Possibly the worst tech support I've ever received

Bambu Lab P1 Series General Discussions
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Honestly I hope this does some good, but more likely than not it’ll just get deleted. I purchased a P1P and it worked great for a couple of weeks. Then it started developing what seemed to be a common problem (I was seeing clumps, and other oddness). After trying all the various troubleshooting suggestions, I noticed the bottom connector on the print head was damaged - 3 pins were bare instead of being partially encased in the plastic of the connector. So as the print head would whip around, it would intermittently heat and not heat the filament because the connection was flaky (my theory).

Even if it’s not the problem, it’s a broken part on a brand new machine.

Bambu Labs support has made me jump through so many hoops for the past couple of weeks. This part can’t cost them more than $5 maximum (more likely it’s a few cents). But they’ve asked for my invoice, order number, date purchased, serial number, photos of the connector, photos of the print head where the connector fits, photo of the QR code that gives you the serial number, and then the one that really got me - A HAND WRITTEN NOTE stating the warranty claim number on paper, photographed with this cheap broken part.

When I asked about it - they said they needed a photo of my handwritten note because so many of their users try to rip them off and get free parts. WTF? I bought it directly from THEM - they have my order number, the date I ordered it, the date it shipped, the serial number, my address, my phone number, and their making me dance like a moron over at cheap little part?

I have NEVER in 30 years of working in the tech industry, been treated like I’m some kind of scam artist who apparently is going to get rich by ripping off Bambu Labs over a $5 connector. Seriously, WTF??? The amount of time I’ve wasted over this adds up to hundreds of dollars in MY TIME.

I’m posting here what I told the support person. I am a college professor, and the university is in the process of replacing 30 3D printers. I was going to recommend Bambu Labs UNTIL I dealt with your tech support. Now there is not only no way I’ll recommend this company to the university, I won’t recommend it to ANYONE.

Seriously Bambu Labs, learn a lesson here. My time has value. Making me dance around taking photos of handwritten notes for a $5 connector is insane. Learn a little bit about marketing and valuing your customer.

Paul

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@FusionMTSU Welcome to chinese support. Be ready for a bunch of locals to tell you its your fault and that this is just how companies should do business.

My favorite part is that they make you do the song and dance to get a part that they refuse to just sell by itself.

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Yes, but not all Chinese based support has to be like that. I had an issue with my Anycubic resin printer. They were helpful and (allowing for time differences) quick to respond and sent me a new LCD screen unit FOC to the UK within a week and just asked me to video the issue on my phone, which seemed reasonable as it confirmed where the issue lay and it was not fixable without the new screen. This was shortly after buying the printer at a discount directly from Anycubic.

The OP is right about the caustic consequences of such pish-poor support: had I seen the large number of complaints about Bambu’s “support” before buying the X1C, I would have likely passed and waited a few months to see what other manufacturers are doing to compete at this price bracket. Luckily, I have not needed to contact them yet - not looking forward to the day I do…

Cheers.

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Thinking of buying a second P1P but reading this does scare me a little, to be fair mine has been fine and most little issues have been something I have done in the slicer or in design by mistake. It is a lot of money to spend and not have any sort of quality service. Not sure whether to get a Prusa to back it up.

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Same experience, although tbh it sounds like you had to jump through even more hoops than I did!

Despite sending photos and explaining the issue in detail (basically a badly milled hotend), I was pretty much made to beg for the $10 replacement.

They eventually agreed to replace it ‘as a one time courtesy’(!) - as though they were doing me a favour by replacing a faulty part.

Oh and yes, I also had to send them a photo of the part with a handwritten note, which actually quite amused me at the time.

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It has been 15 days since Bambu offered to give me a voucher because of a problem with my order. Fucking CRICKETS since then. And it took me 2 weeks to get to that point. So I am now on a MONTH. I have emailed them every couple of days since then, with no response.

God help you if you ever have a problem.

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Odd. They were fairly quick to resolve my issue and send a replacement part. But I did include video of the issue I was experiencing along with system logs. I too had to send a photo of my claim number, but that didn’t bother me.

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Bambu Lab will gladly provide warranty service if the product is under the warranty window but has the following performance failures:

  • The product is normally used but has non-customer induced damages or failures;
  • No unauthorized disassembly, modification or installation without the guidance of the official manual, and other non-customer induced damages or failures;
  • Valid purchase receipt, invoice, and other relevant paperwork are provided;
  • The product has function failures due to manufacturing errors or workmanship.
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I agree and have said it before. The writing on paper and sending a photo is a joke. They have all your details and the logs so they know there’s a fault. This action does them no favours at all. They seriously need to improve their support. The number of genuine customers they annoy to save on a few cheapskates who try to get free spares is a false economy

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Likely in every country there are companies they have no after-sale support and others have.
So also with chinese companies.
But YES, I sadly also recognized that most chinese companies give a s*** on after sale-support.
Maybe its also because of the hype what is made around the X1C and its printing speed, so that they have so many requests they cant handle anymore.

