Poor Customer Service

Since COVID began, I have pulled out much of my older equipment to tinker. Due to age and lack of use, I’ve need service or help from Benchmark, Audio Research, Gallo and Bel Canto. Despite the fact none of my equipment was punched new, all were extremely helpful and responsive. Gallo is now based in the UK yet someone called me back in a few hours to help troubleshoot my issue with numerous follow up emails. I needed a repair on a Bel Canto amp and none other than John Stronczer returned my emails. Audio Research sent me the resistors I needed.  Just amazing. 

Thanks for the responses everyone. I don't know a lot of the technical  details of one product and needed assistance and was having poor performance issues wth another that I was hoping they could guide me through. The former was my Parasound Integrated and the latter my pair of REL subs. @MC is right, if we don't call them out by name they get away with it. I know I'm a small fish but if we fishies stick together we might not get their chum. 

As much as I would love to buy from my local hifi store, I have had more bad experiences in the store while just browsing that I haven't been back. I'm not about to drop my hard earned money in a store where the employees give major attitude. I've had great experiences with Music Direct, Modwright and Command Performance near DC. All have been very customer service oriented and I've never had any issues. They will continue to get my business in the future.

This iswhyi bought USA made products Bricasti is great on every level , as well as Coda ,and Wireworld  never an issue .
mynew speakers will also be from North America ,Wilson, Magico 
Salk sound or someone else from North America .

@three_easy_payments..  Quite Indeed 

@tsushima1

Indeed frustrating. There are reasons forum members are cautious about naming brands and giving specifics because of the responses that it may draw. It gets viewed as a lose/lose proposition because you get slammed if you give details and you get attacked if you don’t.

There have been numerous cases documented in these pages of simply unacceptable service by any measure. You may recall the guy in another country whose speakers were dropped off at a station and he was supposed to drive hours away to pick them up. A forum member instructed him to "Use American ingenuity". "Do you want them or not?" he says. "Just go pick them up, and suck it up." The guy paid for direct delivery to his house.

Or another guy that didn’t get his speaker grills after months of waiting. A member’s response, "why would you possibly want grills anyway?"

More than once we are instructed to "embrace the suck" as if all vendors should assume no accountability - it’s all part of life. I thought by sharing in these types of threads that we are trying to prevent "letting them get away with it."

We can at least have the empathy to reflect on the OP’s situation with an ear of understanding and not mocking them with a "waaaaa". Please all - let’s make this a better place.

VTL will tell you to just upgrade to the newest model!  Shameless!!!

“When you complain about something without telling us who and what and why all it amounts to is a "waaaaa!" Everyone knows how bad customer service feels. We have all been there. This is going nowhere. Tell us who, and give us the details.”

All except when some poor guy tells the forum of the Neg service he received at the hands of Tekton and got ‘jumped All Over ’ you mean 

There are definitely no supply chain issues involved when a manufacturer can't even respond to emails - ever.  Most of the bad behaviors we see today by vendors with poor customer service were the same bad actors pre-pandemic as well.  And the exemplary vendors are the same as well.  In nearly all businesses solid communications smooths all rough edges.  Engagement is key.

OP, Some of the manufacturers have their own circles or groups on other websites.  These folks answer questions immediately and often get the techs involved directly.  I know James from Bryston is one example. There is a benefit to choosing a supplier of equipment that is engaged in this way.  The ones who do participate demonstrate a real concern regarding their reputation and usually it is someone at the leadership level and they want to know if employees are dropping the ball. Good Luck. 

As a retired salesman, I cannot overstate the benefits of providing exemplary service to your customers. Good service with help your business grow, while poor service will slowly erode consumer confidence and eventually result in a loss of market share. I recently had an example of both.    

Good service: Oppo. Even though the disk player I had was discontinued and the company had all but gone from the business, they went over and above to resolve a problem with the player's disk tray. They responded promptly, made it easy to ship the unit and did the repair for a very reasonable price. The unit came back with the problem fixed, cleaned, updated, in a new box. Seamless and efficient.    

Horrible service: Tidal. All I wanted to do is update my credit card. Because I never had the option to talk to anyone, could never even get an email response that wasn't generated by a software program, it wasn't possible to resolve the issue and I eventually gave up and switched from a credit card to PayPal. If Qobuz was available in Canada I would have unsubscribed on the spot, but for now I am biding my time until that day.

I am so tired of everyone blaming their incompetenace on Covid. Some may be justified, but many are just using it as an excuse.

ozzy

A little off-topic.. love plandemic :}

Before I buy the product I contact the manufacturer via email or voice with a question that I already know the answer to. How soon and how accurately they respond gives me an idea of what to expect in the future regarding customer service. Then you can only hope it holds up.
Two thumbs up for Bryston, VPI and Cary Audio.

One thing for sure, the less we share these sorts of experiences the more this lets them get away with it. Jungson refused to honor their warranty even once they knew for certain their amp was defective- because they had seen and heard it themselves! Then instead of replacing it they stopped returning my calls. I will never buy Jungson again and take every opportunity to let people know, so they can be informed and make up their own mind.  

When you complain about something without telling us who and what and why all it amounts to is a "waaaaa!" Everyone knows how bad customer service feels. We have all been there. This is going nowhere. Tell us who, and give us the details. A lot of these guys watch the web for stuff like this. You help us by warning us, help them by letting them know, and help yourself if they decide to do something about it.   

So: Who is it and what happened???

SGC before Covid.

I've never owned Bryston but I hear they have solid cust. service. Good choice.

I’ve had excellent response and support from the companies I deal with with the sole exception of Aurender. I finally became so unhappy with their quality of support that I dumped the damn thing and bought a Bryston BDP-3. Which is what I should have done at the outset.

I know many people praise Aurender support. My experience was that their email responses showed they never bothered to read the initial email inquiries. Support (in the US, at least) seemed to be provided only by one guy named "Ari."

I've never had a company outright ignore me. BUT....

I HAVE (just recently, actually) had a manufacturer take several days to get back to a question I made via email, but they DID eventually get back to me.

Unfortunately, that several day gap between communication (and I had called twice after opening the case via email) led me return the product for a refund. 

I chose a different option from a different manufacturer.

No surprise here ….

COVID redux has exascerbated it for sure, but far too many distributors and / or manufacturers had crummy post-sale or tech service even before the pandemic.

That is precisely why I chose BRYSTON as my digital media player and dac as an OEM supplier, Their tech support (and robust build quality and supporting manual ) is top shelf and always there for me ….. full stop.

As an example of the expanding contrasting norm, there are numerous digital streamers etc. that may be sold domestically; but when you check them out, their tech support is actually sourced offshore ( e.g Taiwan) that can only be contacted by a digital mailbox that frequently exhibits your black hole experience.
Yup, the response seems to be at glacier speed or continental drift , if any response at all.
The support workaround is to buy from a local experienced dealer and build that relationship.
Caveat emptor

Fortunately I've never experienced that with products I've purchased Emotiva, Parasound, Pass, Ayre and Magnepan where someone always answers the phone or email but agree not to respond is a sign of disrespect and I wouldn't trade with that company again either.
Good luck