Shopsmith Customer Service Help

[gac5ss]

About 3 years ago I purchased a 520 of which I needed many parts to make it complete. The customer service for Shopsmith at that time was fantastic. The lady knew what I wanted and how the parts functioned. She could do almost anything.

Fast forward to today, after purchasing another 520, and contacting Shopsmith for parts, product knowledge is severely lacking. Maybe I just missing my superhero lady by chance. Sorry to say I can't remember her name.

Does anyone have a name to recommend at Shopsmith that knows the product inside and out? Maybe with an extension #?

Thanks
Jerry

[chapmanruss]

To my understanding most long-term employees at Shopsmith have now retired. It is partly learning the Shopsmith Tools made over the years and it seems customers service goes off the same reference material we can see online. One problem with that is the changes, sometimes very small changes, that have occurred over the years. The current Mark V 520s has some differences than a Mark V 520 made 10 years ago. This can be a case where it is important to know when your Mark V was made and any upgrades it may have.

Sometimes it makes a difference in how you ask a question. A few years back I bought a used Bandsaw (my first Shopsmith one) and the Main Frame (back) was damaged during shipping. I wanted to replace it and contacted Shopsmith to find out if there had been any changes to the Main Frame of the Bandsaw over the years. This Bandsaw was made in 1998 and has the Aluminum table. The Shopsmith service department (not customer service) said there were no changes to the Main Frame casting over the years. I found a very reasonable used Main Frame which I purchased. Although the Main Frame casting had not changed what was added in the casting had. What I learned was the Table Trunnion Bushings were pressed into the Main Frame casting on Bandsaws having the cast iron table but the bushings are slip in and different for Bandsaws with the aluminum table. For anyone reading this and thinking about upgrading from the cast iron table to the aluminum table this is not an issue for that upgrade. You simply bolt the aluminum table on the original trunnions.

If you have questions about a particular part needed for your Mark V 520 you can ask here on the forum and I am sure someone will have the same vintage Mark V 520 and can help you.

[gac5ss]

I agree, it appears to me that all they are doing is looking at the same thing I see. I look forward to the new web site. A log in feature will be great to save my future purchases to. I hope it has one.

[edma194]

They seem to rely on the Shopsmith wiki for their info. You can look all that up yourself. This forum is a much better source of information. The customer service people are very nice and helpful, but they have limited knowledge.

[RFGuy]

They seem to rely on the Shopsmith wiki for their info. You can look all that up yourself. This forum is a much better source of information. The customer service people are very nice and helpful, but they have limited knowledge.

Now that is VERY scary. As I pointed out on a few past threads, I have found serious errors in the SS Wiki. The most egregious ones were about the DC-3300 and its filter hoods. I am not about to sit here and go through every page of the Wiki to cross-check it, but I continue to warn other members about trusting that Wiki. It looks like something created 20 years ago that has never been updated since IMHO. JMO.

[RFGuy]

Fast forward to today, after purchasing another 520, and contacting Shopsmith for parts, product knowledge is severely lacking. Maybe I just missing my superhero lady by chance. Sorry to say I can't remember her name.

Jerry,

Taking another look at this thread and your original question, I have to ask what specific product knowledge are you looking for? Honestly, if you are looking for more technical knowledge or even just general accessory questions to the 520, I would recommend instead that you open up a new thread for each topic on this forum and ask your questions here. IF it is more pricing info, parts damaged in shipment, etc. then yes go through customer service at Shopsmith. However, technical product knowledge is freely shared by many very experienced Shopsmith customers on this forum. Many come here with compatibility questions between equipment, upgrade recommendations, accessory questions, etc. etc. and receive good advice from other members. If you still aren't quite sure about posting them all here, then I would ask you give us a bit more details on what you needed help on from customer service on this thread and then members can better direct you to getting the resources that you need. Either way, please use this forum to its full extent. I have been grateful to the advice of many forum members here. I have had my share of customer service issues with Shopsmith, but it has been more on the overcharge side, packing & shipping fiascos, long lead time on orders, even orders getting collapsed into a single order and stuff getting dropped off the order type categories. I have shared these grievances in the past on this forum, but I only bring up my experience of them to validate that you have not been alone in wishing customer service and order fulfillment at SS was a few notches better. There was one or two "good" customer service that I worked with a few years ago, but I can't remember their names and I think they are no longer there also.

