Wahoo's Great Customer Service
All too often companies only get social media shout-outs when things go wrong. People love to publicly shame a company when things don’t go their way. I get it, and sometimes it’s the only way to get a reaction.
But today I want to share an awesome experience I recently had with Wahoo. This isn’t a paid promotional post and I have no affiliation with Wahoo here.
For the past year I have been putting my Wahoo ELEMNT Roam onto the stem of my handlebar using one of their mounts. I normally had it on the plastic mount that sticks out from the handlebar you traditionally see, but due to a mount for my Thule handlebar bag it wouldn’t work. So this offered me a way to use the handlebar back and my Wahoo.
The whole time when I would put the Wahoo on it would always feel like I was squeezing it a little as the ‘lips’ at either end of the stem would rub on the silicon protective casing I had on my Wahoo. I didn’t think much of it and just carried on.
Unfortunately a couple of months ago one morning I put the Wahoo on and heard a ‘SNAP’! Damn it!
One of the plastic pieces on the back of the Wahoo unit had snapped off. Finally, a year of putting it under stress took it’s toll.
I did some Googling and there didn’t appear an easy or obvious replacement. I did find a company offering 3D printed replacements you could put on top of the old mount attachment. You ultimately shaved down the plastic, and then glued the new one of top. It was pretty reasonable at £9.99
I decided to reach out to Wahoo however to see what they could do.
I started chatting to a guy called Markus on their live chat. He asked me what the problem was, asked for some photograph and my address, and said a replacement part was in the post over from Germany. Took about 3 minutes.
In a few business days the replacement part turned up at my house.
Some small torx screws on the back and then replacing the battery connections and we were as good as new.
I was so pleased not just to have the product still working for a little longer, but the overall customer service offered by Wahoo. They really looked after me and it’s actions like this which builds that brand loyalty.
So my advice on this is to compliment brands when they do well so that they get that feedback, and understand what it means to us as customers.
Also, to try and reach out to companies for these requests. Not only will you get a like for like product if they have availability, but you may also be pleasantly surprised by their response.
Thank you Wahoo and thank you Markus!
PS: My Wahoo is now 5 years only and unfortunately I think the battery life is giving up. Back in the day I could a full 8 hours riding and still have a third of the battery left, over the past year it’s become less and less powerful. This has got me thinking whether I can get a replacement battery for the unit and get a few more years of it. Without doing this little practice I probably wouldn’t have thought this was an option. So a double win!