Audeze and their Lousy Customer Service

[Mochan]

You guys know that my LCD2 kicked the bucket last month. This really brings to bear the lousy business practice Audeze has in continuing to sell units known to be potentially defective and failing within weeks of use.  Microsoft got chewed out when they tried this stunt with the XBox 360 Red Ring of Death fiasco.  They got blown to bits by the splash damage, so much that they offered 3 year warranties with full processing of the dead units and a full recall into a new chipset (which ironically still blew).

Here we have Audeze, shipping out bad batches of the LCD2 (which costs $1000) and you'd think you could get some premium service for it. Well, you don't. But somehow, even with all this crap, even though Audeze did not deign to do a recall, extend warranties (you still get the laughable 1 year warranty), and make you pay $1000 for this, their name is still sweet-smelling honey in the Audiophile world! I don't get it! Any other industry and consumers would be up in arms taking this business with shady practices down, but instead Audiophiles everywhere are more than happy to bend over for this company, and hand over their $1000 while taking it from behind!

Unbelievable how the Boutique World of Audiophile Gagaland is. I personally want as little to do with this world as possible from now on.  This is the only market I know of where people will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for snake oil, willingly, and sing it praises and do the Emperor's New Clothes over and over to justify all that money down the drain, where any problems are the fault of the user and never the boutique snake wranglers, and money is flushed down the toilet like it was going out of style while happily putting up with delays, excuses and all manner of poor service that would get a class action suit in any other market.  Someone tell me how to build a market like this, it's a frakkin gold mine!

The more I talk to Audeze, the more I realize how crappy their customer service is.  It's good that they foot the bill for shipping -- they BETTER, it's the least they can do for selling a known defective product -- I can't even call that the extra mile, that's just what's expected.

But man they are hard to talk to. Sankar (co-founder of Audeze) may be a nice person and all but his customer service skills are lousy.

Lousy communication, fails to acknowledge my questions, totally ignores things I am saying, failure to empathize, not checking for customer satisfaction, blech.

I must have asked him 5 times about the leather headband -- my anger had cooled down so I was actually offering to BUY it and not demand it for free like I was planning -- and he totally ignored each question as if it didn't exist. I'm offering a free sale upgrade here, hello! That's easy money in your pocket! Don't you want my money?

Asked him about the ticket that dinkoy created, whether it was the one for my unit or for a different unit. Ignored the question.
Asked questions to clarify how to send the item to them -- ignored and did not even respond with an email. Turns out I could have shipped the item last week, had I known how to -- he didn't even explain what he was sending me was the packet I needed to send it back! Such poor communication, it was terrible.

Sorry about the rant

[marcusd]

I have edited the article to take out personal issue with individuals and to allow the complaint to stand surrounding the issues only. Sorry Erwin I know you maybe frustrated but I cant allow the racial overtones to be present on the forum.

[Sforza]

If I were to venture a guess, in some respects that's how these boutique companies are able to "lower" their costs despite lacking the capability to mass produce headphones. Normally you'd have someone to answer customer service related inquiries but they can't afford to have an employee just for that I suppose? Head Direct is thankfully better than Audeze with regards to that.

Case in point, when I ordered my Pico directly from Headamp (another boutique audio company), the website said 2 weeks but it took 2 months to ship. No email inquiries were answered, and a tracking number only arrived after a three weeks of waiting. For a time I thought I got scammed. This order was sent to a relative's place in the US, which would make an international order seem even more risky. This is pretty unacceptable for a company that charges $500 for a portable dac/amp.

Also, when I ordered cables from Moon Audio though dinkoy we had a difficult time getting in touch with the owner until one day he just notified us that "the cables were shipped", no other notification. One banana plug even fell off on its own after a few weeks and I just chose to solder it back myself instead of sending it back to them despite the warranty.

[dogears]

Sad to hear all these. Should be a lesson for us.

[Ed]

...
Unbelievable how the Boutique World of Audiophile Gagaland is. I personally want as little to do with this world as possible from now on.  This is the only market I know of where people will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for snake oil, willingly, and sing it praises and do the Emperor's New Clothes over and over to justify all that money down the drain, where any problems are the fault of the user and never the boutique snake wranglers, and money is flushed down the toilet like it was going out of style while happily putting up with delays, excuses and all manner of poor service that would get a class action suit in any other market.  Someone tell me how to build a market like this, it's a frakkin gold mine!
...