[edma194]

Now that is VERY scary. As I pointed out on a few past threads, I have found serious errors in the SS Wiki. The most egregious ones were about the DC-3300 and its filter hoods. I am not about to sit here and go through every page of the Wiki to cross-check it, but I continue to warn other members about trusting that Wiki. It looks like something created 20 years ago that has never been updated since IMHO. JMO.

I think I've seen a some updates to the wiki in the past few years, but not much, and maybe I just read it more carefully. They seem to have a few other notes, even the engineers don't seem to know much about the PowerPro, and I would suspect they lack knowledge about anything else developed on the outside. They are customer service though, their job should be to provide whatever information is available from all their sources in a reasonable time frame, I wouldn't expect them to have the full body of knowledge that would take years to develop. In the past year I've spoken to Kaylee and Renee a few times and they've delivered that service. When further questions weren't resolved I think their available support engineers weren't responsive or lacking the knowledge themselves. One of the problems here is the first line of support staff are taking orders and selling product. Those should be different roles, someone who needs support should have access to a knowledgeable person in short order who can answer more technical questions if possible and find out why if not. Frankly, I think they should incentivize online ordering of product and parts so humans can concentrate on the service aspect. But it's not surprising to see the company providing the common level of service found for most modern products. Just being able to get a person on the phone ever makes it better than many others.

[RFGuy]

Ed,

I guess I just have a different perspective from you guys. In my experience, customer service has never had deep technical knowledge of the products for most any company I have ever purchased from. Typically customer service is there to take orders and handle returns or customer issues. Just in the woodworking space, I have received good support from Carter Bandsaw products, Incra and Festool. For Carter, I had a product quality issue and I called on the phone. I was quickly and I mean quickly handed over on the call to an actual engineer that did the technical support. He immediately knew what my issue was and put in a replacement for the faulty part of the product for me. For Incra, I had product questions and contacted them on e-mail. I was handed over to an engineer who did a superb job of answering my technical questions. Similarly, I found manufacturing issues with a product I subsequently purchased from them (previously reported on this forum). It took a little back and forth with the engineer, but once I sent pictures and explained what I was seeing, not one but two replacements were sent until I was satisfied with their product. For Festool, I bought one of their tools at a Woodcraft and didn't realize until I got home that one of the plastic guides was broken before I ever purchased it. After speaking to them on the phone, I sent them a pic of the problem and quickly received a replacement. Also, Festool does regular live YouTube streams nearly every week where their main technical product demonstrator/class trainer goes through, in detai,l how to put each of their products through their paces. The event is live and you can post questions in the comments that are answered by other technical people at Festool in real time during the stream. IF Shopsmith could replicate the customer service aspect of any of these three companies I would be thrilled because like I said, in the past, I have had issues with Shopsmith customer service - not the people per se but product delivery and quality issues from the company. Maybe you have had different experiences with other companies, but I am surprised because in my experience customer service is typically NOT technical on the product at all. JMO.

[jsburger]

Part of the issue here is some of us remember many years ago when SS Customer Service was very technically savvy. There was one particular lady who was extremely knowledgeable and could answer just about any question you asked with the right answer. She was so popular that there is a thread here on the forum about what we might do for her when she retired. I am sure there is someone here that remembers her name.

Back then SS Customer Service was very technically knowledgeable because many of them had been there for years. Unfortunately they have all retired and we lost all of that knowledge.

My guess is that SS implemented the engineer consult program because all the Customer Service talent retired. Back then you didn't need to talk to an engineer because Customer Service could handle 99.9% of the questions with the right answer.

[dusty]

Jan