Say whaaat??
I have only had to call Dexcom TS or CS a few times, but the wait was always over 30 minutes. They were very professional, but the TS person who explained to me (very slowly - like I was 5 years old) that I shouldn’t calibrate my G6 unless it was at least 30 points or 30% off, was a little irritating. I asked her if she thought that 30% off was a reasonable level of accuracy, but I didn’t get a good answer. (Sigh!) Anyway it works much better for me than my Medtronic Guardian sensors did. (Open loop … blah!)
I suspect that some people have good technology mojo, and some people don’t … I don’t. I usually wait to call them until I have time to be on hold. Who knows when they will call back, or what I will be doing when they do. Of course, this might mean that I have already given up & removed the sensor before I speak to them. When they tell me that I should have called them beforehand, I explain about unreasonable hold times, and having to live my life and do the job that I am being paid to do. I suspect that I might be irritatingly militant.
1 Like
I know. That is always how I dealt with companies. But after so many phone calls, where they tell me they are sending my sensors overnight, and they never arrive, I thought maybe they didnt realize how important these sensors are to me. I have called my insurance company to be told everything has been approved, and even gotten copies of the approvals they’ve sent, but nothing seems to work. I hope it is getting better again, because I’ve had the Dexcom for years and really have gotten dependent on it. The only good stuff I’ve heard about Dexcom is on this site. Hmmm. Hope I somehow inherit your good luck. And it IS good luck. It’s a terrible feeling to not have any control over these things, when you do everything they say…
It is certainly frustrating and can be a huge waste of time. When I call Dexcom I call from my office landline and put them on hold until they answer or anytime they put me on hold, until once again they answer. That way I just keep working at my tasks on my computer and don’t notice the “phone time” fly by. If I were on hold on a cell phone doing nothing else but waiting on their staff, I am sure that I would not feel so “lucky”
Persistence has always paid off for me and then I have always received what they promise to send out. Tech calls historically have been short and results prompt. Customer service/sales calls have recently averaged 35-45 minute events.
I only have a cell and when on hold for any company, being in speaker-phone mode makes it relatively easy to continue with my life. I always use the speaker phone mode for conversations unless I were to be in a close-quarters situation in which case I try not to be on the phone at all.
1 Like
JJM1. What are you counting as a sensor FAILURE.
Or are you referring to the failure of the the Tx. 9(battery Failure)
I’ve started with Dexcom in November 2017, I get my supplies from a third party vendor. But Dexcom Tech Support replaced it for me.
I would count a sensor as one that did not get injected correctly.
I have always been super friendly and to the point and provided as much info as possible up front, and still had problems, but it’s never been because the person on the phone hasn’t been as helpful as possible. It’s because once they get off the phone, everything gets dropped and messed up. Also, my complaints and many others have more to do with sales (I never utilize tech support), where stuff then needs to happen in the background following the call. I fully believe that staff member intends for things to work out, but then when I call to follow up, it’s clear that the follow up gets passed to other people and that Dexcom’s chain of action is deeply flawed and prone to dropping the ball in a way that is likely not due to the mistakes of any one individual.
An insert failure is one type of sensor failure but not the only one.
A sensor failure could be a sensor which was physically pulled off (ie - doorframe).
Or where the sensor stops reading and records in the log a sensor failure.
Or a sensor that is outside the 30/30 rule (G6) or 20/20 rule (G4/G5) and where calibrations will not fix.
Or a calibration loop (only happened once to us).
There are a number of situations. If you think you might have one of these issues, best course of action is to call Technical Support. Sometimes they can say right away the sensor is done, pull it and put a new one on or sometimes they will want to walk you through troubleshooting steps.
Sensors do not seem to like my body. I can seldom get good info for extended 7+ days. I consider a failure to be during the 7 day period when I get multiple ??? in 1 day or the 3 hour period of ??? with or without a couple of readings in the 3 hour period.
Recently, I have been getting quite a few ??? when my glucose rises above 200 and starts working again when I drop below 100. These have been pretty common on days 8, 9, 10.
And Yes, I do call Tech Support and get a free sensor when failure is in the 1st 7 days.
do u have low body fat? that’s an issue for G6, compared to G5’s.
1 Like
BMI of 20, only place I can put sensor is on my small spare tire (belly) otherwise I risk aggravating muscle.
I was considering possibly upgrading from G4 to G6 but now you indicate I need to find out more about the G6 sensors. But then again, if they would be more prone to failure on my body - more calls to Tech Support and fewer boxes of sensors to buy.
