Hodges Marine — Local services in Oldsmar

This is a company with an order fulfillment and return process that operates on a paper-based system from the early 20th century while the rest of us are firmly planted in the 21st century.

We ordered a Xantrex Freedom X 2000 inverter for a project we're completing with a deadline that fell within the timeline of the order and delivery date specified by Hodges Marine.

On 11/18/2019 a box arrived but the device we received, although an X 2000 shipping label was included interior to the received box, was a Xantrex Freedom 458 inverter (pictured) - clearly marked on the outer part of the vendor box - not an X 2000.

Upon immediately receiving the incorrect unit, we contacted one of their customer service representatives (all of their customer service folks are professional, courteous, and prompt with follow through) who set up a ticket within minutes. This offloaded the process to their chat system in order to communicate with the client/us. The issue, as outlined, started with the order tracking, fulfillment and warehouse operations. a. The warehouse requested proof of the incorrect item in the form of pictures and supporting text - for which we provided within minutes; b. The warehouse indicated it would take several days to verify and then authorize/not authorize the return due to the process of walking through the paper trail and the warehouse inventory - here is where a modern day order management and tracking system would have ensured: 1) The proper item would have been received initially, and; 2) Any returns would/could be processed by the customer service agent immediately and would be seamless to the client. c. The warehouse/next line in the process never communicated or followed up with us to let us know their decision or the disposition of the order. They sent a chat to their internal system which does not email the client. Thus, the paper/chat process failed on the back-end as it did on the front end - when the wrong item was sent out in the first place. d. We called customer service on 11/21/2019 and had the issue resolved by one of their customer service agents - this, they get high marks for - again, their agents are courteous, professional and prompt with their follow up actions.

On 11/20/2019, having not heard from Hodges, we purchased an inverter from another vendor and promptly received the unit overnight. The purchasing process was seamless and we received what we ordered.

In conclusion, this is a company that seems to utilize inefficiencies of process, scale, operations and management to offer a lower price point to customers while increasing their margins. However, it is not fault tolerant and relies on a human element within the warehouse operations that produces a high error-rate for items sent. I recommend Hodges look into the many SaaS-based and/or on premises order tracking and fulfillment software solutions currently available if their goal is customer satisfaction and ensuring return/repeat clients.

We will not place future orders with...

Like many, I don't write reviews, but I'm compelled to here because of a bad experience with their customer service. I ordered a ballast bag, which according to their description includes all fittings. I paid for expedited shipping so that we can use it for the Labor Day weekend. I received the bag very quickly, but without any of the fittings - which renders the bag useless. Because they provided more tracking numbers than the number of items I ordered, I assumed that the fittings were being shipped separately for some reason. After not seeing any movement on the other tracking numbers, I wrote and and asked by email. It turns out that the other tracking numbers were created by mistake, and nothing was being shipped under those numbers. After that clarification, Hodges stopped responding to my emails asking about the missing fittings for some reason. After they ignored multiple follow-up emails, I called. Now they are asking for a picture of the bag without the fittings so that they can figure out exactly what to send to me. They claim this is necessary because I could not describe exactly what the fittings look like (maybe, just maybe, I could not describe them exactly because I haven't seen the fittings because I never received them) and because the manufacturer will ask for the picture. So, I now have to go to my boat, where I keep my boat related stuff, to take a picture of the bag to send them, adding to the delay. I honestly have no idea how that's going to help them, and why they would further inconvenience the customer for it. So, now I am looking at minimum of two weekends (at the end of the season) lost without the ballast bag. They are also telling me that they will not refund the expedited shipping fee I paid because they shipped out the products on time. It's true that they shipped them on time, and in fact, the ballast bag got to me earlier than expected - it's just that without the fittings, the bag is useless, so what good did the on time shipment do?

Of course, I realize this is just a first world problem, but I can't help but let out a bit of frustration. I also realize that things happen while running a business, but how the business deals with issues is important. I would not recommend anyone who cares about customer service deal with...

Paid a lot of money for a Bennett Marine hydraulic sport automatic trim tab set. Bought it in September. Waiting for the weather to get good I finally began installation only to discover that main automatic control module was left out of the box. I called Hodges and their terrible customer service said that's too bad call Bennett and deal with them... thing is Hodges Marine has my money not Bennett. Basically I have almost $1,000 of useless equipment mounted to my boat now. I should have gone with brick-and-mortar so at least I could have someone to talk to and remedy the situation. I see the owner Tim likes to respond asking people to call customer service. That's great advice Tim because your customer service staff dismisses people who call in with complaints isolating you from those of us who want to speak with you directly about the issues at hand. If you're going to spend a lot of money with this company use Extreme Caution. It is basically a Gamble buying from Hodges. Looking at all the one-star reviews I see that this problem is very common. If you are reading this Tim, I would love better information on how to contact you directly if you are truly concerned with the quality of your business and keeping your customers happy. Let's see what happens. To all those reading this post, I will update accordingly.

(Reply to Tim: 5-28-21) As described above, the manufacturer (Bennett marine) has not shipped anything, they don't know if or when they can ship the part, YOU TIM, (Hodge's marine) have my money and i have $800 of useless parts attached to my boat. (For all those reading this notice how Tim has stated "its past the 30 day return policy "...a big F-U to their customer he is stating right there. I wrote in the review that calling customer service is a dead end, and your helpful advice is "call customer service "?? (Agan an F-U to the customer). If you (the owner) do not take the care and time to read these negative reviews thoroughly, i guess i shouldn't be surprised that your customer service is horrible. Just putting this out there for all of those like myself that have had missing parts and no service from Hodge's....contact me about exploring a class action lawsuit to make us whole again and to protect future victims of this Hodges...