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What brands measured in this forum have great customer service? Does it matter?

confucius_zero

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This subject has come up more than once.

While some products measure quite well, the experience of those who bought the products seems to hint at a quality lottery that diminishes the expected enjoyment. While some enjoy rapid response/support/service from brands, other queries are either solved through the knowledge base of this forum or lost in translation.

I'm then curious your thoughts on the subject and if you'd rather save money by partaking in some kind of lottery or DIY a product, then fix it yourself through forum knowledge base (therefore brand customer service doesn't matter).
 

Swtoby

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My opinion, good customer service matters. My thinking is the burden of problem solving/repair should come from the manufacturer not a forum. I give them the money they should support their product. That support should be included in the cost/warranty.
 

L5730

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The thing is, for me, in terms of product quality/repairs I don't really bother looking at manufacturer customer service anymore. I just assume them all to be terrible.
The retailer is where I tend to look. I'll buy a product for a little more cost if the retailer doesn't try and give me the run around. Supermarkets are pretty good for this. Within a year, if a product fails supermarkets will usually just give you a replacement or a refund without much fuss, unless you are really unlucky to get an employee that doesn't understand their job behind the desk.
I've purchased from larger electrical stores before and had nothing but trouble. It's almost as if they want to go out of business, very strange.

But as far as the product brand goes and the manufacturer, I'll take a Chinese brand over UK/EU/US brands.
Looking at it in terms of price performance, I am getting the same thing for about 1/3 the cost or less. I can afford to just bin it if the ebay/Amazon seller doesn't want to honour warranty beyond the first 30 days.
It seems like there is a big markup because the brand is Western. Shareholders, and an overpaid upper management means the product is over priced - let's face it, it's all made in China, and probably the same factory. Why make (obscenely) rich people richer?

If the price of the product is quite large, then I am hesitant all round. I am more inclined to buy from a retailer in UK, and then be prepared to argue if the worst happens.
The argument here is that say, for £400 you can get a really well performing imported product that performs like it's £1200. But you wouldn't want to pay £1200, and the £400 was an acceptable and affordable price to you for such a product. If it fails at that cost, that's not good news. If you bought the branded £400 unit in the UK, you could have only paid £150 for an import. If you luck in, you save a lot of cash. IF you luck out, you gotta buy another...

This was my thinking with the Topping D10.
It performs well, and was cheap at £65.
I was looking at DACs around £250-400 in UK, but I found it for a low price.
So I bought another.
Sure, I don't want them to fail, but I can just buy another if it does without feeling too bad about it.
 
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