The good & the bad customer service.

[jancivil]

Yeah, I bought a Novation controller thingy at the same time I bought Cubase 5. It didn't work for Cubase 5 and they were pretty much 'too bad', rather dismissive; the workaround didn't work, I was SOL. Shit happens. I maybe could have checked for compatibility in the first place.

[tapper mike]

I'll say this without reservation.

Roger Linn is amazing.
I had an issue with a usb port that wasn't sending enough electricity to my linstrument. As a result the linnstrument wouldn't properly power up on any usb port or the 9v. RL who was on vacation during Christmas in another continent came to my rescue and instructed me on how to get it going again. The linnstrument was off of the warranty and I couldn't afford shipping let alone a bench. In minutes it was up and running.

And just recently. I decided to make use of the Bitwig version that RLD provides in the package. I'd lost all the accompanying documentation. Roger Linn responded to my email in less than an hour and provided all the info I needed.

[Aloysius]

RL. Finally got a refund out of him some years ago. Which goes to show that even the service provided by the same person can be inconsistent.

[Deep Purple]

<Pedantic Mode>@OP - you used the word "there" in place of "their" multiple times</Pedantic Mode>

[Hink]

ayuh, cant get they-ah from here-yah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJBUZm1HoY

edit: hah...it mentions my town...bucksport...that's bert and I, I bought those albums for my dad at xmas when I was a kid and that is pretty much what it sounds like 'round these parts

[Bombadil]

I've never had too many issues with stuff I've bought online. I've had more issues with shady brick and mortar music shops than anything else.

Last year, I bought a VOX AC15H B-Stock, marked as showing 'slight traces of use.' The reverb was DOA. When I called Thomann to complain, I was told that they'd send me a new replacement...with a 2.5% discount for my trouble and their misrepresentation (arranging a DHL pickup, the thing was too heavy to cart to the post office). I got really pissed, and sent them an email threatening to never buy anything from them again. I've spent many thousands of €€€€s there over the last 14 years. One of their customer reps got back to me and gave me a new unit for the B-Stock price. So, can't complain too loudly over that.

I've had IK support not get back to me about some issue or other. I do not foresee buying much from them in the future.

Recently, I had an issue with not being able to download a tutorial from MacProVideo. Customer support, despite being in Vancouver, 9 hours behind me, got back to me immediately and solved the problem. Further, the tutorial in question was about how to do something in Logic 9, though the parameters in LPX are different. Christian helped me sort out that specific issue right away.

So, not too much to complain about, thankfully.

[sin night]

Having been a former support technician and supervisor.

It really depends on the commitment of the guy in charge. It's hard to find competent techs with programming knowledge who want to be techs. In smaller operations this can be handed off to software developers who have little patience or interpretive skills. It's the last thing they want to do so they brush it off as long as they can.

In larger operations support is shuffled off to third party companies that work off of scripts (India) They never vary from the script, They may not fully understand the issue at hand and as a result when something doesn't go right they go back to the beginning of the script and start from there.

It takes a lot of hand holding for a manager to work things through with tech in support. Especially due to the misconception by the general public that being an arsehat is the only way to communicate or just a form of fun. And it's a delicate balance for the tech to when explaining the difficulties a given caller is providing.

This.

I work for a consultancy firm and I'm part of a team providing technical support (= fixing bugs) on the software we make for a very big customer (our final users are the employees of that customer). Everything is done here in Italy (both the our customer and us are italian), so the situation is handled better than having a third party support company working somewhere else in the world... but it's still not an easy task.

We, developers, have a different mindset than our customers, so sometimes they do things we don't expect, or they explain the issues in a way which is not clear for us (they often don't provide some details, they take things for granted...). It's nobody's fault, it's just a different background...

Sometimes it takes a good effort (and some creativity) on our end to understand how to reproduce an issue. And this of course has an impact on the resolution time.


Also, this job is not so nice. It's good to learn what you must not do as a programmer (so you get your code right at the first time), but it's frustrating fixing someone else's mistakes, and trying to do it fast.
You may write just a few lines of code in a week and spend the rest of the time testing, debugging... it's not really what a developer dreams (in fact, my employer decided this was/is my task, it's not something I asked for). I have a few years of experience at support tasks and I'm quite good at it, but sometimes I miss doing "proper" development (= creating new functions). Actually, I know some people were openly unhappy when they were moved from the development team to our support team.

The skillset in a support position is a bit different than development, it takes some time to learn (but it's useful when/if you go back to a development team) and, in my experience, it's not taught at school.
It's not easy to have a good support team; developing something new is easier (especially if you know there's someone else fixing your bugs later on... )



From a customer perspective, I think it's good to learn to have all the details at hand before calling the technical support. Being precise at explaining the issue, providing as much details as possible from the start... I think this pays both for the customer and the support team, it makes the whole process more straighforward.


Just my 2 cents, of course!

[mike_the_ranger]

FabFilter was very kind and quick and has sent me an intermediate version of a plugin like an hour later.
Melda support was meh since pretty much the only response was that it must be a bug in all daws, but never their fault.
IKMM well pretty much standardized responses.
Vengeance slow and very short answers. Felt not like I was a worth customer to them.
Native Instruments never replied to me

[PsYAuM]

I have to add Endeavor FX to my list of software developers that i highly highly recommend as being very responsive and helpful.
Really really high quality customer service right up there with the very best.
Very impressed with them.
Highly recommended company to do business with.
ps
nobody will be surprised by this who has read the GS forum topic about CC

[lwj]

Having managed a support desk, I can tell you exactly which kind of customer gets the timely, helpful reply... and which ones get the boiler plate, canned response right before end of play. That's just the way it is... like everything else in life, it's a two way street...do unto others, etcetera.

Of course I'll be more than happy to send you the canned reply apologizing for our mistake and the 'breakdown in communications' and re-affirmng that yes, every customer is indeed absolutely KING. Even the ones that are not on the Premium Plan that dispenses free SOMA with every 3rd support ticket you open. I am here to make you happy.. beep bop, krrrrr... oh liege lord, have a voucher!

[LoveEnigma18]

In my experience, Arturia has so far been the best in this regards. Their support team communicates in a way that reflects that they actually want to help as much as they can.

Fortunately, I have never had a bitter experience with any company (NI, FabFilter, Soundtoys, etc.) for that matter.

[Aloysius]

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