Best & Worst Customer Service from Companies?

[Anderton]

So...who has great customer service, and who has crappy customer service?

 

In my experience, Waves is excellent. I don't think I'm alone; I see a lot of "I can't get my Waves plug-ins working with XYZ," people say "call Waves support," and a few posts later, the problem has been solved.

 

I've also had good luck with Apple. When downloading the latest OS bricked by MacBook Pro, they walked me through five steps, each more invasive than the last, until the problem was fixed (ultimately, it involved re-installing the operating system from scratch, but hey...it worked, and left the programs and data intact).

 

In the Land of Worst, AT&T is so horrible that all other companies look good by comparison.

 

So, here's your chance to throw bouquets and brickbats at various companies...

 

 

 

 

[Geoff Grace]

Considering that Apple rescued me the other day after Avid rendered my Mac unbootable and was unavailable to help fix the problem their software caused, I'm pretty happy with Apple right now (despite my opinion that the new Mac Pro is a bad fit for composers). The contrast is especially stark, considering that I was under warranty with Avid and out of warranty with Apple. Customer service doesn't get much better than Apple, in my experience.

 

Apple's process with me was the same as yours, Craig:

 

they walked me through five steps, each more invasive than the last, until the problem was fixed (ultimately, it involved re-installing the operating system from scratch, but hey...it worked, and left the programs and data intact).

In contrast, I've had to reach out for customer service with Avid twice during the last month. In both cases, I had to settle for belated email support that came two days after calling tech support. That's better than nothing, I suppose (although had I not been able to regain access to my Mac, I wouldn't have been able to receive their email; so in that case, it wouldn't have been better than nothing).

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Nowarezman]

AT&T tops our bad list. Time Warner next bad. And over time, various health providers have gotten harder and harder to deal with - canceled appointments, forgetting to send in Rx, sending bills that make no sense or are flat-out wrong, labwork gone missing, lack of response to calls or portal contact, etc etc. Some health providers are stellar so it's a very mixed bag.

 

Topping the good list - Sweetwater as ever. Local retailers tend to outperform big box outfits on average - Target is a real mess when it comes to customer service. Home Depot is usually great, 'tho. In Austin, the City provides most of utilities and their attitude towards customers is abysmal.

 

The IRS is doing better, just. They still have to hire aged programmers to keep their systems written in Cobol going. Cobol!! Serious - I know a guy who does this work, keeping the dinosaur systems going - sort of. Of course let's not talk about Congress who starves and whips the IRS alternately. No wonder they can be so mean....

 

nat

 

[Nowarezman]

AT&T tops our bad list. Time Warner next bad. And over time, various health providers have gotten harder and harder to deal with - canceled appointments, forgetting to send in Rx, sending bills that make no sense or are flat-out wrong, labwork gone missing, lack of response to calls or portal contact, etc etc. Some health providers are stellar so it's a very mixed bag.

 

Topping the good list - Sweetwater as ever. Local retailers tend to outperform big box outfits on average - Target is a real mess when it comes to customer service. Home Depot is usually great, 'tho. In Austin, the City provides most of utilities and their attitude towards customers is abysmal.

 

The IRS is doing better, just. They still have to hire aged programmers to keep their systems written in Cobol going. Cobol!! Serious - I know a guy who does this work, keeping the dinosaur systems going - sort of. Of course let's not talk about Congress who starves and whips the IRS alternately. No wonder they can be so mean....

 

nat

 

[Mike Rivers]

Well, I'm a Verizon customer, and while their service is nearly always there, they keep messing with my promos and discounts, and I usually have to make three calls before I get someone who is actually willing to help me. Last time, though, on the third call (three days after the first call) I got someone who not only went out of her way to get my rate fixed, but was really nice and explained what she did in order to restore my discounts. It turned out not to be trivial - after trying to add back a discount and having the system not allow it, she deleted my account and re-created it with the discounts and so far it's stuck.

 

Since who you get when you call is totally random, I'll probably end up with another joker next time. There are far more of those than there are aces.

