Well, I finally made my decision and I will be buying an Aspen Arcadia. I’m waiting to hear the price on adding the salt system, and if I can swing it, I’ll be adding that, too. I really appreciate all of the input you folks have given me. I’ve asked quite a few questions in fairly quick succession and no one gave me any crap or acted annoyed. Very kind of you all.
Anyway, I want to give a few of my thoughts on Aspen as I wish I had been able to find more reviews on them and I want to do my part for future customers. I plan on writing this review, which will cover their customer service during the shopping phase, and then a follow-up review after I’ve used it for a month or so and then one more after I’ve used it for a season.
Initially, I was considering a Viking and then a Marquis. My dad then stumbled upon Aspen, called the company to ask a question and proceeded to have a long talk with Dan, who happens to be a member on this forum. My dad was very impressed and asked me to check them out. I was a bit annoyed at the request as I was decided on the Marquis and was sick of shopping, but this was a family purchase for the family lake house, so even though I’m doing the bulk of the legwork, I felt obligated to humor him.
The product looked nice enough on their site but I couldn’t find a whole lot about their reputation. What little I found led me to believe they had a solid reputation. They reminded me of Ebbtide, a small boat manufacturer from Tennessee who made fantastic boats which rivaled any of the usual big name companies you see on the well-to-do lakes in Indiana. It seems that like Ebbtide, Aspen is just a smaller, family company that builds a solid product but doesn’t have a large advertising budget so you don’t hear tons about them. I’m fine with that and, in some ways, prefer it. I have found that companies like that tend to offer you more bang for the buck as their overhead is lower since advertising is probably a company’s largest expense, after payroll.
Anyway, their customer service has been FANTASTIC. Emails have been answered promptly. The dealer, Jason’s Wholesale out of Granger, Indiana gave me his cell, and has responded promptly and graciously given us plenty of his time. He even offered to buy me dinner if I wanted to drive up and test the tub one evening (I live 2 hours away).
And finally, I “stalked” Dan, the manufacturer’s employee who is a member on here, by pulling up his posts and just seeing things he’s had to say. Obviously he has spoken highly of Aspen. But what has, in my opinion, given him a lot of credibility is how many great things he has said about other companies and other companies’ tech.
So there you have it. I’m a business owner also and I’m a firm believer that good customer service and honorable business practices should be pointed out and made available for potential customers to see. I’ll leave a review of the actual product when I receive it, good or bad, though I am very optimistic that it’ll be good. Thanks again for all the input.
