Foresight Sports - The Worst Customer Support I've Experienced

[Snipe]

The short version of the story is this:

- I bought my GC Quad from Shop Indoor Golf (with FSX, with club data)
- I waited 2 months for delivery
- The unit died within a week (just turned off and would not restart)
- After waiting on hold for literally hours to speak to a customer service rep, I was told to send the unit back
- It takes another 3 weeks to get a replacement unit (which then spontaneously throws an error code and reboots in the first session)
- For my time, trouble, and loss of faith in the quality of product I just spent $20k on, I'm offered 3 FSX Courses - which seems like an extremely cheap offer given the almost zero incremental cost of software coupled with the fact that I've already paid $3k for FSX and $4k for club data
- To make it worse - customer support won't even honor it's "make good" offer as I'm told that every course I'm interested in is a "Premium Course" and ineligible (Pebble, St. Andrews, Colonial, La Jolla Pines, Valderrama)

I've repeatedly asked for a direct number and have been ignored
I've asked to speak with the "Supervisor" who offered 3 courses not including any courses anyone would be interested in - and have been ignored
I've reached out on social media and received no response

For a $20k product, I'm shocked at little Foresight values it's customers.

If I had it to do over, I would not buy anything from Foresight.

[golfsimulatorsite]

1) did you reach out to Indoor golf, who I assume sold it to you?
2) who charged your card? foresight or Indoor Golf
If they wont do anything, I suggest you call your credit card company. That usually gets their attention real quick.

[Snipe]

Just to be clear - Foresight did replace the unit as it was under warranty (it literally died in a few days). The thing I find appalling is that it takes over an hour to speak to anyone (I've called 3 times, hung up twice after an hour, the 3rd time I hung in there and eventually I got a low level CS rep) and that there is no recourse or escalation path. They refuse to let you speak with anyone beyond the low level CS reps.

I understand that they make a few % less because I purchased through a channel partner, however reputable companies still stand behind their products and, at the very least, honor their "make good" offers rather than wasting time with semantic games.

They've left me with no recourse other than to make sure there's a record of my experience for other potential customers to consider in the future. I have zero faith that my unit will continue to function beyond whatever warranty period they choose to honor, and they've proven to me that, once they have your money, the no longer care about you as a customer.

[bubbtubbs]

Isn't this more or less a duplicate complaint to the one on WRX?

[Baller]

It's a very small company. There isn't a "low" level of contact, as far as I know. There are sales people, there are tech people, there are support people...but only a small number of each, I think.

Secondly, if this is the worst you've experienced, you're lucky. A lot of companies suck, in my own experience, and don't stand behind their products at all. I recently bought a $5k bed and the company screwed me over and all I could do was sell it for $2k. Long story, don't ask.

Back to the Quad though...I've had mine for over 4 years and never had one single problem with it and any time I've had an issue with anything, FS has done their best. Give them a chance; there isn't anything better than the Quad, imo.

[Snipe]

It's a very small company. There isn't a "low" level of contact, as far as I know. There are sales people, there are tech people, there are support people...but only a small number of each, I think.

Secondly, if this is the worst you've experienced, you're lucky. A lot of companies suck, in my own experience, and don't stand behind their products at all. I recently bought a $5k bed and the company screwed me over and all I could do was sell it for $2k. Long story, don't ask.

Back to the Quad though...I've had mine for over 4 years and never had one single problem with it and any time I've had an issue with anything, FS has done their best. Give them a chance; there isn't anything better than the Quad, imo.

I agree with you that companies are pretty awful to deal with in general these days, but I expect support commensurate with purchase price. $20k is a high ticket item (for me at least), especially when $7k of that is software (which carries a massive margin).

Foresight was purchased by Vista Outdoor for $474M dollars and have 111 employees according to LinkedIn. Not huge by headcount, but also not small, scrappy, or hurting for cash given their parent, Vista, did $2.2B in revenue for FY'21. They can afford to hire enough support folks to reduce the wait to less than an hour. They can also afford to honor the offer of 3 courses without restricting it to no-name fantasy courses that nobody has interest in playing.

