Not very helpful support

pbthrash

First of all - every day I am more and more convinced that we're living in some alternative reality. It's 2023 and we evolved from direct support (email, phone) that was easy to access into websites that works like firewalls against customers. Every time you want some help, you must fill bunch of fields (if you're smart enough to find support form in the first place) and then, if you're lucky, you'll get confirmation to your email that NI support will work on your problem. I would like support to also have to go to my website, go through the entire verification procedure and fill out 10 forms to respond to me. After all I am a person who pay them, not opposite.

NI is bigger and bigger every year so someone may say that it's normal to made it that way (special forms, online helps, AI chats etc). Is it? More and more customers should mean more and more people to help.

I remember times when I can contact directly with programmer when I had programmer's problem or with accounting department when I had a problem with an invoice. I am not talking about NI here, but in general.

Now the only way to contact Native Instruments (and some other companies) is contact with basic support, who knows how to copy and paste generic answers. "Please try this", "please try that" - why t... f... I should TRY something? I am not a beta tester of your software. If you know the problem, the right person to fix it would be programmer, not some random guy (or girl). If I would need generic answers or try something - I can do it without your permission, really. And - that is for sure - I can TRY various things, but this would be always some kind of workaround. I don't remember any situation where I drive to the mechanic and he asks me have I tried to drive another car and see if it drives well. Or did I tried to change the driver's seat and check then if my car works. I am reporting a problem and mechanic (not car support) check what is wrong.

In the case of plugins it works in a strange way - programmer probably is not even aware that user reports any problem and human firewalls (support) trying to bounce all questions. Probably to avoid annoying the programmers (or wake them up during working hours).

I reported problem with Komplete Kontrol. Serious problem that changes sound after project was reloaded (espeicially in Monark). In Reaktor it works without a problem, in old version of Komplete Kontrol it works well too (as far as I remember), but now it works bad. After many emails I get confirmation that support know the problem. It has even own number - KBDSW-7415. Great. I don't know where to track this problem or when some programmer starts to investigate it (probably within two working years), but hey - I have some number!

It's better than any other question I ask to support anyway. This is the first serious answer I get from Native Access. Still not solved, but hey - it has his own number! In other cases, I usually get some standard answer and then my emails are ignored. And my tickets closed by support (well, it's my ticket after all and my problem - I should decide if is solved or not).

Last time I checked if someone else have problem with Kontakt 7 slow loading time (first time open) and I found a lot of posts here. And one answer was especially funny (quote) - "since you're already in contact with the Kontakt specialist, there is no real need to copy your conversations here". Really? I thought that the reason to share problems with community is to find a solution that everyone can use, but as I see NI prefers to keep it private.

Seriously, guys - is it that difficult to made support a little different? If user have problem with your software - do not try to finding a workaround. Bad code is bad code. Game developers, when people complain about low FPS, trying to optimize their products instead of recommending Intel i9 + Nvidia 4090. You're so lucky that musicians are not gamers - they're not as patient and a poorly optimized game can seriously damage the company's reputation.

PoorFellow

Sorry to be the one to have to tell you but you have completely unrealistic expectations to companies , at least when it comes to both trouble-shooting procedures and companies use of programmers..

It's not that I do not agree with much of what you write, but still you are very much not realistic in your expectations.

With respect to trouble-shooting then I think that supporters and companies have some sort of procedural check-list that they will work you through and they expect you very much to cooperate by doing their bidding , also even if you did what they asked ten times previously, that is just how it is , that is actually also why I very often don't bother to try support because I can not be bothered to do all that one more time...

Personally I think that I can top your history. I myself sought support for a 'quit unexpectedly directly to desktop' on attempt to use this (non-NI) program for what designed to do. I tried more times over a period of 12 - 18 months. I did report everything meticulously and even did a completely new install of Windows and only installed that one program and still had same result. But despite my many reports they never bothered to test with a similar setup. Then I think after 18-24 months I nailed the issue myself to be of a reason suspected. I then did report it all to support in good spirit. Then I don't know many more months a updates later then have they bothered to fix the program ? NO ! they have not.

I think that they have only one programmer working on this particular program (that I have a problem with) as they can not allocate more resources and there is not enough people with the problem to allocate any mention-able resources to such a problem as mine ! I will not give any details and people can guess all they want I am not going to tell, this is not about me complaining here nor about wanting to hurt company. I am just telling !

What I am aiming at is that you ought to be grateful if offered a working 'work-around' that is not a real bother to use ! And then also be appreciative if they fix the problem because so many companies do not. If you play computer games at a service such a e.g. SteamPowered (owned by Valve) then you ought to know all the histories of the probably thousands of abandoned games where people complain over never fixed bugs.

With respect to hardware then I even once had to ship a PC motherboard to Taiwan for a manufacturer to check for a bug they could not be bothered to check against their own equally dysfunctional stock. They of course had to recognize the bug. Did they fix it ? NO ! , at that time so much time had passed that they had moved on to a new product and didn't care about sales of previous motherboard. They did though send me a t-shirt or two that I had no use for and left me stuck with the high rate airmail shipping bill to Taiwan...

aidenstunes

I relate to the majority of your post. From my experience with NI, the ideas of their products are great and innovative, some products do have great potential, but in reality many of them suffer major bugs and tech issues. Sometimes you may even encounter slow response times and rude customer care agents.

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I remember contacting NI through a live chat, I remember mailing kind & patient agents. They were always quick, professional and pleasant to speak with. NI used to have a very good customer care not so long ago.

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Lately it feels like NI is plagued by staff members who don't like their job, don't understand their place, think they are above the law, think they are above the customer. They negotiate, argue, give bans in the forum, close tickets without responding, they think that they are the mods of a Discord server, and forget that they were hired for a job. They forget that people invest their precious budget, with expectations to get quick and efficient help when it is needed.

