Which Companies or Brands Have Earned - or Lost - Your Loyalty?

[Anderton]

I recently read an article about companies that had lost major customer loyalty over the past couple years, and I thought it would be interesting to find out if any particular companies or brands have earned, or lost, your loyalty.

 

For non-musical example, I have brand loyalty to Volkswagens. I bought a 1966 VW Beetle and it lasted me until 2000. It refused to die, and the cost per mile of running it was ridiculously low. When I couldn't find parts for it anymore, I figured I owed the company some loyalty, so I bought a 2000 new Beetle and yes, I'm still driving it . It doesn't have modern features like playback from USB drives (and it will cost me beaucoup bucks to get the air conditioning compressor fixed), but it drives great and is reliable. I feel like my loyalty has been rewarded. If I need to buy another car, it will be a VW (probably an eBeetle if it's available).

 

Some people try to buy from particular companies because they've had good experiences. Ditto particular keyboard models and guitars. Others felt they were burned, and said "no more."

 

How about you? What companies and/or brands have deserved your loyalty?

 

 

[analogika]

Tascam dropped support for a USB interface of theirs way too soon for my liking many years ago. Not buying anything new from them. 

[RABid]

I got Bitwig Studio 4 this week. The way they handled the recent fiasco impressed me enough to closely look at their product. MPE support, CLAP, the grid, the best hardware interface support I have seen in a DAW, ... I was hooked.

 

I know Amazon gets a lot of criticism, but their customer support has always been tops for me.

 

On the other side...

 

Gibson lost me when they bought Cakewalk, sold me a lifetime subscription, then dropped it a few months later. I sold my only Gibson guitar after that. I didn't want it or the bad vibe it was putting out.

 

Dish - I am so tired of them dropping channels as part of their contract renegotiations. As soon as cable is available I am dropping dish.

 

Many YouTube content providers that do synth/DAW/music production reviews. They are so obviously for sale to anyone willing to send them freebies. More of them should look at Sanjay C and his push to get watchers freebies, discounts, or chances to win the products being discussed.

 

Any restaurant advertising "boneless wings" that are really just chicken breast nuggets. It is an indication of the honesty. Makes me wonder what is really in that steakburger, or if the filet is really filet.

[Anderton]

48 minutes ago, RABid said:

Gibson lost me when they bought Cakewalk, sold me a lifetime subscription, then dropped it a few months later. 

 

As far as I can tell, Gibson has dropped all support for their ($$$$) high-tech guitars. The only good news about that is Tronical (the company that made the robot tuning) still sells spare parts for all the guitars' internal electronics. Unfortunately, though, they weren't involved with the computer interface, drivers, or software, which are essential elements of some of the guitars, especially the FBX (which cost around $4K IIRC). I think the new owners could have generated some goodwill by at least making some effort to take care of those who had dropped a bunch o' bucks into the guitars.

 

My other big disappointment is Propellerheads dropping ReWire support. The way it looks to me, they convinced the industry to adopt it as a standard, but when they didn't need it any more for their own products, decided it wasn't worth the effort. The irony is that it still works perfectly fine with Windows. The problem is having to redo it for Apple Silicon. So, why not just say they will support it only for Windows for the foreseeable future? 

 

I really appreciated how the original Alesis handled customer service. They said their products had a 90 day warranty, but in almost all cases, they'd fix it for free, years after you bought it. In reality, it was a lifetime warranty. They'd charge only if you'd actually abused the product.

[NewImprov]

3 hours ago, RABid said:

Gibson lost me when they bought Cakewalk, sold me a lifetime subscription, then dropped it a few months later. I sold my only Gibson guitar after that. I didn't want it or the bad vibe it was putting out.

I've never owned a Gibson guitar, but they lost me when they killed off OpCode. I'd invested big in Studio Vision Pro and MAX, and a set of their MIDI interfaces, at a time when I could barely afford to do so, and they killed off all the company's products with barely a warning. I felt severely burned. Invested in Logic shortly thereafter, while it was still an Emagic product, and have used it ever since.