I enjoy my quad at this point for sure, but again, my point in posting this is to help inform any future buyers as to the type of support they can expect on what may be the largest non-essential purchase of their lives.

If I would have known all of this prior to buying, I would have stuck with my SkyTrak. The risk of something else going wrong and being forced to depend on Foresight is terrifying.

[Wizard of Coz]

Skytrak whoahhh. Say it again!

[Snipe]

The thing worked well for years at less than 10% of the price. From a general feedback and numbers perspective, it's been great. iOS app was far more polished as well. Did you folks own one and have issues prior to your Foresight products or is this a "Ford vs. Chevy" type rivalry that I'm not aware of?

[Baller]

It's more of a slingshot vs a gun with a scope. You can hit your target every once in a while with a slingshot, but you'll hit it more accurately with a gun and scope.

Lots of people on here have had them. I've had a few different LMs along the way and was worried whether or not I pulled the right trigger when I went GCQ, but it wasn't long before I realized I was an idiot for ever trying to save money buying crap. I ended up spending more in the long run.

Skytrak is great for a beginner who doesn't need the accuracy.

My own game was no good until after I got my Quad.

[bubbtubbs]

Not a great comparison, since Ford and Chevy are both meh.

Every experience I've had with Skytrak has been an exercise in managing expectations between the ball placement, missed shots and 2s delay, plus the $145/yr just to use software I've paid for would grate on me. It's adequate, but not good enough to buy.

Never used a Quad but a colleague has Hawk and the pro I use has GC2+HMT. They're quick, accurate and easy to use, though Foresight has some draconian policies as it pertains to their hardware/software interactions. Everything has a trade-off.

[GullLakeMi]

Maybe try getting your feedback to Vista customer relations, investor relations or the like. They might like to hear what their $0.5B got them. Their key branding is "We are a leading provider of innovative outdoor products that enable our customers to achieve rugged independence in the activity of their choice." Sounds like you didn't get rugged or independence. All of their business are branded direct to consumer products. Customer relations must matter to somebody.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. I upgraded from GC2 to GCQuad and knock wood, still have a smile on my face. My experience has been that the GCQuad is flawless. Hopefully you get to this point.

[Bryson of Bogey Golf]

For what it's worth my FS experience has fortunately been the exact opposite, sorry to hear about yours.

Garage Quad running now for 2 months. Probably a dozen buddies over in that time and all love it.

Yes the hold times for customer service are long - I've called twice and each time was 30 mins, but once I've gotten through the support has been exceptional. Expect that I'd fall into the "high maintenance" bucket when it comes to how FS looks at their customers. The couple of times that I've called have each resulted in additional follow up that was probably 70% educating me and 30% troubleshooting/fixing. All follow up had regular and timely email correspondence, always within 24 hrs. Twice they scheduled a call time with me where they called me to help me troubleshoot why my club data wasn't getting picked up. 1 of these times they were running late and emailed me 10 mins prior to let me know. When all was said and done it came down to me not swapping out the stickers often enough and they didn't flinch in reaction at all when we figured that out. Would say my service has definitely been comensurate with a +$20K set up.

[jasonreg]

I'll add my voice as another generally satisfied GC Quad customer. I have always received input from email within 24 hours from both Customer Service or Tech Support. I have never tried calling but I have found the support decent in general. We can all point to areas for improvement, but considering the environment I think they are doing pretty well. Now if we could push some FSX Play improvements along I would be ecstatic! .......

[g_gryphon]

I'll add my voice as another generally satisfied GC Quad customer. I have always received input from email within 24 hours from both Customer Service or Tech Support. I have never tried calling but I have found the support decent in general.

I will agree with this exact sentiment 100%. I had a simple issue with a software license key and I heard back via email the same day from customer support and a follow up from technical support the next day. I’ve been fortunate to not experience any hardware issues but I would like to think they’d be as responsive to that as well.