Earthroamer poor customer service

Liz5264

New member
Hi
Just thought I would let others know how disappointing I have been with the customer service, or lack of, from Earthroamer. I have sent them 3 emails with varying requests for information on 2 March, 15 April and 27 April and I have not yet had one reply. We are planning on purchasing a truck to use as our permanent home for worldwide travel and whilst we might be in Australia we will purchase the most suitable truck for our needs from wherever in the world it happens to be made. Earthroamer have now most definitely been ruled out from being on our shortlist. They were borderline anyway as after reading the blog of ******** Smith who travelled with an Earthroamer across regions we intend to visit and had numerous small and major issues with the truck along the way their trucks don't seem to be made to handle rough conditions encountered in some parts of the world.

All I can say is really poor form.

Liz
 

Liz5264

New member
Considering we are hoping we will be travelling for 20+ years, any vehicle is going to be "used" pretty quickly and if it can't last the distance for a few years how can we rely on it as our fulltime home in places like Mongolia. the Stans, Africa or Indonesia? I was still willing to consider them and see if they have had made improvements, but if they can't reply to genuine customer emails they will not win my business. It will go to a company that is happy to work with us and is happy to answer our questions (and there are plenty of them).
Liz
 

Liz5264

New member
Ok that made me laugh! BUT if I am spending $250-$300K on something I expect customer service. Oh and when I said there were plenty of them, I meant plenty of other manufacturers, not questions (although I do have plenty of those too!). They have all had the courtesy to answer our emails, usually the next day. Some of them we have had ongoing dialogues with over a period of several months, others will send us an email to let us know of updates to things we have asked previously. That is customer service and one of these companies will win our business.
 

Ronct110

Adventurer
Liz, sorry to hear the challenges of not getting any email reply. I would pick up the phone and call them; sometimes emails can get automatically flagged as spam by the email service provider or anti-spam software, and never get to the intended receiver.

Had this happened to me a few times, and glad to have received a phone call; allowed me to follow-up immediately. Just saying sometimes old school pick up the phone and call works best especially a sizeable purchase and seriousness level like this. Good luck with your purchase and travels.
 
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Liz5264

New member
Thanks for the reply and good wishes. I have done exactly that with other manufacturers and are in fact visiting one them at their factory in a couple of weeks BUT they responded to my initial queries. After 3 attempts over 2 months I'm afraid I give up. I posted this post as I think someone from Earthroamer needs to be aware of the lack of response and the damage it does to their brand. (I happen to work in Retail, albeit in IT, but lack of customer service and brand damage are major issues for any company).
 

grimbo

Explorer
But as mentioned your emails may never have gotten through due it perhaps ending up, for whatever reason, in their junk mail. Never assume just because you send an email that it will get through.

I'd call them and start your dialogue with them that way, especially on such a substantial purchase.
 

turbopilot

Observer
Hi

All I can say is really poor form.

EarthRoamer is a very small company, last I heard 15 employees. There is a great deal of interest in this vehicle, which I am sure results in lots of email traffic and telephone calls. I don't know how EarthRoamer triages inquiries, but when you only make one rig a month, I am sure the interest in the rig far exceeds the immediate capacity to service those inquiries.

I have bought two EarthRoamers from the company. Early on it was hard to link up. I found that once I took the time to visit the factory in Colorado, they took me seriously and communication improved greatly. That approach is a little harder when you live in Australia. But if you are considering purchasing a rig that costs in excess of $300,000 you might consider a personal visit to ER and meet with Bill Swails, Tyler Tatro and Mike Funari. Once these guys know you and know you are serious about a purchase, I can assure you communication will improve.

Visits aside, there are two valuable resources of information about EarthRoamers: the EarthRoamer web site (www.earthroamer.com) and the EarthRoamer Owners Forum (www.earthroamer.org).
 

Photomike

White Turtle Adventures & Photography
I understand your frustration with not getting a response. I run a small business and I am the one that replies to E-mails, phone calls and people stopping in, but me being busy is no excuse to not responding.

ANY company that wants to get (and keep) business needs to have figured out what is the best ways to get inquiries handled. If they are having a problem with E-mails then shut off the E-mail and only have people call. Better to make people call than to not answer E-mails. If they are having E-mails go to SPAM than fix the SPAM settings. As my kids would say it isn't rock science.
 

18seeds

Explorer
I understand your frustration with not getting a response. I run a small business and I am the one that replies to E-mails, phone calls and people stopping in, but me being busy is no excuse to not responding.

ANY company that wants to get (and keep) business needs to have figured out what is the best ways to get inquiries handled. If they are having a problem with E-mails then shut off the E-mail and only have people call. Better to make people call than to not answer E-mails. If they are having E-mails go to SPAM than fix the SPAM settings. As my kids would say it isn't rock science.

I'm with you!
 

howell_jd

Adventurer
I own the "Around the World" EarthRoamer courtesy of ******** and Pip Smith. At nearly 90,000-miles on the clock I have now logged more miles in the US than it was subjected to on the ATW journey. The trip has not been without ups and downs - that is what adds flavor (if not excitement...plenty of that too though) - but I can absolutely state with certainty that customer service at ER is superb. I certainly understand a time-difference making a phone call a challenge too; I coordinated my purchase of the ATW ER during a deployment to Iraq while I lived on a COP.

Let me echo the invitation to EarthRoamer.org too.

Cheers!

Jonathan
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie
Anti-spam software in general is particularly sensitive to such things as unusual fonts and/or HTML links in the body of the email.

As a network engineer with 12 years experience, I am particularly aware of this trait and *always* send email as "plain text" in order to (hopefully) avoid triggering a "false positive".


I would also assume, that the email boxes of a company such as Earthroamer are fairly inundated with A) spam and B) inquiries from "tire kickers" who ultimately have no intention of purchasing a bespoke truck but who can waste an enormous amount of the employees' time asking question after question.

I would certainly not depend on email to make contact. I would call them on the phone and/or write them a letter. On paper.
 

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