It's a tough call to respond to these types of threads, for the most part our customers do an excellent job of explaining our position on our behalf and we tend to remain silent. But in this case, I'll provide a bit of the point of view of Fill Express.
Fill Express (doing business on the Internet as Dive Rite Express, Dive Gear Express, or Rebreather Express) can often handle repairs and even warranty claims in-house... and we do more often than not. However, for some types of repairs (lights, aircells, computers) we are unable to service in-house and we must send it to the manufacturer.
In a case where Dive Rite will be doing the repair, it will always be quicker and some times cheaper to deal directly with Dive Rite the manufacturer. That's because it saves a lot of time. When you involve Fill Express in the repair we can't add much to the transaction... here's why: The customer calls us, we issue a repair ticket, they ship it to us, we receive it and transfer it to our customer service, then we research and open a repair ticket with Dive Rite and ship it to them, sometimes Dive Rite service has a question so they contact us, we contact the customer, then contact Dive Rite with the answer, they repair the item, then ship the item back to us, we recieve the repaired item and cross their repair ticket with ours and then we ship the item back to the customer. As you can see, there are plenty of opportunities for delays and miscommunications.
Most dive shops prefer to "own the customer" and filter all communications through the LDS. This often improves the customer experience where the manufacturer is not very good at handling customer service directly and many manufacturers actually have a policy of not dealing directly with the customer. However, in our experience Dive Rite does an excellent job of customer service and so for the reasons mentioned previously we sometimes recommend the customer communicate directly with Dive Rite. Some customers prefer to deal with us rather than the manufacturer and we are always happy to accomodate their preference, particularly where there is no time pressure. We are not trying to push the customer off on Dive Rite, but there are good reasons why we sometimes recommend the customer deal with them directly.
In some cases, the policies of Dive Rite and Fill Express regarding customer service differ. To be frank about it, we have observed manufacturers, including Dive Rite, are sometimes willing to be much more liberal in warranty claim issues when they are dealing with the consumer directly than when they are dealing with the shop. That's what happened here, once Dive Rite became aware of the consumer directly, the issue was quickly resolved in favor of the consumer... where as we (as the local dive shop) were told something rather different.
So what works best? If you have a warranty claim or repair issue with a product you purchased from Fill Express (aka Dive Rite Express), contact us first. We may tell you to send it back to us, or send you a replacement immediately, or suggest you contact the manufacturer directly. If we suggest you contact the manufacturer directly, then you will likely get the best results by following our advice. However, it you prefer to deal with us exclusively, we are happy to do our best on your behalf with the manufacturer.
-- Mark