Hopefully the can arrange themself and make the support team stronger very soon!

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Background: I have a Bambu X1C and it has worked fairly well, though I did destroy a PCB on the hot-end while trying to get the connector off and found, instead, that the entire connector had ripped off the PCB. Bambu sent me through the same song-and-dance (though no handwritten note, thank god) and every person I talked to seemed to want the same information again, as if each person in tech support had amnesia and no notes, so I must have supplied my order # and address and phone number at least 20 times.

Summary: They did eventually send me the right PCB after sending me the wrong one (previous generation) twice and, finally, also updated their wiki to note that they had, in fact, changed the PCB assembly entirely and ALL of us were confused about this - tech support, me, etc.

What’s weird: I offered to pay for the PCBs. I also recently offered to pay them for a new AMS feeder since one of mine has gone bad and, despite following all of the trouble shooting notes, I cannot repair it. Crickets. I’m happy to give them more money since hey, this is 3D printing and ■■■■ wears out. There’s no way to order it and, I am fairly certain, after making me jump through a bunch of hoops again they’ll send me one for free and I’ll do the swap myself.

All of these are clear signs of a company in crisis, possibly what we also refer to in Silicon Valley as a “success catastrophe”. You build a product that turns out to be wildly popular and this overwhelms you completely, so much so that your management is caught flat-footed and goes into spastic reaction mode where strategy goes out the window and the entire company (and its customers) get thrashed by change after change. Management becomes further out of touch and the company slides into total dysfunction.

That is one possible outcome. Here’s another one: Management fires / replaces / reforms itself from top to bottom and admits that it is time to recreate the business, including its fundamental operating model and mindset, or die. I’m pretty sure the same thing is happening over at Prusa, who has been struggling to remain relevant while also dealing with a massive over-reach with their XL model. It’s not an uncommon thing to happen.

What I, in my obviously INFINITE wisdom (haha) would suggest to Bambu’s management is this:

  1. Stabilize what you have. If you have a bunch of new stuff in the pipeline that is distracting you, PRESS PAUSE. Yes, the engineers really want to create it and it will be better than anything that has ever come before, they promise, but engineering and sales and support are three different orgs and you need to give them all time to catch up or you’re going to fall off your skis. If you are shipping broken stuff, fix it at the factory. Improve your QC until it’s as perfect as anyone could realistically hope for.

  2. Sell spare parts. Stop giving them away. Yes, stop, because you are only creating a problem for yourself. If there is ANY part of the X1C or P1P that can break, offer it for sale at a reasonable margin and make it easy to get. We are used to this. We modded the ■■■■ out of our Creality printers for years and replaced every single part over time. We built Vorons from kits and if we broke a part in the process, we bought new parts. This is FDM printing, not consumer electronics. Maybe it will get there, but it is not there yet. Just let us buy the damn parts, keep updating your wikis and howto videos (which aren’t bad at all) and we, your customers, will take it from there.

Bambu labs may have been built on innovation, but what it needs now is execution. What made you great will not keep you great.

My two cents.

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I’m very sorry to hear that. It is inexcusable. As a Bambu fan, it’s just disappointing to hear.

I hope they listen and make big changes to the customer support process. At least the CEO has admitted it is an issue, apologized, and stated that they are focusing on improving their customer support. I know its not much consolation in your situation but it does give me hope.

As far as the “more than likely this will get deleted” comment, take heart that Bambu has so far been very willing to hear criticisms. As far as the printer goes, they have generally been quick to try and remedy any bad feedback from reviewers. I don’t think they are the kind of company to actively suppress negative feedback.

I dont blame you one bit for walking away after being treated like that. I would have done the same in your shoes.

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Looks like the CEO knows they have issues and they are working on it.

Here is a small excerpt from their CEO:

"We know that we are a young startup, and that we need to work hard to build trust with you. It won’t happen overnight. So we are taking small steps in this direction, and this AMA is one of them.

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Sorry, is there a link to this AMA? I don’t see where that discussion is taking place but it’s a big forum and perhaps even a link to a discussion on reddit?

I’ll read whatever the CEO has to say, but I’m also assuming that “small steps in this direction” is something that is also quantified in the discussion, since just saying that alone would be tantamount to saying “Thank you for your feedback, it has been heard!”, a popular euphemism for “just STFU and leave us alone, OK?!” :grin:

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I really appreciate your post. It’s considered and articulates the issues Bambu may be facing. One point, they do sell an extensive number of spare parts. Well it looks pretty comprehensive to me? Knowing which spare is needed may be an issue I agree.

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Thanks! I probably should have been more specific. In the past, at least, I have been unable to order components like PCBs, internal cables, AMS feeders (whatever those little yellow geared things are called, anyway), and so on.

