We recently received a comment from our YouTube Channel from a patron about one of our former product offerings:
"Focal Naim really got into some kind of freefall in overall quality (not the product, the brand itself) over the last couple of years. It is like they do not realise that you need goods on stock, or at least available to begin with and even worse, once the product is in the customeres hands - the support is nonexisting nowadys. This is not a hyperbole, this is a reality in europe. Their service department does not even reply or can maintain a somewhat reasonable pace of doing so, if they choose to reply at all. This is not a one dealer problem, this is a brand problem and the worst part - outside of a very few other makes, they are not much worse than most other brands. It is sad to see and by no means limited to the very small island of "Hifiworld", but we are here for the hifi aspect."
An absolutely brilliant series of observations which go further into the reality of the situation that we chose to leave behind. These sort of problems were once the domain of circuit board replacement designs but now has started to reach into the component level designs.
We have experienced, more and more, where the dealer is put in the crosshairs of customer dissatisfaction when we have no control over service and support at all. For years, unseen by our customers, I spent a lot of time researching for companies that provided excellent support as part of the purchase price of the product.
We bore a fair amount of expense in making sure our customers product fulfilled the promise of years of enjoyment. But when audio companies started to be purchased by investor groups, they did not see the relationship between product support and brand value. Instead, the accountants only focused upon the manufacturing side of things and quickly got caught up in chasing production where more and more distribution was required to keep up with the production capabilities.
As this occurred with less care about how your product was sold, the service infrastructure was ignored. Even the American company McIntosh had to appoint independent service companies, sometimes one man operations, to take on the factory service overload, sometimes stretching out as far as a year. Even then, parts availability began to show further weakness in support.
And who took the verbal abuse from customers?
The very dealers who sold the customer the product. Management was sheltered from this grief which takes its toll on the humans of the selling dealer. This ultimately puts the dealer in the difficult position of having to choose between continued brand support with sales, which they had built up over many years or walking. We walked. This is not the first company we have had to leave but I hope it will be one of the last.
Only time will tell. But for the consumer, brand loyalty will likely go out the window the same way believing in a sports team has gone with its stars moving from team to team with the biggest check.
-Lou
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