End of year support

System · February 7

This discussion was created from comments split from: 2025 Outlook: Maschine, Kontrol, and NKS Hardware Partnerships.

BIF · February 2

Subject - Year End Holiday Support

(Mods - Please feel free to break this post off into its own thread if you think that's appropriate)

There is another critical issue that comes up now at every year-end holiday period. This year's (2024 into 2025) was absolutely the worst.

The forum gets loaded down with support requests from new users, such as people who received as Christmas gifts Komplete, Komplete Kontrol, Maschine, or one of the other hardware solutions or partner libraries.

The NI suport team is gone for weeks starting around December 20th, and they're gone through Christmas, New Year's day, and Three King's day, and don't come back from break until after January 6th. This is a carryover from NI's days as a German company, and continues today in its US form.

Then the re-ramping up of people coming back from break is … too slow. Maybe due to people warming up, drying out, getting the kids back to school, or just plain figuring out how to wear shoes again, I don't know. Then there's also NAMM in January. And CES, and who knows what else.

Those of us here in the forum who are not NI team members, we do our best to help our fellow new users; even the new users who have no idea the difference between an audio track and a MIDI sequence. We are happy to help.

But we're not paid for that, and we end up being the shield that gets bloodied by angry customers when the support team doesn't respond (or doesn't respond promptly). Hey, we get it! It's complicated, having a Mac or PC with all this OS software, DAW software, Audio interface bits and bobs, and now the added complexity of having KK now with firmware that needs to be updated (and takes way too long on some computers/setups).

There were also a lot of web store problems. More than a fair number of people came to these forums because they had a problem making a purchase, purchasing the correct product or suite, getting Native Access to work, or just plain getting sound to come out of their new Komplete gift or purchase.

People get NI products as Christmas presents. And then when they have trouble downloading, installing, or using their purchases, they become frustrated. When no NI people respond to support tickets, that's when WE HERE IN THE FORUM have to spend valuable time to weed through the angry "I quit NI" verbiage just to get to a point where we can help our fellow users.

I'm here to suggest that as a business, it may be possible that Native Instruments may have to consider providing some support during the EOY holidays. Because in its current form, it's definitely not working for new users.

Much appreciation is owed to the good members of this forum for doing their best: People like our forum mods @PoorFellow, @PK The DJ, @mykejb, @DunedinDragon, @Uwe303, and @Sunborn, among many others. @Vocalpoint, and several others have also been working hard to provide help.

Copying a few others on this issue, so that they know about this conversation.

@Matthew_NI

@Jeremy_NI (a big Thank You to Jeremy for looking into the forums at various times over the holidays…even during his time off.)

Thank you @Chris_NI, for your attention to this. And yes, I'm going to remind you of this topic as the US Thanksgiving holiday approaches in 2025, because this will not get better without some course of action.

Tom Collins · February 2

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/208409#Comment_208409

It would also be nice with a specific section of the community strictly for support questions, the rest of the community is drowned with these posts and then the other conversations get lost in the noise.

BIF · February 3

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/208441#Comment_208441

I voted up your suggestion Tom, but it has some severe limitations.

Splitting support requests off from these forums to a dedicated support subforum or threads will not fix the problem I highlighted, which is a lack of support, ESPECIALLY during the end of the year holiday period. All you'd be doing is making people like me go to YET ANOTHER PLACE to see if I can help somebody. More rules for end-users never fixes the root cause.

And you'd be making the mods direct people to that new forum…or worse yet, the mods would have to start physically MOVING new threads over there.

No no, that will not work unless more is done. If support resources (and by that I mean NI employees) is lacking, then the only way to fix that is to increase resources.

Or improve the product, right?

Not doing either (or both) will only increase dissatisfaction and will cause people to continue leaving the NI ecosystem due to frustration, fatigue, and exhaustion.

Jeremy_NI · February 4

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/208409#Comment_208409

There must be a misunderstanding here. You seem to think that our offices were completely shut for the holiday season but this is not correct. We had staff in these periods except for New Year's Day and Christmas. We had agents in there. If I intervened in the forum it was on my office time, as all NI representatives in the forum. Every year we have a similar backlog and reply times are longer than usual and impatience builds up, especailly when people are used to really short reply times. That doesn't mean there is no room for improvement. We're working on making support easier to reach and hopefully we'll be better armed for new year's big sales special.

Super8boy · February 4

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/208831#Comment_208831

you mean the Sale before the release of Maschine+ MK2 at NAMM 2026? 😜

BIF · February 4

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/208831#Comment_208831

There must be a misunderstanding here. You seem to think that our offices were completely shut for the holiday season but this is not correct. We had staff in these periods except for New Year's Day and Christmas. We had agents in there. If I intervened in the forum it was on my office time, as all NI representatives in the forum.

Yes, my perception was that NI was completely shut for the holiday season.

Every year we have a similar backlog and reply times are longer than usual and impatience builds up, especially when people are used to really short reply times.

This last time around, it was worse than usual. Again, my perception.

That doesn't mean there is no room for improvement. We're working on making support easier to reach and hopefully we'll be better armed for new year's big sales special.

^ This is all I'm asking for. Improve it, and be better prepared for year-end 2025…because it's not going to get better without some action. Thank you.

And one more thing: You personally, Jeremy, are always on the ball. You jump in quickly and always seem to address the user's needs…or at least direct the user to the correct support personnel. You should know that this is noticed. And appreciated.

Thank you for your hard work.

End of year support

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