I echo this sentiment. Hobbyist turned small time entrepreneurs favorite excuse is that they are a small company.

[Collie]

The T1 is $1295, more than $300 more than the LCD-2, because you're also paying for the customer service, the marketing - all the costs that they spent on getting the product to you. Risk vs reward of going for a niche manufacturer I guess.

[erwinandrew]

They should learn from the wonderful costumer support of Schiit. Man, I'm really planning to get these cans for my birthday at the end of the quarter, but your incident really made me think twice.

[marcusd]

I guess if we are on the CS things I found initially with Hifiman a few scary potholes in the CS with wrong courier but they did reply to our concerns and got everything sorted = they just didn't sugarcoat it like a seasoned professional. In the end I quite enjoyed their responses and now on first terms with them.

Some other companies do not have that same approach. I find the resellers to be very proactive and customer focused since this is their bread and butter and perhaps audeze should give the warranty care to a dedicated call center or reseller to ensure you get the upfront CS we are all used to.

But as collie said perhaps this will raise the cost to $1k + and then my question is would you buy it for $1k+? would it be such a hit then? If $1200 included a stellar service would you buy it? The 1k mark is very psychological to me in this arena and if I told you I could get a Beyer T1 for $945 out of SG last year then the extra on top is really actually pure margin to the reseller

[dogears]

Stuff like this should be dealt with an RMA right away by Audeze I am assuming that it's not even 1yr old?
BTW, the V2 is getting mixed reviews

[donunus]

If this goes on, I don't think audeze is going to last as a company. Not all boutique companies are like this though. Take for example you buy some speakers from wilson audio, the companys experts or sometimes the owner David Wilson himself will travel around the world and go to your house, set up your speakers to get the optimum placement and make sure everything sounds as they intend their speakers to. Now thats what I call customer service

[valiente]

Any customer will be satisfied of any product especially if you will taken care of after you have bought the unit. If there is any damage, you are treated special because you have paid an amount for it. Most special treatment must be given for expensive units like Audeze LCD 2.

Bro Mochan, companies are different like people who have individual differences. Every company is also unique. Every company has different attitudes.

I only wish that most of the companies selling expensive headphones have also top dollar attitudes in terms of CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.  

Guys, let us give extra time to Audeze to make up..to work on to their attitude....anyway Audeze is a newcomer to headphone world unlike Sennheiser, AKG, etc. who were here already for a longer time. That's why they have moral lessons already embedded into their company about customer satisfaction.

I understand you Bro Mochan's feelings....I also understand Audeze situation.....

[airwax]

What I don't understand is why your LCD2, which is relatively new becomes bad, and many early ones are not. I assume Audeze would never intentionally send you a bad unit. There are other factors. But seems like your rant is more focused towards CS of Audeze though. However, the truth is, you know fully the issue even before purchasing the product. You still took the risk by buying it.

There are other manufacturers that are getting bad rep because of CS (check the JH3A thread), but because they put out amazing products, they can sometimes get away with it. When I think about now, $1000 is not really a lot when you talk about audiophile audio. I know it's quite a big amount, but many will take the risk simply because they want the best available audio and are willing to do compromise.

[marcusd]

I am not sure anyone knew the issue of an lcd-2 driver dying out before being bought is in fact true bro. The CS is indeed the issue here though and not the unit because if it was Erwin would not be getting a replacement but a refund.

[donunus]

I understand you Bro Mochan's feelings....I also understand Audeze situation.....

Valiente, I think you will make a good politician LOL

hehehe I understand both their sides too but in this case, the customer should be given priority since he did pay a big amount for a product thats supposed to be excellent in every way.

Anyway, the Audeze people are responsible adults and know what they should do. They probably just feel so much pain with the money they've been losing from shipping cans back and forth, faulty drivers, etc... and all the other hardships in running a new company that their judgement whether to prioritize certain customers over others may be clouded. They may still be very nervous in trying to find better ways of not losing as much money with the way their dealing with individual problems

[marcusd]

The thing is what is the audeze situation other than what we are assuming and guessing right now? I mean I would find it easier to show empathy if there was an audeze situation to analyze.

There is a mat in diplomat