 

The modern incarnation of Sequential really earned my loyalty over the last year. I bought a Take 5 new, and had several issues, first when the SoundTower editor/librarian locked up the keyboard, their customer support was very helpful, and talked me through the recovery process. Then, on one of its first gigs, I broke the shaft of a rotary encoder, they overnighted me a pair of replacements at no charge.

[Doerfler]

3 hours ago, RABid said:

 

Dish - I am so tired of them dropping channels as part of their contract renegotiations. As soon as cable is available I am dropping dish.

I have had Dish, Direct TV, Comcast(Xfinity), Verizon Fios,  and another lousy provider whose name I can't even remember. I no longer have TV as I used to know it.

 

F all of them.

 

High speed internet (Verizon) only and whatever streaming services I want on a month to month basis.

 

Bonus, I am saving hundreds of dollars a month. 

[David Emm]

I think I'll pass on slagging the companies who have roused my ire, lest I use the F word. 🤨

 

Cherry Audio has a PERFECT track record with me. Everything unpacks and then slides to the right positions so easily, I'm slightly unnerved. It feels like a company BY serious synth nerds FOR the same. Note the all-too-UN-common resizable GUI and prominent MIDI panic button. Those are features I'd always include myself where they're often neglected elsewhere. Its also engaging to see really fringe synths emulated (Elka Synthex) alongside useful originals like Sines. I've been tweedling the Elka-X quite a bit and really enjoying it.

[Anderton]

Ditton on Cherry Audio, which is related to the highly underappreciated Mixcraft DAW.

[Dave Bryce]

Another fan of Cherry Audio.  They are most definitely doing everything right.  I own a bunch of their instruments, and have yet to be disappointed in the quality of their products.  Their prices make it near impossible not to buy…

 

I also wanna give big props to Kali Audio.  Every speaker of theirs that I’ve heard has impressed me more than I expected.  I think they compare favorably with anything in their price point, and a few more expensive offerings as well.

dB

[Notes_Norton]

Disloyal (get the negative out of the way first):

 

I lost loyalty to Ultimate Support when they stopped honoring their lifetime warranty on my stand. I actually had to buy replacement parts for the stand that was supposed to last as long as I do.

 

Loyal (now for the good stuff):

 

Rico Reeds. I've been playing them since the 1960s. I've tried a few other brands, but always came back. Good, basic reeds with only a few duds per box.

 

It's a little thing, but I have loyalty to Dr. Slick's cork grease. I've been playing sax since I was a tot, and I've never had a cork last this long.

 

As far as stores, I like Sweetwater because they have always treated me right. If I can't find it at my local mom&pop store, Sweetwater is my next choice.

 

Lindt chocolate (80%). I'll go out of my way to find it.

 

D'Addario strings. I'm not an accomplished guitarist yet to know the subtle differences between strings, but I do know that the D'Addario's come in a moisture proof pack, and here in South Florida, I've had experiences with other brands in paper sleeves rusting before I put them on the guitar.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[mcgoo]

19 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Disloyal (get the negative out of the way first):

 

I lost loyalty to Ultimate Support when they stopped honoring their lifetime warranty on my stand. I actually had to buy replacement parts for the stand that was supposed to last as long as I do.

I've been trying to BUY replacement parts for their V-stand Pro for 2 years and they still don't have parts. Definitely not the company they used to be. 

 

Spectrasonics has earned my loyalty, simply because everything they make is stellar, bug free and useful. 

[Notes_Norton]

3 hours ago, mcgoo said:

22 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Disloyal (get the negative out of the way first):

 

I lost loyalty to Ultimate Support when they stopped honoring their lifetime warranty on my stand. I actually had to buy replacement parts for the stand that was supposed to last as long as I do.

I've been trying to BUY replacement parts for their V-stand Pro for 2 years and they still don't have parts. Definitely not the company they used to be. 

 

The company has new owners, who bought the name but didn't continue the dedication, IMO.

 

I told them what part broke, and they said, "You can't expect us to honor that guarantee indefinitely." I said, "Yes, I do. If you gave me a 10-year warranty, I would have accepted that, but you gave me a lifetime warranty."

 

 For a while, I bought used A-Frames on E-bay to replace the part that keeps working.

 

Then a few months ago, I found out they still make the part that keeps breaking. Why didn't they tell me they still make the part instead of just refusing to honor the warranty? Doesn't sound like good business practices to me. In fact, that irritated me.

