the jacks when it blew out). I was able to ask all questions I had and get near real-time answers. They were even willing to work with me on the purchase of some upgrades and replacement parts which have been broken on the unit for a while. They went above and beyond to help me and make me feel right at home in their facility.
So why am I writing this long post which doesn't really have a ton of "useful" information for the community? Simply to say that Heartland does have great customer service and as long as you treat them the same way you'd expect to be treated. If you're kind and respectful, they will go out of their way to make it right.
If this thread is read by the "sales" folks who frequently read these forums and posts I also have a suggestion as these folks were extremely knowledgeable with many of the issues reported by the community and had great in-person responses and answers - which simply don't make it onto the forums here. It would be EXTREMELY helpful if you could have a community representative for your customer support arm who can ensure that known issues and fixes can be posted in those forums where they exist so that others searching the forums for information can find the complete trail from start to finish. It would also be great to have their representation to the community because we all know most of the posts on the forums are issues which our folks are looking for help to resolve and it would seem these folks have tons of tips and tricks they could share with the community to make it even better. I know I mentioned to them multiple times about how great this community is and they really had no idea about it (which is a shame given they are the customer service representatives). They have a huge opportunity to have further positive impact to the brand though this community although they are swamped with requests.
Anyway thanks for reading my book of a reply. I will be the first in line to say that my experience with Heartland customer service has been top notch. I treated them the same way as I expected to be treated and they responded with the same. For an RV which was out of warranty and all the other issues which they have addressed, my hat is off to them! I am sorry for those folks who have bad experiences, I just wanted to share mine to show there are great ones out here as well.
I will post pictures that I can get tomorrow. My phone would not charge yesterday so I wasn't able to snap any today.
I wanted to share with you my story relating to Heartlands customer service. The start of my interest can be found in this thread. The summary is that I had some unexplained cracks and damage to my RV during a long trip and the RV was out of warranty.
I followed the threads advice and sent pictures to heartland customer service. Within 2 days I found a reply to my email asking when heartland could ship my unit from WA state to their facility in Elkhart IN to repair the damage and ship it back. I signed all the required paperwork and a transport company showed up promptly to take my unit off the second weekend in July. Heartland customer service mentioned the soonest they could get my unit in for repair was Aug 11th, I was ok with the unit going early as I asked to have a 6 point level-up auto-leveling system installed while it was back east. This was easily worked in by the customer support representatives.
Heartland shipped the RV to Lippert to have the 6 point level-up system installed. While there Lippert identified the root cause of my issues with my coach. My 2012 Elkridge bunkhouse with 2 slides was supposed to be build with 12" I-Beams in the frame behind the axels. My unit was built with 10" I-Beams which are not enough to support the weight of the 2 slides behind the axles. Lippert welded 2" more additional steel reinforcement to the existing structure and installed the 6 point level-up system as requested (option I paid for).
Heartland then took the trailer back and repaired all the cracks and other damage to the RV as a result of the incorrectly built frame. I would suggest any early model Elkridge 37 Ultimate owners check their frame width behind the axels and contact Heartland support if they find a 10" I-Beam behind the axels to avoid the issues which I had.
Everything was ship shape and my RV was repaired - no cost out of pocket outside of the addition of the 6 point auto-level system which I requested. They even repaired other damage heartland had thought I caused (more on that in a bit). The transport company picked up the RV for transport on Saturday and I was contacted by the driver mentioning that there was a shredded tire and no spare with the unit so they could not transport without replacing the tire. I wasn't sure why they called me with this issue, but indirectly I am glad that they did. I immediately wrote an email to Heartland customer support knowing full well that they would not get it until Monday.
Here is where the fun stuff starts. I mentioned in my email that when the unit left my house it had 4 good tires (although good is a relative term since they were TowMax) and a good spare. Thus the blow out must have happened from the original driver while transporting it to IN. Customer support mentioned that the drivers are supposed to report blow outs immediately to heartland which they apparently failed to do, Heartland fixed the blow-out damage while they had the unit thinking it was left over of a blow out I had (not that the transport driver caused). A quick email reply got that figured out and I expressed a feeling that another blow-out was going to happen since both tires were not replaced after the original blow-out. Sure enough the transporter called a couple hours after my email reporting a blow out which caused more damage. Heartland apologized for the damage and not reaching out to me over the original damage\blow-out - which they fixed at no cost to me - and suggested that they ship the unit back to IN to fix the new damage to return it to me. They also told me that my RV was involved in an accident involving a semi which they would also repair.
So to recap up to this point. Heartland took a few pictures I took, offered to repair my RV at their cost shipping both ways and were willing to coordinate with Lippert for a 6-point leveling system to be installed since it would be back on the east coast anyhow. The remaining issues were not Heartlands doing, they were all the transport company hired by Heartland, however Heartland took ownership and repaired each and every issue again no hassles and no cost to me. Given the difficulties I have with my local dealers in WA state I asked Heartland if they would be willing to cover my gas expenses for the return trip from IN to WA if I drove to IN to pick up the unit and transport it home (expecting that I'll take better care of transporting my unit than a transport company will). They agreed and I set off to pick up my 37 Ultimate directly.
Normally this would be the end of the story, but I arrived in Elkhart 8/26/2014 and was able to meet up personally with the Heartland customer service representatives. They were very nice people and walked me out to see my RV. We talked a bit about the repairs, additional damage caused by the blow out to the 6 point leveling system (it destroyed one of the jacks when it blew out). I was able to ask all questions I had and get near real-time answers. They were even willing to work with me on the purchase of some upgrades and replacement parts which have been broken on the unit for a while. They went above and beyond to help me and make me feel right at home in their facility.
So why am I writing this long post which doesn't really have a ton of "useful" information for the community? Simply to say that Heartland does have great customer service and as long as you treat them the same way you'd expect to be treated. If you're kind and respectful, they will go out of their way to make it right.
If this thread is read by the "sales" folks who frequently read these forums and posts I also have a suggestion as these folks were extremely knowledgeable with many of the issues reported by the community and had great in-person responses and answers - which simply don't make it onto the forums here. It would be EXTREMELY helpful if you could have a community representative for your customer support arm who can ensure that known issues and fixes can be posted in those forums where they exist so that others searching the forums for information can find the complete trail from start to finish. It would also be great to have their representation to the community because we all know most of the posts on the forums are issues which our folks are looking for help to resolve and it would seem these folks have tons of tips and tricks they could share with the community to make it even better. I know I mentioned to them multiple times about how great this community is and they really had no idea about it (which is a shame given they are the customer service representatives). They have a huge opportunity to have further positive impact to the brand though this community although they are swamped with requests.
Anyway thanks for reading my book of a reply. I will be the first in line to say that my experience with Heartland customer service has been top notch. I treated them the same way as I expected to be treated and they responded with the same. For an RV which was out of warranty and all the other issues which they have addressed, my hat is off to them! I am sorry for those folks who have bad experiences, I just wanted to share mine to show there are great ones out here as well.
I will post pictures that I can get tomorrow. My phone would not charge yesterday so I wasn't able to snap any today.
