Update to the TC Electronic customer service thread

[bongomania]

For anyone who missed it, I had posted an angry thread talking about a rotten customer service experience I had with TC Electronic. Some people couldn't stay constructive, so it got closed. Where we left off was I was exchanging emails with TC's VP of product management in Denmark (Uffe Hansen) and that was going well, and he was looking into the nature of the technical problem I was having that spurred the CS contact in the first place.

So there were two issues to resolve: One, a pedal with problems; two, the US customer service office being obnoxious and unhelpful.

On the first one, his team tested a couple of these same pedals (the reissue Sustain+Parametric) and found that they behaved exactly the same as I described, and were no good. They have no record of people sending these pedals back in any noticeable numbers; however they happened to have used a cheap outsourced manufacturer on the last few production runs, so their best guess currently is that the outsourced factory used low-quality components, and that the pedals have now "gone bad". This pedal was discontinued over a year ago, so there's this gray area where on the one hand you can still find them for sale, used or as new "B-stock"; but OTOH nobody at TC has seen one in a long time, and they didn't make them in-house, and if one goes bad they aren't able to fix it.

On the second item, his very first email to me made it clear that he does not think a customer should be blown off the way I was by TC Americas. He both said as much, and also demonstrated how it should have been done the first time, by telling me he would look into the problem and find out what I needed to know. As somebody said in the previous thread, "was that so hard?" Honestly, it's not like I was asking for a goose that lays golden eggs; all I wanted was for them to look into the issue and let me know what they find out. At a minimum, I wanted them to tell me that's what they were going to do--instead of ignoring me repeatedly for weeks and just telling me to send the pedal back to the retailer. And then the CS manager being a total jerk to me.

Conclusions:
--I sent the pedal back to the retailer, who is supposed to give me a refund, and TC will refund the retailer, who is in turn supposed to send the pedal back to TC. TC will probably chuck it in the trash.
--Uffe was great, his emails were helpful, friendly, respectful, and timely. He says he has passed along my other CS experience to other managers at TC... of course nobody knows if that will lead to anything productive.
--The pedal is honestly bad, and I'll say so in my "proper" review, so nobody else gets stuck with one. Again, the biggest reason any of this happened in the first place was that I wanted to provide an accurate review, stating information gathered from TC rather than just my own guesses.
--I won't be buying any more TC products, because I'm in America and as far as I've experienced, TC Americas has bad customer service. But I will tone down my statements about TC having bad CS overall, because obviously TC Denmark took care of me.

So, a big public thanks to Uffe, and I'm glad this is over with.

[Matt Dean]

Thanks for the update Bongo... glad TC Denmark took care of business.

[bassmanjla]

Uffe is an awesome guy.. met him once. really great guy who really cares about how us "little people" are doing things.

i wish there wasn't a "us division" on things like that. i'd deal with TC denmark any day of the week simply becuase often times, us distributors of a company are just that, ******.

THe other problems in this setup up is trying to get endorsments.

i would love to get an EBS endorsment, but they pimp all their endorsments Stateside through their stateside distributor. which, is really.. jsut an online warehouse store.

unless i've misssed something.

glad to hear you got your problem ressolved. i hope you find a reasonto go back to TC at some point. I absolutely love my RH450. It Makes me want to buy other TC products.

[uaudio]

Thanks for the update. I read all through a bunch of TC threads, including the original thread, before I bought one. I bought it used SPECIFICALLY cause I wasn't sure what to expect from a non-US company in terms of CS.

TC of all companies should really know better. The whole 'test pilot' thing was 100% designed to generate buzz on the Internet and in print. There are very few people whose opinion I care about on this forum, but Bongo's is one of them. My point is that when you are relying on word of mouth to generate sales, you simply cannot afford to let even one user have a bad experience because there is a chance it will get repeated 100x on TalkBass. Especially when it gets repeated by a fairly well respected user.

Good for you for getting results, and even better for posting about the positive after the fact.

[Swimming Bird]

Any word on who the manufacturer was? I wouldn't want to deal with other products from other companies that went through that firm.

[Nerotic]

Good to hear at least some things worked out for you Bongo.

I know I might be biased considering I'm danish, but TC has always been on top of their game CS wise in these parts of the world, which saddened me to hear your experiences on the other side af the atlantic.
It's a shame that you won't consider any more TC products because of the way you've been treated - but who can blame you?

They make excellent products, but if you can't get descent support, then what's it worth?

[Evolver]

Originally Posted by Matt Dean

Thanks for the update Bongo... glad TC Denmark took care of business.

Yes, thanks for the update Bongo...

[PhatBasstard]

Great!
And like I said before:"Was that so hard?!?"

[Joe Nerve]

It makes me laugh when companies all of sudden step up to the plate after they see they're being bashed to death at a site like this. Like politicians apologizing after they've been caught. I have a very strong feeling if it weren't for your last thread it would have just been tough luck for you. Funny how respectful, timely, helpful and friendly people suddenly become thanks to the internet.

[Alper Yilmaz]

I must say my experience with EBS' customer service is as bad as tc's both in the U.S. and in Sweden. I think, for a $200 pedal, companies tend to make a simple cost-benefit analysis and prefer not to spend an awful lot of time with their clients unless the client is an influential figure like Bongo.

Products by either of these companies are out for me even for free!

Alper

Originally Posted by bassmanjla

i would love to get an EBS endorsment, but they pimp all their endorsments Stateside through their stateside distributor. which, is really.. jsut an online warehouse store.

[cybersnyder]

Originally Posted by Swimming Bird

Any word on who the manufacturer was?

The evil side in me wants to stir the pot and say, "Behringer".

Bongo, glad you got some feedback. Hopefully something good will come out of this.

[nickwills]

Bongo, if talkbass was a sports arena, you would have your jersey hanging from the rafters.