I ordered the Rachio 3 on Earth Day. No information was provided at the time that the controller wasn’t in stock and according to the Rachio website, orders are shipped within 24 hours and arrive within 2-3 days. 24 hours came and went and no shipping confirmation. Another couple of days came and went and no shipping confirmation. I tried to find a phone number to call Rachio…no phone number! I submitted a question through the Rachio website inquiring about the ship date of the controller. I was informed they would get back to me within 48 hours…are you kidding? 48 hours? That’s ridiculous!!! I thought, okay, I will try the Chat function. Of course it was “offline” even thought this was during business hours. Finally received a response to my question (2 days later) that “due to high demand ship times were delayed”. I had to ask to find this out? How about being proactive and telling your customers this immediately when you found out you didn’t have enough product in stock to meet demand.
Okay, I finally received an email that my controller will ship on 5/2. Late in the day on 5/2 I received an email that my controller had shipped and it included a FedEx tracking number. OK I thought, surely due to the delays the company would ship the controller as fast as possible. I clicked on the tracking number and found out my controller won’t be delivered until 5/7. Are you joking? What kind of customer service is this? How about offering a further discount for not having the controller in stock and completely missing the delivery timeframes included on the website or at least shipping it 2 day or overnight?
Needless to say, I really hope this thing to good. Please do me a favor if you are thinking of buying something from Rachio, call first to make sure it is in stock (oh wait, there is no phone number so you can’t call), Chat to make sure it is in stock (oh wait, only during their business hours and usually not even then)! I guess your best strategy is to pray that it is in stock or at least give yourself a good month before you need it!
I have been using Rachio controllers since they first hit the market. They have come a long way from where they started and where they are now.
The Rachio controller is so awesome that many water purveyors in California are purchasing them and giving them away to limited customers, to help them save water without sacrificing their beautiful landscapes.
I’m so incredibly sorry for this awful experience. This is never how we want to interact with our customers and regret that we weren’t prepared for shipping and communications around this issue. We’ve been meeting consistently since this all came up to identify what happened, how we could have avoided it, and how we could have communicated better. Your feedback is so valuable during these meetings and while we address this internally. We’re putting plans together (literally as I write this response) to make sure we’re better prepared in the future.
I do want to let you know, should you ever need it in the future, our support number is 844-4RACHIO. I am also looking into your note about our chat being offline during business hours - however those hours are in MST so there may have been some time zone discrepancy there as well. Can you confirm whether you were trying to chat on the Rachio website or on one of our social channels?
Thank you again so much for your patience and your feedback. Our customers don’t deserve this experience and we sincerely apologize that we put you through this. I ensure you we’re doing everything we can to make sure we’re fully prepared to avoid this altogether, or be ready to communicate better should it happen again.
Laura - Thank you for the response. If you want to review the history of my particular order, my order number is 12345634139. I also tried replying to the email telling me my order would ship on 5/2 to determine if I would have the controller by 5/4, but I never heard back from you guys. Since I didn’t know when the controller would be delivered, I had to cancel my landscaper who is re-planting my yard for a second time and now won’t be able to get him out to my house for another 2 weeks.
Regarding the Chat function, yes I tried pretty much all day until 3pm EST on Monday 4/29 and the Chat function always said it was offline.
Thank you for sharing the order number! I’m sorry the team never got back to you on that. It looks like 5/7 is accurate. I’m so sorry this caused you to have to reschedule, I understand how much of a headache that is.
Also, thank you for sharing more details on the issue with chat - that’s definitely not the norm, our team should be online during that time. I’ll shoot a message to our VP of Customer Success to let him know and have him do some digging on why that happened.
I would like to say something about this company, they listen to there customers and fix the issues. Don’t give up on the company just because of the initial hiccup. This little device will amaze you! I had a issue with the light staying on all the time and after voicing my concerns they developed a fix to toggle On-Dim-Off, on the app. Don’t throw in the towel just yet.
Thanks for the confidence @Dean0521. These supply chain issues have frustrated the entire company to no end. Please know we are continuing to work hard to resolve these and are listening.