 

I know that by law, I can force them to honor the warranty, but it was much easier to buy enough of those spare parts to last me 20 years at the rate they are breaking. Time is money, and the time required to fight them wasn't worth the price to just buy replacements.

 

So, I don't purchase sax, guitar, mic, music or other stands from that company anymore.

 

------

 

Loyal:

 

ThinkPad computers. I haven't bought anything else since 2002, and I'm about to retire one of the ones I bought in 2002. They are almost bulletproof, and in the rare instances I needed tech help, I got a person in the USA who was easy to understand and went above and beyond to help me.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

 

[RABid]

One that I forgot to mention as one of the worst ever!

 

Sirius/XM. I will never, ever, ever deal with them again. I called to cancel my subscription and the girl insisted that I had to listen to her pitch before she was allowed to cancel. She talked for 15 minutes and when I still wanted to cancel she hung up on me rather than take a cancelation hit on her record. I assume they are penalized if they cannot talk someone out of canceling. I called back and the guy answered and laughed when I told him that I was disconnected when I continued to insist on cancelation. He told me she entered a note into the system saying I was not happy with the service with no mention of cancellation. I had to listed to the 15 minutes spill again before he would cancel. It could be worse. A friend had to cancel his credit card to get the charges to stop.

[spokenward]

There are lessons to be learned here already. I'm going to call one of them reinforcement. That would be the sense that you made a good decision when you bought something.

 

Craig's VW experience lays out a timeline that completely counters mine. I was in on 3 VW purchases between 1976 and 1989. All were out of my life by 2000. All were fun at one time and desired. All betrayed me. And the company was run by actual criminals at the highest levels, but that doesn't negate Craig's positives which make perfect sense.

 

Notes' experience with USS broke when the company broke. I had some pieces from them circa 1991. I still have them, but fortunately they don't have to move around much. I remember their over the top marketing brochures that had to do with their religious beliefs. The pieces of that company were acquired when they failed in 2007 and those pieces were sold again last month. So, I say that the faith broke before the parts did.

 

I used to slag Gibson for the Opcode episode probably because it made me feel bad. I liked their idiosyncratic production style as I had liked Atari-based platforms before and I did not feel valued.

 

Looking around my space, I see more Yamaha than anything else. Does that make me loyal? Kind of. I don't feel stupid for buying very much of it. Their choices were guided by a certain engineering aesthetic.

 

I had thought that my loyalty would derive from my perception of integrity. Integrity is good, but clarity and respect for customers figure in this as well.

[Nowarezman]

The world of medical billing puts me into quandries.  I'm talking medical billing here in the good old USA where chaos reigns in the business side of medical providers.  A good doc with a lousy billing department - what do you do?  Typically I'll stick with the good doc (the whole point of the exercise)  and put up with billing problems unless they become insolvable.  

 

I'm sure everyone's got stories, so I won't add my personal tedious medical billing nightmares to the ones that you, dear reader, are still stewing over.  But here's one anecdote from my Dad's final billings from his Urology outfit - back in the 90s, Dad had been seeing his Urologist for typical old-man issues.  After Dad passed on and my brother and I were dealing with avalanches of medical bills Dad had pilled on his dining table, we had serious questions about some big bills from the Urologist in the $3K range.  The Urology practice had actually shuttered and vacated it's old premises - all the docs had moved on to other groups, which is pretty odd in itself. 

 

I happened to know someone - a medical admin type, pretty highly placed, who knew all about the problems with this particular Urology practice.  I asked him - "hey, as a theoretical question, is it possible that, say, a Urology practice could get its billing system so screwed up, and the docs so at risk of legal action, that said hypothetical Urology practice might decide to just shut down - but just before dismantling the billing department (known to be rife with billing errors typically to the benefit of the docs) they might just hit the PRINT ALL OUTSTANDING BILLS and send them to patients with no intention of fixing their screwed up balances?  

 

My buddy smiled and said, "uh...yes I would definitely say that is hypothetically very possible indeed."

 

nat

 

 

 

[Anderton]

58 minutes ago, spokenward said:

I used to slag Gibson for the Opcode episode probably because it made me feel bad. I liked their idiosyncratic production style as I had liked Atari-based platforms before and I did not feel valued.

