[cwonsey]

Hey everyone. I'm currently still in my 60-day trial of TeleNav and am debating whether or not to keep it. I've emailed their customer service twice in the last 14 days with some questions about their product before relying on it for a cross-country road trip this weekend and have had no response.

Does anyone else have any experience with their customer service? That is a very important aspect to me for any company I pay on a monthly basis, so any experiences would be appreciated.

[cwonsey]

As an update to this post, I've now been on hold for TeleNav Support for over 20 minutes with no answer. This certainly doesn't strike me as peak hours for call centers. If this is the way their customer service always is, it's really a shame that they are one of a very limited few programs that provide voice navigation that work on the Blackberries.

[w4raw]

My personal experience with Telenav support was dismal to say the least. I discontinued the service after having an issue and getting no response to email and no real help whatsoever via phone or their online support forum. Lots of canned "We don't support... blah blah blah" answers regarding an issue with a puck purchased from another source. Problem was, I called Telenav and asked if the puck was supported before I bought it... and they said that it was supported and they had many users with that puck.

Awful CS in my considered opinion.

Scott

[powercx]

I just cancelled mine after trying Garmin Mobile. Seems like it's better than Telenav overall and I had to wait on the phone for 10 minutes before I got a CS.

[cwonsey]

I just looked at the Garmin Mobile, does it require a puck or will it work with teh 8800's built-in GPS? The only options I saw under Blackberry included a GPS receiver.

It's really sad that Telenav's service is so bad, their product doesn't seem to be that bad. Unfortunately, I emailed them just to confirm that the route is stored in your phone so that you don't lose your route if you lose your signal. This is a question they could have had someone send a canned response to in about 30 seconds, but after over 2 weeks there has been no response. When I called Telenav to find out what their response time was, after being on hold for 20 minutes, the representative informed me that he could get a supervisor who may be able to find my email and respond right then - I shouldn't have to initiate the response aside from sending my inquiry, I just wanted to know what response time should be expected for email inquiries - apparently, they just don't respond to those messages as confirmed by w4raw.

I won't pay someone every month for simply having a server with maps on it, I expect some degree of service from the company if they expect to continue receiving money from me.

[w4raw]

Originally Posted by cwonsey

I just looked at the Garmin Mobile, does it require a puck or will it work with teh 8800's built-in GPS? The only options I saw under Blackberry included a GPS receiver.

Searching for an alternative to Telenav, I installed Garmin Mobile on my TMO 8800 yesterday. For the short time I have had it, it has worked fine with the internal GPS unit.

Scott

[cwonsey]

Just another update here. I gave Telenav another shot today (well, gave contacting them another shot). After 15 minutes on hold for tech support, I received a "the mailbox is full" message and was disconnected. I'm now trying for customer service (selected the option to buy service - you'd think they'd answer that phone) and as of now, I've been on hold for 10 minutes and I'm still listening to the obnoxious high speed classical composition ... time to check out Garmin for sure.

If service is at all a factor for you, I would highly recommend saying "screw you" to Telenav at this point.

[jungleland]

Why is Customer Service even relevant when it comes to Telenav or Garmin?

They rarely have any trouble whatsoever, and when they do, you can troubleshoot them yourself, or get answers quicker on the internet (which is really never needed)

[cwonsey]

The questions I had were not addressed in their product documentation or any of the FAQ's online. There are various reasons you may need to contact them, and if I pay them $9.99 per month, I expect to be able to. When speaking to them and explaining that I have sent multiple emails over the last 14 days with no response, they stated they are "backed up." When I told them that a response time to email of greater than 2 weeks is beyond backed up, they stated they are "really backed up." Essentially, customer service is an important aspect of any company, regardless of their product or service. If the company claims to offer ongoing support of any kind, they need to provide that support in a professional and timely matter - that's just the nature of business.

As far as the Garmin product, I have not yet tried it, nor have I tried to contact them. I have noticed that it is impossible to find out how much their service costs without signing up for their online membership thing.

I did actually get through to a customer service rep after my long hold this morning. He was actually helpful. Although he did not know the answer to my questions, he performed some research and spoke with his supervisor and found the answers.

For an example of a need to contact them, I was trying to verify whether or not the phone will store your route in memory so that if you lose your signal while driving through mountains you do not lose your way. I already knew that it has to connect to the Internet for the maps and such, but it only makes sense to store the turn information in the device's memory so that even without maps, you can still get the turn by turn directions since the GPS device in the unit does not need a cellular signal to operate.

FYI: If you set the preferences to Turn Icons only and turn off Traffic Updates, the turn by turn directions will continue to function without a cellular signal and the route is stored on the phone.

[MaryBeth]

cwonsey - I'm very sorry to hear you have had challenges getting a response from our Care team. Please feel free to contact me directly so I can help resolve any problems. (marybethl@telenav.com)

To answer your question regarding a route being saved - this actually depends on the phone model and the carrier. I believe with the T-Mobile 8800, it can continue to route you when you drive out of wireless coverage area (I will find out for sure). So as long as you do not veer off of the directions, you should be fine. If you take a wrong turn while still out of wireless coverage, the service will not be able to reroute you until you are back in T-Mobile coverage.