One certainly can order a number of parts and, in fact, every single part that Bambu labs sells I have ordered because there are few things more frustrating than having a component fail at 9pm on a Friday night just as you’re gearing up for a night of productivity - I am a huge believer in stocking spares! :slight_smile:

TL;DR: Creality, Prusa, Anycubic, all offer pretty much every single component (or have online STLs to print replacements with another printer) and have large 3rd party ecosystems which offer upgrade paths and the ability to mod one’s printer to the point of insanity and beyond. I see no reason why Bambu labs should not benefit from and support this!

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Correct but for the time being that all we have is word of mouth from the CEO.

We are going to have to wait and see how it goes.

Yes this is a redit post. Also they only so far have 300 - 500 employees world wide. That is not alot.

I know it is frustrating. I just received a package from them that I paid for that was missing items. I politely e-mailed them. I am not going to get upset over it until I see how they take care of it.

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To reply to my own post: Here is the Reddit AMA others are referring to.

I read it and I would say that the CEO still has a lot to learn about:

A) Communications. He did a 3 hour AMA but then no one took the time to curate the most upvoted questions and his (“Dr__Turbo”) replies, nor did he do a post-AMA video blog where he reflected on what he was asked and what tangible next steps are being taken. It really doesn’t matter if you’re CEO of a 100 person or a 10,000 person company - this is an area in which any CEO needs to hire some senior leadership and then take their advice because most CEOs are terrible at this, especially the ones who come up through engineering and think that engineering is Everything.

B) Market dominance. You see him defending many times the company’s proprietary approach to filament supplies through RFID tagging, their cloud strategy, and so on, but all of his answers make it pretty clear that he doesn’t understand how any of these things correlate to winning market share or building a defensive moat against competition. One does not build a moat by throwing a few proprietary bits into the mix and then defending them fiercely - that strategy might have worked in the year NINETEEN EIGHTY FIVE and, even then, only in a markets that had been already fully captured. You build that “moat” today by creating more value than anyone else and then staying ahead of the competition. You create a better platform and then monetize the platform. You don’t just throw a few RFID chips at the problem and then say “buy our filament!” That’s not a strategy, that’s just yak shaving for a few more % profit while missing the bigger picture entirely and it misses the total value that can be created with a cloud solution that really taps into something bigger and makes the cloud an actual improvement over local use.

One of the reddit folks captures this best when they talk about flow calibration databases in the cloud. If I could enter the salient details for every single spool of filament that I put into my machine (from a web app, please, not that tiny little LCD screen!) and then run a complete flow calibration on that specific spool, I could then save this to the cloud and re-use it and share it with others. Over time, Bambu builds up an immense cloud database of flow parameters and temperatures for every type of filament on earth and of course I buy a Bambu product because that’s awesome, I don’t buy it because they want to sell me RFID tagged filament! Even better, because they have this database, they can now even use AI to predict what the best settings are going to be when I enter a new filament type, or the manufacturers change their filament manufacturing over time, or whatever. That’s value. They don’t have to publish the database, that’s fine, they just need to make it really easy to use. That’s a moat.

All that said, I’m not surprised by any of this. It’s a pretty common story: “Smart PhD creates company with a bunch of his smart friends. They make a better 3D printer. Yay!”

Now, does Smart PhD who can make printers make a good actual leader of a company that understands how to actually build a durable, long-term platform and a loyal following, like Josef Prusa did? Hmmmm. TBD! We’ll just have to see.

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Well, the final result of this situation is I’m being forced to file a lawsuit against Bambu Labs to try to get my money back. They apparently think my time has ZERO value and they just want me to go away. I have a broken printer and no satisfaction from the company. You can read the entire story here: Paul Griswold on LinkedIn: Bambu Labs - A lesson in bad customer service.

If you are purchasing from Bambu Labs be aware that if something goes wrong there is a very good chance you will NEVER see your money back and you most certainly can end up with a non-functional printer. It is a GAMBLE to do business with them. You may get lucky and it may be perfect. But, do you want to take that risk or spend slightly more and go with a company that respects it’s customers and doesn’t treat them like liars and thieves?

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I documented all of those things. Here are the issues.

  1. If you purchase directly from Bambu Labs and use the email address you used to purchase the product, they will still not believe you are actually the person who purchased the printer and will treat you like a thief.
  2. If you then provide them with your order number, they still will not believe you and treat you like a liar and a thief.
  3. If you question them and ask why they don’t have any records of your order, they will not respond but instead will jerk you around, demanding you take photos of the serial number, the defective part, the invoice, the packing slip, some QR code, then when you’ve spent days and days sending photos, they’ll tell you it’s not enough ---- because clearly, you are a liar and a thief (apparently 99% of their customers are total scuzzballs who rip them off because that’s how they treat you).

Once you’ve just about lost your mind with the nonsense, they will tell you – oops, that part isn’t covered under warranty. If you ask for an RMA and your money back… too bad - not gonna happen. So you get a lovely $700 objet d’arte to stare at in your room.

Fortunately, there are legal remedies. I’m getting my money back or I’m getting a 100% functioning printer, but I am not letting Bambu Labs continue this nonsense any further.

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