As you may know, I worked with Gibson for several years, so I found out what happened with Opcode. Gibson had hoped to get into the DAW space, but shortly after they bought Opcode, they found that OS X was in development. By that time, the main people responsible for developing StudioVision had migrated to Apple. Also the Windows version wasn't fully baked. Gibson had no software team, couldn't get the people who worked on StudioVision to come back, and as a guitar company, really didn't have a clue of how to put together a new dev team from scratch and redo everything before OS X went public 24 months later. So, they just gave up.

 

If Gibson hadn't bought Opcode, I think its fate was already sealed anyway. The problem wasn't so much that Gibson "killed" it, but that they didn't have a realistic strategy for how they could revive it. For users, the main consolation is a lot of the expertise behind Opcode ended up in Logic. For Gibson, it was a total loss. There was still had a huge cache of obsolete audio interfaces sitting in a warehouse when I worked with the company.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, spokenward said:

Craig's VW experience lays out a timeline that completely counters mine. I was in on 3 VW purchases between 1976 and 1989. All were out of my life by 2000. All were fun at one time and desired. All betrayed me. And the company was run by actual criminals at the highest levels, but that doesn't negate Craig's positives which make perfect sense.

 

It sounds like I was fortunate to get a pre-"VW meltdown" Beetle, followed by a post-"we're sorry, we'll get it right this time" Beetle. I know plenty of other VW owners who've had reliability problems, although much less so recently. Maybe I'm just lucky  

 

I did have an electrical problem with the 2000. There was a known issue with the panel and VW had to replace them. I had bought the car second-hand, and even though it was out of warranty, VW replaced the panel for free and it's worked ever since. So that episode increased my loyalty rather than diminished it.

[Anderton]

Here's another case of loyalty: PC Audio Labs. I've been using their custom-integrated Windows machines pretty much since they first came out, and the performance and service has been flawless. I know people are attracted to the Mac because of its reliability, but I think the PCAL machines confirm that Windows can run just as reliably if you have the right hardware, and people who know what they're doing. 

[GovernorSilver]

Electric Violin Shop on the loyalty side

[Anderton]

All US airlines pretty much suck, but I'm loyal to JetBlue and Southwest because they suck less. When I need to make a reservation, I first check if JetBlue goes to where I need and if not, then Southwest gets the nod. I won't even touch Spirit, and I've had a lot of travel snafus with American over the years.

 

I'm not a fan of the Southwest cattle call seating, but being able to change schedules flexibly, and not be nickel-and-dimed for checking a bag, works for me. I think it's only a matter of time before most airlines have pay toilets

 

For hotels, I have no loyalty at all. I spend most of my time in a hotel being unconscious anyway - I always seem to arrive late, crash, and leave first thing in the morning. If anyone thinks a particular hotel chain deserves loyalty, let me know. 

[GovernorSilver]

Sorry, can't recommend any US airlines.  My aunt tried to get me to fly American Airlines because pricing for a particular destination and time was good, but after repeat issues with lost luggage, I just can't do it.    I was the miser who booked flights on Frontier and the like, but after some disappointing experiences, including being nickeled and dimed, I no longer cheap out on air travel.

 

Loved Crowne Plaza Hotel in Knoxville TN.  I'd been attending Big Ears Festival regularly, and had previously stayed at festival-recommended hotels.  Then a friend tipped me off on Crowne Plaza, which was never on the recommended list.  I realized that's on purpose - that's where the performers seem to be staying!    One day I stepped into the elevator and Rhiannon Giddens was in there munching on Doritos.   On my last night, I was having a drink to wind down and suddenly noticed Bill Frisell and his family were sitting at the bar too.   Not sure the hotel itself was all that special compared to the Hilton, Marriot or Sheraton families but the location was the best for festival activities, as well as muso sightings.  Oh and the bartender was awesome.

[RABid]

5 hours ago, Nowarezman said:

The world of medical billing puts me into quandries.  I'm talking medical billing here in the good old USA where chaos reigns in the business side of medical providers.

