First Light Optics

[crimpshrine]

I ordered from FLO for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I had some questions and they were quick to help and offer sound advice. I did have a problem with the Coma Corrector I ordered from them. It had a couple of scratches across the front element. I took a quick photo and emailed it to them. Within 48 hours I had a replacement in my hands along with some stamps to send the damaged one back.

Great service and I will be ordering from them again. Thanks guys.

[todd8137]

Ordered coli cap couple a days ago and came today normal,service prompt as ever well packaged and instruction great bit of kit better than a cap,with hole in .why because it's silver underneath

Pat

[jam1e1]

Thanks for quick delivery on the skymax 180, also for the hidden delivery feature of scheduling delivery for when other half is out

Hope you will be offering reconciliation services for when she finds out about third scope!

[hobsey]

Just wanted to say a big thank you to FLO for my free solar glasses, completely forgot I put my name down for a pair.

This morning would have been ideal to try them out but as with all new gear, by the time I found them on the doorstep it had clouded over.

[todd8137]

Ordered Friday afternoon tracking was provided came this morning 09:00 fast prompt as normal ,I did contact before I ordered to check stock thanks all at FLO

Pat

[Steep]

Thanks to FLO for superb service, ordered a polarscope yesterday and had it delivered this morning first thing.

[Fozzie]

A week ago I stupidly some how managed to break a slow motion control on my eq5 and I enquired with Steve @ FLO about a replacement, knowing full well these seem to be quite difficult to source in the uk. FLO came back within the hour stating they had enquired with the suppliers and we're awaiting a response.. Yesterday, mainly because I feel my enquiry was trivial I got fed up of waiting for a response via FLO... Let's face, it I'm happy with the FLO response, but they will have some serious enquiries to deal with so I ordered a few items including the eq5 flex controls on Friday afternoon.... Delivered Saturday morning...

Again prompt response, I believe they enquired forward and Saturday delivery from a Friday afternoon order...

Don't think you can ask for more really (however if that slow mo control knob turns up I'll have it :-)

[bruno]

 Just like to thank the people at FLO for their speedy service, Ordered a Skywatcher field flattener thursday 24th about 19.00hrs and recieved it this morning  at 09.00 hrs  thanks once again 

[davefrance]

Whist in the UK recently I wanted some equipment but as I was continually on the move it was a difficult exercise. FLO came to the rescue. Having emailled them to check stock and explaining my predicament to them, they said that if I ordered promptly they would get it to me next morning. Sure enough at 07:50 the next morning the goods arrived just as promised. So a special thank you to Martin and the rest of the team for helping me out. Also for the after service, had a couple of queries, emails answered within minutes. You cannot get better than that.

[Hobbes]

The true measure of any retailer is not how they perform when things right but how they react when things go wrong.

I ordered an AZ-EQ6 mount from FLO. The mount was delivered within 24 hours.

As it was an anniversary present from my wife I held off opening the boxes for a couple of days.

When the fateful date arrived I assembled the mount and fairly quickly noticed that there was quite a bit of movement between the mount head and tripod, even with everything tightened up. 5 mins with a vernier gauge the next morning revealed that the cylinder on the bottom of the mount head had been over milled by 1mm when compared with my old NEQ6. This translates into enough movement to shift a star completely out of the FOV of my widest angle eyepiece.

Emailed FLO the next morning - response was rapid. Steve asked me to test a few things which I did. He then arranged to have the mount and tripod picked up and sent to the Skywatcher engineer. I asked if the mount could be returned this week as I wanted to take it on a camping trip over the bank holiday weekend.

He has now emailed to say that as the engineer has gone off sick and is unable to look at the mount today he will be sending a new mount out to ensure I have it for the weekend.

Great service!

1 Happy customer.

I would highly recommend FLO.

Oh yes - he was also very tolerant of my complaints about a "faulty" Rigel Quikfinder in the same order. - It works much better if you look through it right way round!

[scorpio1948]

Hi All,

Following advice I received from several members on this Forum, I've been in touch (E-Mail) with Flo.

As a newbie I had quite a few questions for them.

In all fairness, they answered straight away, even though it was a Bank Holiday weekend. Very impressed by the service.