 

If you consider web support to be customer service, well, I remember best what I've had the most trouble with most recently, and that's Starbucks. Everything that I wanted to do regarding my rewards card is on its own web page, with none of them linked. I had to go to Google to find the right Starbucks page. You'd think a corporation with that much money could hire a good web designer but apparently they got one who didn't know beans - coffee beans, that is.

 

[zeronyne]

AT&T U-Verse is pretty bad, but XFinity is actually getting slightly better.

 

I've never had a problem with Verizon's CS group, which is why I'm willing to pay almost double to keep using them.

 

In terms of MI,

 

Reverb.com has amazing customer service reps available via online chat.

 

Native Instruments has glacially slow response rates, BUT if you word the problem correctly, they will navigate complicated issues correctly. For instance, I sold a mk1 keyboard of theirs for a mk2 but didn't realize my upgraded Komplete software was tied to the serial number of the original keyboard. Also, the mk 2 i got was defective and I bought it used. After 60 days with numerous emails and even me weeping in the Keyboard Corner, they solved it and gave me a brand new keyboard.

 

Roland, Yamaha, Korg: bad, bad, bad, but to be fair, I have not called or emailed them in a while.

 

Almost all of the boutique modular synth manufacturers have really great customer service, even the ones that have had PR nightmares. But often, the owner of the company or the guy that literally built your module will write back or take your call.

 

And Sweetwater has always been great, GC is getting better, and MF is pretty good, too.

 

 

[nursers]

Good really good customer service from Crumar, very friendly on top.

 

Apple I rate low if you're not living near an Apple Store.

 

For aussie readers: check out Swamp Industries - I've only been buying gear from them for about a year but have been really impressed. More for accessories etc than instruments themselves.

[Doerfler]

Good really good customer service from Crumar, very friendly on top.

 

 

completely agree with this, David. Except I don't know what you mean by "on top".

 

Andrea has gone out of his way for me on more than one occasion.

[Anderton]

AT&T U-Verse is pretty bad...

 

I think AT&T sets the Gold Standard for horrific customer service. It will be hard for anyone else to catch up to being that horrific, unless they detonate a nuke accidentally or something of that ilk.

 

Reverb.com has amazing customer service reps available via online chat.

 

Agree completely, and the web site is super-simple to navigate. The whole site makes sense.

 

And Sweetwater has always been great, GC is getting better, and MF is pretty good, too.

 

Sweetwater is a well-oiled machine when it comes to customer service. They're not happy unless you're happy...good philosophy. Seems to have paid off for them

 

[RABid]

Great - Sweetwater

Awful - Sirius/XM

 

I continue to buy from Sweetwater. I will never subscribe to XM again and warns all my friends to never sign up.

[RABid]

Before I retired my goal was to remove all AT&T data lines from our agency. It was hard because AT&T had the phone lines in over half of our 8 county area and the purchasing agent really liked the AT&T rep. The billing problems eventually wore her down. They were constantly screwing up our billing and payments. The most frequent issue was applying payments to the wrong account, then canceling service on the lines that were actually paid for. This is a BIG issue when they cancel a suicide hot line, which they did more than once. The rep was no help. He had one and only one goal, to get us to perpetually sign contract updates to extend and expand service. I complained about him more than once, and he eventually got promoted.

[David Emm]

The main positives: Apple has treated me jaw-droppingly well, even completely replacing a RARE white elephant Mac with a newer one. I strongly encourage buying their extended warranties. They honor them well.

 

Applied Acoustics Systems has been very responsive, but I've only needed them twice. Their site is sublimely simple and accomodating.

 

G-Media hits the same high notes that AAS does.

 

Sequential is run by sober, polite adults. Hooray for Dave!

 

Both Camel Audio and Redmatica were winners in their day. Apple was wise to buy them.

 

I keep mentioning Kid Nepro for patches. If you have any older hardware synth in particular, the odds are good that they'll have a useful set or three for it. I've tweaked several of their Korg and Roland sets into welcome resources. Dealing with them is a snap.

The negatives: Aw, screw those! Its too easy to go there. I'm trying to rehabilitate myself and I have a practice session tonight. Please don't sprinkle Comet on my sundae!