Phil B Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Given that forums like these are so often used to carry out revenge on companies that provide a bad customer experiences, I thought I'd just pop in with a great experience I just had with a company I've seen get its share of knocks ... MOTU. I have one of the early 828mkIIs - I've had it well over a year now (i.e., well out of any warranty period). I knew about the LCD problem with the early units, but I never had the problem ... until last week. My LCD went dark for good. I emailed MOTU customer service and got a response the next morning. After a bit of helpful back and forth (all that same day), they gave me a return authorization number, I sent it out to them and I just got it back today, less than one week later. I'm not saying they did anything they shouldn't have or didn't need to do. All I'm saying is that they did exactly what I hoped they would have done in a situation like this when I dropped my money on their product. Thanks MOTU. I figure people could use this thread to post some exceptionally good experiences they've had with companies that make them want to do business with the companies again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Sayers Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Yeah - I've got one. Recently we had huge lightning storms and one friday afternoon I was online thinking the lightning had finished and suddenly this huge blast blew out my HP laptop's modem. On saturday I called HP service and ended up talking to an Indian in Bombay. He was very polite and put me through some tests to establish it was the modem at fault - once established he asked if I knew of the Gold Coast - yup live next to it - Ok take you puter to this address in two working days. On Monday at 10am I was called by a HP service center, had a new modem installed by 12pm. Not bad. cheers john Studio Design Forum Studios Under Construction Home Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 I got two. 1. Mackie. Our HDR 24/96 developed a dead LED segment on the front panel, really not a problem since it's connected to a GUI anyway, but I called tech support to see if I could get a replacement part and DIY. next day, I get an entirely new machine, with call tags to ship mine back, and a couple Mackie Tee shirts. all no charge. 2. Rode. My out of warranty (18 months) NTK developed distortion and noise. I changed the tube, but this had no effect on the problem. I called Rode tech support, and got an RA and info to ship for repair. They sent me a call tag, repaird the problem (in the PSU) and returned the mic to me all no charge. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Oooh, I got one. I called IBM yesterday late afternoon to get a replacement docking station for an X series laptop. Today before noon I had the replacement with a pre-paid shipping label for the bad unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phait Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Originally posted by John Sayers: On saturday I called HP service and ended up talking to an Indian in Bombay. He was very polite and put me through some tests to establish it was the modem at fault...Good overseas tech support... wow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnorman Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 i have had extraordinarily good experiences with bruce myers at DPA in colorado, and with john lagrou at millennia media. not only do those guys work very hard to acheive customer satisfaction (as well as dealing in the absolutely best gear made, IMO), they are also both full of professional guidance and experience in the use of their products. they are just all-around wonderful guys to work with. with computers,you simply cannot touch IBM - the BEST technical support in the world and surely the best laptops ever made. i supprted about 50-60 thinkpads of various models at my office for several years, and they used to actually send repairmen to my job site to repair thinkpads. in all the times i have called tech support, i dont think i have ever been put on hold for a tech. ad mittedly, sometimes i wind up talking to some dude in india who may be a bit difficult to understand, but they always seem to know their stuff. jnorman sunridge studios salem, oregon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil B Posted December 8, 2004 Author Share Posted December 8, 2004 Originally posted by where02190: Mackie...next day, I get an entirely new machine, with call tags to ship mine back, and a couple Mackie Tee shirts. all no charge.That's pretty remarkable - now I understand a little better why you dislike Behringer so much. Mackie's always been good to me too. Haven't owned a Rode ... yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Originally posted by Phil B: Originally posted by where02190: Mackie...next day, I get an entirely new machine, with call tags to ship mine back, and a couple Mackie Tee shirts. all no charge.That's pretty remarkable - now I understand a little better why you dislike Behringer so much. Mackie's always been good to me too. Haven't owned a Rode ... yet!My dislike for Behringer is simple, they make crappy gear from poor quality parts with unskilled labor and nonexsistant quality control. I'm not a gear snob, but I do want a good product for my money. (I won't even get into the many obvious copycat products they put out.) Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeT156 Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Best non manufacturer tech support in the business is Sweetwater. Knowledable, polite people, even though I always beat my sales engineer (Robert Dorian) up on price. He remains friendly, and still returns my calls. Considering these guys work on straight commission, I appreciate his efforts and sense of humour. Best manufacturer support in the business is Yamaha. I've read a few posts that have been negative, but they're still the best. Footnote to John Sayers...To bad HP uses India for their tech services and not Americans. I know that belongs on the "other" forum, but its a fact. Mike T. Yamaha Motif ES8, Alesis Ion, Prophet 5 Rev 3.2, 1979 Rhodes Mark 1 Suitcase 73 Piano, Arp Odyssey Md III, Roland R-70 Drum Machine, Digitech Vocalist Live Pro. Roland Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Originally posted by jnorman: with computers,you simply cannot touch IBM - the BEST technical support in the world and surely the best laptops ever made.I agree that their support is the best. We still have 5 year old IBM Thinkpad's kicking around that still work after much abuse. However, my company recently decided to go over to HP for some reason, and my experience with their support hasn't been as good, but it's still acceptable. I hate to say it, but IBM's quality control has been somewhat lacking as of recently. I've had about 10 systems that I've had to send back for various reasons this year that were essentially brand new and well taken care of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticsound Posted December 9, 2004 Share Posted December 9, 2004 Originally posted by jnorman: ...with computers,you simply cannot touch IBM - the BEST technical support in the world and surely the best laptops ever made. i supprted about 50-60 thinkpads of various models at my office for several years, and they used to actually send repairmen to my job site to repair thinkpads. in all the times i have called tech support, i dont think i have ever been put on hold for a tech. ad mittedly, sometimes i wind up talking to some dude in india who may be a bit difficult to understand, but they always seem to know their stuff.That may be about to change... a LOT. IBM has been in negotiations to sell off their entire computer business. An unofficial announcement was made on NPR this morning, and a press conference was scheduled for this afternoon. And the Google results are in: Read this to know more the financial details of IBM\'s sale to Lenovo of China. It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman Soundclick fntstcsnd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTRBass Posted December 9, 2004 Share Posted December 9, 2004 Symmetrix: I bought an old stock out of the box Symmetrix headphone amp at a going out of business sale. The 18v AC adapter was missing. I called Symmetrix to inquire about ordering one direct. The tech on the phone took my address, and shipped me one for free along with a photocopy of the small user's manual. This was after I told him I bought this at a music store "garage sale" for $25.00 and would be happy to pay for it! Needless to say I have all the Lucid Technologies gear in my studios. They're a division of Symmetrix. They rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted December 9, 2004 Share Posted December 9, 2004 I've had several great experiences over the years... three that stand out and come immediately to mind: Frontier Designs: A Montana / Dakota card setup arrived from a dealer with a defect. Charlie at Frontier took the time to personally help me troubleshoot it over the phone (spent about 20 minutes with me on that call), determined that it was indeed defective, and Fed-Ex'ed me a new pair overnight without even asking for a credit card. They paid for shipping of the defective units back to them too. Rode: My stand mount for my NTK broke very early on - stripped out. They not only sent me a new one, but tossed in a shockmount for my trouble. Digidesign / M-Audio: This one is ongoing. I've got a Digi 002 (PT 6.7) and a M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI card (Sound Forge 5 and 6) on my main DAW, but ever since upgrading to PT 6.7, they won't work and play well together. Even though my Athlon 64 CPU isn't officially supported (according to the Digi compatability docs), nor is the use of a secondary audio card on the same PC that's running PT (for simultaneously running Sound Forge for recording the two track mix coming from my Yamaha digital board via the S/PDIF in on the Audiophile), they've spent a lot of time trying to help me out, and they've been keeping me updated on their efforts and test results. I just got an update call this morning asking for a little more information, as well as to let me know that M-Audio is now in the loop and testing things. I've got a bunch more, but that's a representative sample of some of the good customer service experiences I've had over the years. BTW - great thread idea - it's always good to give credit where credit is due. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticsound Posted December 9, 2004 Share Posted December 9, 2004 I forgot to mention my great customer service experiences! Morley - The fiddle player who was in Lila McCann's band when I mixed monitors had moved on and was playing for Mindy MacCready. She would be tripling. Fiddle, Mandolin, and guitar, all with pickups. She came to me looking for an ABC switcher. Someone directed me to Morley, but they had ceased to make their AB/C pedal. The website said they were closing out a number of pedals and would sell them dirt cheap to get rid of the stock. When I phoned them, again, no AB/C pedal. However, they still had some printed circuit boards. I explained my situation to a tech who offerred to send me the circuit board with several electronic parts already assembled! All I had to do was buy a few resistors, build a box for it, and put the whole thing together. As it turned out, she decided to go another route entirely (separate DI's), so I ended up with a great switcher pedal in a DIY case. Did I mention, the gentleman from Morley sent those parts free of charge?!? It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman Soundclick fntstcsnd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.