I have ordered several items from them, including a heated dew shield, and all the stuff recommended to go with it, plus a focussing mask. 

Unfortunately, one of the items was out of stock, they immediately e-mailed me and asked me if I wanted to wait or if I wanted to split the order. (The out-of-stock item was a 12V mains adapter).

With the current weather I can't see anyone in this area doing any Stargazing, so I decided to wait.

I only ordered yesterday (31/05).

Anyway, their communications were easy to understand with no double-sales-talk, as a matter of fact they made a suggestion that actually saved me money.

Like I said, Very impressed, just have to wait to see how long it will take before they re-stock the adapter.

Cheers All

Pete.

[BinocularSky]

Ordered a small binocular on Sunday afternoon. I accompanied the order with a request that it was sent by next day delivery as I wanted it by today; I offered to pay any extra P&P  to ensure that this happened.

An email on Monday confirmed that it would be sent out by next day delivery; no additional charge was made for this.

When it arrived today (just after lunch) it was in a box big enough to get a 15x70 in. Initial thought was "wasted packaging" - then I saw the socking great dent in the packaging. With some trepidation, I unwrapped it; the outer cardboard box was ruptured with polystyrene packing beads making a bid for freedom. The inner box was completely unaffected and the binocular inside was in pristine condition.

Firstly, good service!

Secondly, packaging that defeats the best efforts of careless carriers has to be a good thing.

[Floater]

Keeping it brief, I emailed FLO inquiring about a solar filter. Steve replied quickly, asked a question, I replied then, following his advice, ordered the filter online.

It arrived 21 hours later.

There is no room left for improvement. Faultless service from first inquiry to fulfilment.

AND this was while they were running a clearance sale that day.

(Saw an earlier thread suggesting FLO fans might be 'on commission'. Take it from a hard-to-please Scot, that ain't the case.)

[spaceboy]

I never know whether to post a review on FLO as users of SGL have already become so accustomed to their reputation of good customer service, competitive prices and timely delivery.

I did though want to take the time to show my appreciation and give them a two thumbs up  for all their help when it was needed.

Keep up the good work First Light Optics !

[Charic]

 For a company to go out of their way to help their customers I cant thank flo enough in the way they have just dealt with my shopping experience on this occasion. I have  some special delivery requirements, that differ to their normal methods of delivery, and flo were willing to change their method on my behalf and my goods arrived safe and sound. I know from previous reports that other folk have also had a great shopping experience with flo, one way or another.

I'll single out Martin, SteveB and James who all had  something to do with my correspondence and the end result. 

Once again, thank you.

[BinocularSky]

I ordered an adaptor plate for an AZ3.. Delivery was cited as "1-3 days" which, I assumed, implied that it was in stock at the importers, but that FLO did not hold stock themselves.

I was kept informed all the way as to when FLO expected to receive it and when it was dispatched to me. This doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the delivery time, but it does make one feel that even this tiny order was being "looked after". Makes all the difference: thanks!

[Dave_D]

Ordered 2 rolls of flocking a couple of days ago and it just arrived. Best service i've ever had. Only one problem though... I now have no reason to put off drilling more holes in my OTA.

[daiwelly]

I ordered a Skyliner 200P 12.30pm Wed and was delivered by 9am Thursday a big thank you to Martin and the rest of the crew excellent communication and service from FLO

[Chris]

Just brilliant:

* Bought ex-display Vixen BT81 binocular telescope for a good price, asked for them by chance on the clearence thread!

* Delivered promptly as always

* Had problem with star shapes and double image when used with my existing 20mm pair of eyepieces which came with my WO binoviewer.

* FLO sent me out a pair of Vixen 15mm SLV eypieces to see if the scope or my eyepieces were the problem.

* Eyepieces arrived the very next morning.

* I tested the scope with new eyepieces that night and the scope worked great! so the problem was with the tapered barrel of my existing eyepieces.

* I'm buying these eyepieces but at no point was I obliged to as they were sent as a loan

* Aware that me and my wife have just had twins, FLO sent us a present and card for the twins! Both me and my wife are blown away by this!

oh yeah, furthermore, because the Vixens were ex display they were not sent in the original packaging for obvious reasons. Without me even asking they have arranged for the original packaging to be sent to me from Japan!