I'm a retired CIO (Chief Information Officer) and through my job at a community mental health center, aka, health department for mental health, substance abuse, and developmental delay/disability. In my time I chaired statewide groups in charge of collecting data, committees trying to prepare for managed care, and sat on the state data committee for 20 years. During that time if fussed, begged, pleaded and presented logical arguments that collecting more data did not improve healthcare. Then one day I overheard a conversation between a state official and a SAMSHA worker visiting from Washington. During that time we were promised reports of data that would help us make better decisions on medical care. In reality, the only reports we ever got dealt with data accuracy and completeness. But that day I learned why we really had to ask 300 questions on our intake form before admitting a patient into care. Yes, after hearing that conversation I understood. The SAMSHA official was telling the state official we needed to up our homeless numbers because the homeless population was the lates, greatest way to get increased funding through the house finance committees. And one way to up our numbers was to consider anyone in jail who did not own a house to be homeless. As the conversation continued it became obvious that the real goal of SAMSHA was to increase funding for Medicaid and Medicare. SAMSHA controls the dollars allotted for those programs. Any provider that wants to bill Medicaid or Medicare has to keep SAMSHA happy. That means asking 300 questions at intake, even if the patient is exhibiting signs of paranoia.

[bill5]

You DON'T want to get me started on the state of our medical profession today in a wide variety of ways (I'm not even talking about costs), so moving on...

 

Loyal: None. I'm a very much "what have you done for me lately" person. I get if you have a good experience it's reasonable to give the company the benefit of the doubt, but if a company I had a good experience with then does the opposite, bye, I'm looking elsewhere and maybe I'll check it out again down the road.

 

Disloyal:

AT&T. If you need to ask, you must be very young or not live in America. For decades they have excelled at sucking in customer service. 

Verizon. POFSs decided to cancel DSL in my area and only offers FIOS now, not regular cable internet, for a good bit more. Bite me. 

Waves. Their install/registration methods sucked so bad I don't care how good the plugins are.

Orchestral Tools. See Waves. 

Native Instruments. See Orchestral Tools. I only bought Kontakt because I got a great deal and there are so many good VIs/libraries that require it. And I got a steal on Massive, Absynth, and FM8 for $50. But it ends there. 

[Notes_Norton]

AT&T used to be a stellar company, before deregulation of telephone services.

 

I keep a land-line in addition to my cell service. In hurricane season, it's good to have two different phone sources. After one storm, all the cell service was out, and all my neighbors were welcome to use my landline, and they did.

 

After deregulation, AT&T purchased Southern Bell/Bell South, and the service immediately went down. Because I live in a place where the phone cable passes fewer homes per mile, and it borders a brackish water lagoon, maintaining the cable that services these homes is costly.

 

After the 3rd or fourth time of being put out of service completely, and taking up to 3 days for a repairman to even show up, I dumped AT&T and went to the Cable TV company for landline service. I haven't been out of service since.

 

So I guess my loyalty to "Ma Bell" was cancelled years ago.

 

Generally, if I get good service for a product, I will favor that company when it comes time for a replacement,

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

This topic is a bit tricky for me since I usually purchase used items. I've decided to answer to 3 categories. Loyalty to items bought new, Never Again to items bought new, and used items that have served me well. It doesn't seem fair to diss used items that have had problems since there is no telling what happened to them in the past so I will not mention them.

 

Loyalty: I've gotten 3 fantastic microphones by building kits from Microphone Parts dot com. One was a complete kit - T-67, one was an upgrade kit for a Groove Tubes mic that I ended up fitting to a modified MXL 1006bp and I also won an upgrade kit for an MXL 990 so I bought a "donor mic" and built that first. All of them came with all the correct parts, excellent manuals and online instructions and all 3 of them have worked perfectly after my first attempt to assemble them. The advice regarding tools was spot on and I love these mics. No dings, I would buy again with total confidence. 

 

D'Addario Strings. They have a huge variety of strings, are constantly innovating, reduced the amount of packaging while improving it as well with a sealed plastic bag that keeps the strings fresh and free of corrosion for years. The strings have been very high quality, consistent, sound great and last a long time. I own and use 6 and 12 string acoustic and electric guitars and also bass guitars, both fretted and fretless. I've also used their banjo and mandolin strings. I joined their Players Circle program and have gotten many sets of strings with the points I've earned entering the individual string codes on each package. At least twice in the last 10 years they've sent me free strings with a request and a simple form to fill out telling them what I did or did not like about the strings, postage paid. There is simply nothing to complain about. 