I’ve always had good Tech Support with Dexcom. They are a great company. I miss them, as I recently switched to the 14-day Libre and their customer support seems to be a non-existent department.
1 Like
I have always had great customer service and little wait time for my G6!
BTW, I use Edgepark Medical as my distributor. I used to absolutely hate them. Constant problems, rude agents, screwed up orders - just inept in general. My last couple of calls have been phenomenal! Considerate, understanding, knowledgeable and helpful with virtually no wait time. FINALLY, a pleasure to do business with!
2 Likes
Welcome to TuD @AJohntry, glad to have you with us! Why did you switch to the Libre, if you don’t mind my asking? Was it a financially driven decision?
1 Like
I’ve actually had much better experiences with Edgepark recently too. Dunno if I’ve just been lucky in who took the call or maybe they’ve decided customer service is actually a good thing.
Wow - just had a very frustrating experience trying to find out what happened to a promised G6 transmitter order that should have arrived by FedEx overnight service today. I spoke with a customer service rep (stateside) earlier this week that told me the order would ship yesterday, but said to call Friday if I hadn’t received a shipment confirmation Thursday night. I didn’t receive a confirmation or the sensors. I tried to find out what was happening.
-
Called CS shortly shortly after they opened. After a 15 minute hold I spoke with a US rep. As she was attempting to resolve things, I was cut off while I was on hold (Might have been a problem at Dexcom or maybe with Verizon).
-
Called CS this afternoon. Picked up on the first ring and I was speaking with a rep in Manila. Her English was poor and she really didn’t know what she was doing. After about 40 minutes on the phone as she repeatedly put me on hold I still didn’t have an answer. I told her I urgently needed the transmitters, so she transferred me to TS to have them extend my current transmitter’s life.
-
The call was answered by a stateside TS rep. He thought I might be a Tandem customer because of the caller ID on the transferred call. We cleared that up, but then he told me there is no way to extend the transmitter’s life and apologized for the Manila reps lack of understanding. He tried to transfer me to a stateside CS rep. I was cut off as he tried to make the transfer. It happened the instant he hit ‘transfer’ so I think it was their phone system.
-
Still no answer on when I’d have the transmitters, so I was back to square one! I called CS again. Answered immediately by a rep in Manila. This person’s English was great and she seemed to know what she was doing. I was on hold a few times as she checked with other people (maybe 15 minutes total). At the end of the call she promised the shipment would go out no later than Monday by FedEx overnight service. Sure hope that happens,
I get the feeling working with the Manila call center is going to be a rough ride, at least some of the time, as they get up to speed.
On the bright side? They picked up the call immediately!
If you have an iPhone, look into the Spike app which allows you to reset a transmitter and then keep using it either in Spike or back in the Dexcom app. I have reset transmitters several times in Spike and gotten 2-3 extra months because the Dexcom shutdown is only a software shutdown and has nothing to do with the actual status of your battery. If you use an Android phone, my understanding is that you can do the same thing in xDrip.
2 Likes
Thanks Laddie - I’ll check this out. I’m having problems installing the app but once I have it resolved I’ll start using it!
Thank you for the welcome!
It didn’t have anything to do with finances, luckily because my insurance covers both products. I switched to the Libre for two reasons:
First because the Libre is much flatter and closer to your skin; the Dexcom laid about an inch and a half off my skin and it was catching on things like doorways, my dogs, my baby’s feet, and also was a big bulge under my clothing that cosmetically I didn’t enjoy. Students were constantly asking me about my “bumps”. Even though this was an opportunity to educate them about it, I always felt it was embarrassing and annoying.
The second reason is because of the accuracy when taking acetaminophen. I found (and my CDE confirmed) that the Dexcom goes haywire and reads BG as extremely high or low after taking Tylenol or other painkillers containing acetaminophen, even though my levels were actually normal. That became annoying and almost useless to be wearing it, since at the time I was having a lot of back pain and couldn’t do without Tylenol, Motrin, whatever.
Overall I’m very happy that I switched. Especially since the 14-day Libre has only a one hour warm-up time. That beats Dexcom and the Libre 10-day by eleven hours!
Today I called the ordering department. Someone picked up the line in under 10 seconds. Today, my wife (also a G5 user) called and her call went thru to a live person in under 10 seconds also. It’s nice living in an alternate reality.
Some of you may not know that the ordering department is also open on Saturdays, in the US.
EDIT: Looking on dexcom.com I see there are duplicate orders: the one I started by responding to the email, and the one that was initiated when I called in today. I am quite sure that the QC department will put the kibosh on one of those orders before it ships.