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You can still chat with kind agents here and there, but the lack of support or a HQ one is noticeable. Those above everyone, the customer, the forum mod, the lead agnet, those who take the hundreds of thousands of dollars we give them, invest the budget in creating drums libraries, instead of fixing major issues, listening to feedbacks and criticism. Widening the customer support could be a great start point.

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Each individual agent wouldn't have to feel that great pressure on his/her shoulders, it will again reduce waiting times and allow agents to assist us with a more friendly, personal approach.

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I wish NI would finally wake up at some point, and return to their golden era. They can, they just refuse to do so at the moment, at least that's how it feels.

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pbthrash

"Personally I think that I can top your history."

Oh, everyone have that type of stories. I, for example, reported once missing useful option in MSI motherboard bios that was very useful in ASUS bios. After month or two of writing emails, after answering very detailed question about config and basically everything (except maybe my shoe size) including version and revision of my PCI-E expansion card, after dozens of emails and explaining again and again everything, I finally get THE ANSWER - "we do not have such option in our BIOS". Damn, really?

Personally I think companies like NI (and many others) copy the same method of support from each other. It's not the most efficient method, but "everyone else do it that way". I know from my personal experience (different brand) that if I contact with proper guy, every problem can be solved within 20 minutes. But, sorry, support guy do not check any bug in code - only programmer can do that. And I think that NI programmers don't even get any info from support about most of bugs people report. At least until thousands of people starts reporting the same bug.

Don't let me wrong, it's not only NI. IK has the same level of support these days (I was lucky to get fix for serious bug when their support actually work some time ago). And basically 80% of plugin industry is similar - they do not care so much. If something is not working, they can always answer "we do not support xxxxx" (where xxxxx is your music card, hard drive, pc case, PSU, GPU etc).

Scoops

All I can say is.......We are not alone

Jeremy_NI

@pbthrash I understand your frustration and some of your points. The typeforms are not here to be used as firewalls to scare customers away. These typeforms give troublshooting steps for the most common issues, a lot of users actually find the solution that way, faster than writing an email and waiting for a reply. We do check users journey there and if these typefomrs are still there it's because they are useful, not only to us but also to customers. It also leaves more room to my colleagues to be able to spend more time on more complicated cases, bug reports, etc...I get it, it might not be the most straight forward process, there is definitely room for improvement and we are constantly working on this.

Now, about bug reporting. We (us support) do report the bugs, sometimes file them ourselves, track them, we do talk to developers all the time, we do escalate the most pressing ones and ask about the develoment of this and that bug. There are many bugs to fix and many priorities for developers. The ones that affect the most people or who get reported the most are prioritized. If we give you a bug number, it's also for you to be able to ask about it later. Once my colleagues from support have filed the bug and handed it over to the devs, there is not much they can do, so the tickets get closed, please note you usually have 20 days to reply after your ticket is closed. after these 20 days, it's not possible to re-open the ticket, also why you get this reference in case you need it.

pbthrash

So, please, tell me (if you communicate each other so good) - what was developers answer to my reoport? Any? Sorry, but bug that changes sound of instrument after reload is very serious. If not so many people reported it means that whole Monark is not really worth develop and people do not use it (or people are deaf). I bet on Monark (synth for 99 euros without internal velocity control is kind of weird).

And what about Kontakt 7 loading time? I saw post where lot of people reporting it. And your advice was paste a link to your website with generic advices what USERS can TRY to get around problem while problem is not with slow drives or computers. Somehow Kontakt 6 load time is much better and it's using the same folders.

I would be happy if you stop prioritizing problems. It's not really important is problem big or not. It's like police - if someone stole your wallet, the police will not wait until they catch all the murderers and ***** (higher priority), but trying to do both - find a thief who stole your wallet and find much more dangerous guys at the same time.

Sometimes low priority bug may be as important as high priority one.

pbthrash

And one more thing - when I upgraded my Komplete I get some kind of "voucher" for some money that I apparently could spend on your website. But that was just a scam imo. Why? At that time (summer of sound) basically everything was discounted and for some reason I cannot spend money from voucher on discounted products.

Let me explain what discount card differs from voucher. A voucher is the equivalent of money where only limit is where I can spend them. One virtual euro = one real euro. That is how it suppose to work. In opposite to discount code/card etc. - this may contains various limitations etc. If you give people virtual money and then refuses to sell anything for it - it's just false advertisement. All I wanted was just some stupid drums but no - since my voucher was enough for buying it, I can't do that, because apparently I would "beat the system" and get something FOR FREE (in your understanding, because for me voucher is still virtual money). After few emails I get no answer and was ignored. And now voucher is no longer valid. So please - if you don't want to give people anything, don't pretend that you gives them something. It's cheating. No matter how hard you'll try to explain the situation.

pbthrash

FOR GOOD MOOD :)

pbthrash

Is single answer enough for Native Instruments?

My ticket number #3932794 was closed without answer, just being ignored because some support !^$@#% decided that I get answer. #$%^@# despots and haughty ^@!#^!#.

Every time I am thinking about Native Instruments, my mood becomes worse.

pbthrash

(@#^$#^@ - it's like they swear in cartoons)

pbthrash

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/97474#Comment_97474

Is single answer enough for you and you treat this as an end of discussion?

You tried to defend your company, but you yourself ignored next posts.

Kaiwan_NI

I reviewed the support ticket, and unfortunately we were unable to modify the voucher conditions. That was why the ticket was closed.

pbthrash

Why is the reason to create vouchers that simply are useless? In time I had this voucher, everything was on sale (summer of sound), so it has no sense.

And it would be polite to ask your customer if problem is solved before you authoritatively close the ticket.