 

Never Again: Long ago and far away, I bought a Behringer mixer for a live project I was in. It sucked, I hated it. After trying to use it and realizing that it was too late to return it, I smashed it and threw it away. No more Behringer, ever, I don't care that they've upped the quality of the designs they've stolen. 

 

Used: I've owned a few Yamaha products, including a nylon string guitar, an electric guitar, a guitar amp and a mixer. All of them where/are well made, easy to use and delivered the goods. All of them have been reliable. I respect the brand, it is quality. 

 

Tech 21: I've owned a few of their products and have the Double Drive 3x which is a favorite "dirty clean / overdrive / distortion" pedal of mine. Super versatile, incredibly easy to program (I've adjusted and saved a program on stage in seconds a few times) and sounds great. I also LOVE my Tech 21 Q-Strip DI. It's a compact, active DI with shelving EQ for Bass and Treble and quasi-parametric EQ for Low Mid and High Mid. You can run guitars, basses, keyboards, mixing boards, whatever through the input, there is a parallel output that you can use any way you can think of and the DI outputs are both XLR and 1/4" TRS. Using the XLR output you can run it on phantom power OR you can use a 9v battery or a power supply. It's quiet, sounds great and the EQ allows you to tweak just about any tone you could want out of your instrument. Add in the foot switch so you can switch from a straight DI to the added EQ and it's an "all in one and does everything" box. I've done dual acoustic gigs where I needed a bit more volume to play solos and doing a bit of mid boosting turned the trick beautifully. It's a mainstay for recording bass too, I just love that box!

[Anderton]

Ditto on all of the above. D'Addario is a throwback to an earlier time, when companies were family-owned and the family name meant that it had to meet certain standards. They're good people who believe in, and care about, what they do. I hope they're never bought out by a conglomerate whose sole goal is to "strip 'n' flip" the company.

[RABid]

Another for the never again, WARNING! - stay away category. Godaddy. People here posted warnings not to use them, not to stick with them, get away ASAP or you will get screwed over. I didn't listen. I got screwed over.

[AnotherScott]

I still have my domain registrations at godaddy, but I've moved all my hosting to siteground.

[Nowarezman]

It's been what, a year or more since Sweetwater was bought out and Chuck S. I presume (and hope) is a very happy camper.  I haven't noticed any change in Sweetwater's way of doing business - big fan for decades, here.

 

nat

 

[RABid]

Why I bought 1 and only 1 Dell computer in my 22 years as head of IT. ... For years I bought computers from companies like PC Mall, always talking to the same salesman who was tied to our account at work, and always liked having some one to call if I ran into a problem. For years Dell called me, trying to get me to buy computers direct from them. 20 years ago I finally relented and did a test purchase. A single desktop for the CEO's secretary. The computer came in, we set it up, and she was happy with it. The next morning I get a call saying the computer will not boot. Called Dell and the customer rep walked me through formatting the computer and reinstalling Windows. That worked. The next morning I got a call saying the computer would not boot. Called Dell and the customer rep walked me through formatting the computer and reinstalling Windows. I told him that I did this the day before and wanted a replacement hard drive or new computer. He told me that they are not allowed to send out parts or replacements if they can get the computer going. The next morning I got a call saying the computer would not boot. I called Dell customer service who insisted that we format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. I refused. We put the old computer back on the desk and sat the new computer in the corner.

 

Six weeks later I got a call from Dell accounts payable, a very nice lady inquiring about an overdue statement for a desktop computer. 

"Can you pull up my customer service records?" I ask.

"Yes" was the nice replay.

"Can you see my repeated calls about the computer not booting every morning and my request for a new hard drive?"

"Yes."

"The computer refuses to boot again. It is setting in the corner and my CEO's secretary is back to using her old computer."

"I will have this taken care of."

 

The next morning the tech who repaired our IBM servers showed up with a new hard drive for the Dell desktop. After a few days of use to make sure the computer would not die again I approved payment of the invoice. Never bought another Dell.