Simply outstanding service!

Chris

[Earl]

I ordered a Starsense a few days ago, delivered next working day to have a DOA handset which was replaced at 10.30am the follwoing morning plugged in and working fine.

Excellent Service thank you guys!

[DirkSteele]

I somehow managed to misplace my Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece and needed it to check the collimation on one of my refractors which had taken a knock before a trip to a dark sky site.  Despite turning the house upside down, I was unable to locate it so turned to FLO for a new one with the usual quick delivery.  I placed an order for the Premium Cheshire on the website at 10:50am, received an email immediately confirming my order and then another email at 4:18pm the same day informing me the item had been dispatched.  It was waiting for me in the next day when I arrived home from work.

Smooth and reliable as always.

[Ulaw]

E-mailed FLO 29th august 09:17 about T-rings and adaptors, got a reply from SteveB 10minutes later advising me on which were suitable for my setup and links to the website for easy ordering.

Placed my order at 11:18 (why I took so long to place the order I have no idea)

Order was despatched just after 16:00, arrived at my door this morning about 10:00, less than 24 hours after it was ordered! 

Both items packaged perfectly and work just as they should.

What more could you ask for?! Unbelievable service from FLO once again!

Paul

[bish]

Ordered my 3rd telescope through FLO on Monday evening and it arrived today. All 3 times they have exceeded my expectations.

[szymon]

I've had a couple of experiences with First Light Optics so far, and I wanted to document them here.  I know that there is already a whole host of reports on how good their customer service is, and that I'm just adding to it...but I wanted to write it nonetheless.

The first time I reached out to FLO was to ask questions about a mount I was planning on buying.  There was a "slight" sales angle to it, in that I was asking about options for upgrading the mount, but what I got back far exceeded expectations.  I got reams of advice, with instant response time, and it was clearly good honest advice -- I could tell, because the strongest recommendation was *not* to buy anything from them!  A retailer could have easily taken my inexperience as an excuse to sell me something, and it says a lot for FLO integrity that they did not.  When I complimented them on their approach, the response was "I think it helps that we are all active in the hobby, so have some enthusisam for helping others who have the same interest".

I went back to FLO when I was trying to buy a replacement rubber eyecup for a second hand Baader Hyperion MkIII Zoom that I was buying from someone on SGL.  I actually reached out to a couple of shops; everything was sorted by FLO before I even got a response from any of the others!  Best of all was this: "Good news, the Supplier has one and will send FOC if in with another order from us, we order on a regular basis so it wont be long.  I will send it for just the postage cost if thats Ok".  Frankly, I was over the moon.  I didn't even have to pay the separate postage cost, as I was just about to order a Light Pollution filter and they just put it into that package.  Bear in mind, I was fully expecting to pay some £20-30 for the eyecup and they could have easily charged me for it, but since Baader themselves didn't charge them they didn't charge me!

My third interaction with FLO was when I wanted to buy a Skywatcher Synscan handset holder for my HEQ5.  The mount was second hand and came without the holder as the original had managed to lose it (I believe he used to control the mount with an EQMod cable).  Again, the response was instantaneous and surpassed expectations: "I have a holder here and you can have it. I can pop it in with any future order if you want to avoid more postage costs Simon :-) just let me know when you have a live order so I can pop it in for you ( or let me know if you want to pay for postage to have it sent on its own)".  I ordered an Eyepiece projection adapter for my Hyperion zoom which I had been planning to buy anyway, and today a package arrived with both in it.

I'm very new to the hobby, and am honestly amazed to have received such good service, the best I have ever received from any retailer anywhere.  Frankly superb.  FLO are absolutely my first stop for anything astronomy-related now, and they've earned a customer for life.

-simon

[pyrasanth]

I collected my new imaging toys from FLO's distribution center today in person. The gang made me feel really welcome. It is good to deal with real people & not an automated robot which is so familiar with many web based companies. They even took the time to check that all the camera mounting accessories being supplied were suitable to couple everything together. Outstanding service- I wish the every success & FLO will have my continued custom.