Is Fanatec still around?

[iwn]

I cannot register and purchase at moment. Anyone else the same problem?

 

[kostasmelistas99]

i had the same problem and send email to
webshop@fanatec.com
and reset my password

 

[iwn]

Ok, thanks. Will try.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Surprisingly, yes.

 

[Lesthegringo]

Following on the heels of some other less that positive comments about Fanatec's customer support and the reliability of their products, if I was Fanatec I would be straight on to these forums to demonstrate that they are listening and customer focused. While I know that they are a business out to make money and not a charity, they must also remember to treat the people who buy their products properly, otherwise they risk future custom. I will definitely reconsider my impending DD1 purchase, and hold fire until I am sure that they are going to treat any transaction with me properly.

I am not the poorest person in the world, but the prices of their equipment is still a significant amount of money for me to spend, and the thought of buying a €1200 piece of hardware and then having to get into a battle if it turns out to be defective does not appeal.

Fanatec, if you are reading this, time to show us that you are worth us spending our money with.

Les

 

[Andrea Cerisara]

Yeah, I think they have some problems with their IT infrastructure AND they are struggling to keep up with the requests.

I have a problem with my Formula wheel and I found quite hard to contact them initially. I opened a discussion in the forum and the suggested procedure didn't work for me (website broken). They were reactive in manually open a ticket but I'm still waiting for a response about a mail I sent several days ago.

I agree they should improve the customer service, they are a high-end company and I believe the customer service should be high-end as well.

 

[GagarynGaribaldi]

Yeah, I think they have some problems with their IT infrastructure AND they are struggling to keep up with the requests.

I have a problem with my Formula wheel and I found quite hard to contact them initially. I opened a discussion in the forum and the suggested procedure didn't work for me (website broken). They were reactive in manually open a ticket but I'm still waiting for a response about a mail I sent several days ago.

I agree they should improve the customer service, they are a high-end company and I believe the customer service should be high-end as well.

I had the same issues recently - impossible to contact support as the webform does not submit the ticket. Mentioned this on the Fanatec forum and even exchanged PMs with Fanatec stuff about it on the forum. Fanatec staff then claim that the form is working perfectly and that my observation that it isn't working is untrue. Basically called me out as lying. They then deleted some of my messages where I explained that it really isn't working. I've spent loads with Fanatec - CSL Elite, pedals, shifter, handbrake, DD2, a few wheels, several thousand pounds in total - I regret it, their support is poor and their software development people are worse. There is a certain arrogance with their whole operation that increasingly winds me up.

 

[DomB_Fanatec]

I had the same issues recently - impossible to contact support as the webform does not submit the ticket. Mentioned this on the Fanatec forum and even exchanged PMs with Fanatec stuff about it on the forum. Fanatec staff then claim that the form is working perfectly and that my observation that it isn't working is untrue. Basically called me out as lying. They then deleted some of my messages where I explained that it really isn't working. I've spent loads with Fanatec - CSL Elite, pedals, shifter, handbrake, DD2, a few wheels, several thousand pounds in total - I regret it, their support is poor and their software development people are worse. There is a certain arrogance with their whole operation that increasingly winds me up.

Hi GagarynGaribaldi,

There was absolutely no intention to call you out as lying. Simply saying that the form is working is a fact: it is being tested all the time, and we are receiving regular support tickets via the ticket system. There is no evidence to suggest that there is a widespread issue with the support form. The other users posting in this thread may not be having the same issue as you. The issue that you're describing is proving to be very difficult to investigate/reproduce, because there are so few reports of this happening. But we will continue to look into it.

I'm not sure what deleted posts you are referring to. If that occurred, it is probably because an entire thread was deleted for some other reason and your post disappeared along with it. Nobody is intentionally deleting posts about website issues, so I apologise if that happened. The truth is that we want your feedback, it's essential that issues are reported so we can fix them, so there would be no sense in deleting such posts unless the problem was solved.

I'm very sorry to hear that you haven't had a good experience with our products. I hope that the team can get back to you soon.

 

[Turk]

Following on the heels of some other less that positive comments about Fanatec's customer support and the reliability of their products, if I was Fanatec I would be straight on to these forums to demonstrate that they are listening and customer focused.

I'd imagine they are just busy at the moment. All these lockdowns have actually made some companies extremely busy. Like run off your feet, doing everything they can to keep up with demand, all while having difficulty with supply chains and doing simple things like going to the local hardware shop.

Fanatec are in one of those industries that probably got overrun with orders.

 

[Lesthegringo]

Being busy is fine, and for Fanatec is a great problem to have. The problem is that it is easy to forget the customer when it is all going your way, only for the reality to set in when the situation changes. When Fanatec suddely don't have a glut of orders but do have disgruntled customers, they will have a mountain to climb.

Do I blame Fanatec if they have so many orders they are struggling to keep up with the supply? No. However if you have ordered, and more to the point paid, you deserve the courtesy of having good information and not being left wondering, and knowing that your money is safe. If my order suddenly slips because you can't get parts, let me know. I can deal with a bit of disappointment, I can't deal with no information.

I'm pleased to see DomB above getting in, and that is the sort of action we need - direct information. Clearly this is not a surrogate for the proper lines of communication that should exist though, and it should not be used for day to day - that's what you are supposed to have a support department for, and I do want people to use those for their primary contact if there are any issues. However I would like to gently remind Fanatec that it only got to be on here because you appear to have failed in that, and I would prefer for it not to have to have got to this point.

Les

 

[Raysy]

For balance I thought I'd note my own recent experience with Fanatec. I purchased pedals, wheel and wheel base from them in May which arrived towards then end of June. I was aware of the lead times, kept informed via emails and everything arrived on time.

The only disappointment on the ordering process is that I forgot to add the brake performance kit to the original order and their systems don't allow orders to be modified. I had two options, cancel the order and restart (losing my place in the queue and also the limited addition ClubSport F1 2020 wheel or pay full shipping costs for the BPK. Shame there isn't flexibility there.

I've had two issues with the brakes since they arrived. The vibration motors weren't working correctly. I used the support form to ask a question, it took a couple of days to get a response but it told me the issue, caused by me unplugging a cable inadvertently when adding the BPK.

The second issue was more serious. Mid race the brake started to play up, only taking input at near 100% pressure. I worked through the forums first and these all pointed to the Load Cell being the issue. Following instructions from the forum I reset the load cell but alas it was still borked so I went through the Fanatec support via the web form again. Again there was a delay of a couple of days before getting a response. The response had me checking a few other things, but no joy. Responses to the ticket were now pretty quick, within a couple of hours. I was given two choices, send the pedals back to get repaired or accept delivery of a new load cell and fit it myself. I choose the new load cell, it arrived, was fitted and fixed the issue.

TLDR; I've had solid support, it could be quicker but it was not a disaster.