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Author Topic: Sound Devices Customer Service  (Read 2756 times)

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Offline aaronji

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Sound Devices Customer Service
« on: November 09, 2017, 06:41:35 AM »
I wanted to post about my recent experience with SD's customer service, which I found to be excellent.  Rapid communication and turnaround, and friendly to boot...

I was having troubles with my headphone out.  After reading through the manual in detail, and trying every possible setting, I still couldn't get it to work.  Sure I was doing something wrong, I reached out to a fellow ts'er, who basically confirmed I had the correct configuration.  So I contacted SD through the contact form on their website describing my issue.  I received a confirmation of receipt e-mail virtually immediately.  A couple of hours later, at about 9:15 AM Wisconsin time, I received an e-mail from Joel in their support department.  He had me go through some troubleshooting steps, including a reset to the factory defaults.  Very rapid responses to each of my e-mails.  The last step was to save my settings and e-mail him the file, which confirmed that I had a problem and I was issued a return authorization.  As I am in Europe, I had to send it to SD's repair facility in Berlin; Joel coordinated every aspect of this and I shipped it off to Germany.  Heiko, in Berlin, took over the process at that point.  He was also very quick to respond to my mails.  After receipt of the unit, it took four days for SD to repair, clean, test and ship the recorder back to me.  When I received the (zero cost) invoice, I noticed that it listed new front panel knobs.  I asked Heiko about this, as I had experienced no problems with the knobs: "The knobs had to get removed for accessing to the internal PCB and its flexcable to replace it.  Therefore we replaced them to new ones to make sure your unit looks brand new again."  Additionally, firmware version 1.2 came out a day after I shipped my recorder to Germany; it had been updated when I received it back.

In short, Joel and Heiko were both really efficient and friendly.  I have seen some skepticism (on gearslutz, I think) that SD would be able to support it's lower cost ("prosumer") units to the standard of their professional gear, but that fear seems to have been misplaced.  Sure, it sucks to have an issue, but it is nice to know that SD will make it right...

As an added note, it took quite some time for me to receive the recorder after placing the order with SD's distributor.  When I went to register it with SD, I noted that the purchase and receipt dates were nearly two months apart.  They immediately extended my warranty to cover that difference.

[EDIT TO ADD:  Somehow I managed to type that whole description without ever mentioning that the recorder in question is a MixPre-6!]
« Last Edit: November 09, 2017, 06:44:52 AM by aaronji »

Offline heathen

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Re: Sound Devices Customer Service
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2017, 08:43:44 AM »
Pretty much all gear will likely have problems here or there.  The issue is not whether a company makes gear that is problem-free 100% of the time for every user.  The real issue is how a company deals with problems when they do crop up.
Mics: AT4050ST | AT4031 | AT853 (C/SC) | Line Audio CM3 | Sennheiser e614 | Sennheiser MKE2 | DPA 4061 Pre: CA9200 Decks: Zoom F8 | Roland R-05

Offline dactylus

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Re: Sound Devices Customer Service
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2017, 03:56:53 PM »

Thanks for posting the report on SD Customer Service!
hot licks > microphones > recorder



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