[bflat]

AK support in the US is well below average regardless of what the product costs. When you factor in the cost of their products and the "luxury" branding, it's got to be pretty much at the bottom of their peers. To put that into perspective of other luxury brands:
 
Lexus - complimentary coffee and donuts when you bring in your car for service plus a complimentary loaner car.
Tiffany - complimentary jewelry cleaning anytime you walk in the door.
Visa Signature - 24x7 concierge with no wait times.
Nordstrom - no time limit on returns. 100% customer satisfaction guarantee.
Red Wine Audio - puts AK service to shame. Near instant responses and service. I would rather pay RWA to fix instead of trying to get free warranty service.
Charles Nob Hill - upscale restaurant. A very quiet intimate place, but there was a world series going on when I had dinner there. Every 5-10 min, one of their servers came over and very discretely whispered the score in my ear.
Four Seasons - I could list an entire page of customer support excellence.
Briggs & Riley - My  20+ year old luggage needed a zipper repair. I just had to pay shipping to their service center. When it came back everything was refurbished (handles, bumpers, etc) at no charge.
Steinway - whatever you paid for your piano, Steinway will give you full price credit when you upgrade. No time limit.
AK - honestly, the only thing I can think of is that the screen protector comes already applied.
 
Some ideas for AK:

1. Live support - currently this is your weakest area.
2. Online warranty service - tracking and real time updates.
3. Cross ship option - rather than wait for repairs, option to swap for another player of the same make.
4. Complimentary annual systems check - at the owner's cost of shipping their DAP, AK runs full diagnostics/cleaning at no charge.
5. Upgrade program - understanding "digital rot", some type of fair value upgrade program.
6. Loyalty program - how do you reward folks who have spent upwards of $10K dollars over a period of time on your products?
7. Free loaner program - for current owners, free service to audition AK products with no obligation to buy.

 

[warrior1975]

bflat excellent suggestions, would be very nice if AK followed through on some of them at the very least.

 

[catoval55]

  AK support in the US is well below average regardless of what the product costs. When you factor in the cost of their products and the "luxury" branding, it's got to be pretty much at the bottom of their peers. To put that into perspective of other luxury brands:
 
Lexus - complimentary coffee and donuts when you bring in your car for service plus a complimentary loaner car.
Tiffany - complimentary jewelry cleaning anytime you walk in the door.
Visa Signature - 24x7 concierge with no wait times.
Nordstrom - no time limit on returns. 100% customer satisfaction guarantee.
Red Wine Audio - puts AK service to shame. Near instant responses and service. I would rather pay RWA to fix instead of trying to get free warranty service.
Charles Nob Hill - upscale restaurant. A very quiet intimate place, but there was a world series going on when I had dinner there. Every 5-10 min, one of their servers came over and very discretely whispered the score in my ear.
Four Seasons - I could list an entire page of customer support excellence.
Briggs & Riley - My  20+ year old luggage needed a zipper repair. I just had to pay shipping to their service center. When it came back everything was refurbished (handles, bumpers, etc) at no charge.
Steinway - whatever you paid for your piano, Steinway will give you full price credit when you upgrade. No time limit.
AK - honestly, the only thing I can think of is that the screen protector comes already applied.
 
Some ideas for AK:

1. Live support - currently this is your weakest area.
2. Online warranty service - tracking and real time updates.
3. Cross ship option - rather than wait for repairs, option to swap for another player of the same make.
4. Complimentary annual systems check - at the owner's cost of shipping their DAP, AK runs full diagnostics/cleaning at no charge.
5. Upgrade program - understanding "digital rot", some type of fair value upgrade program.
6. Loyalty program - how do you reward folks who have spent upwards of $10K dollars over a period of time on your products?
7. Free loaner program - for current owners, free service to audition AK products with no obligation to buy

Well said bflat. i am 100% with you on all the suggestion & references you have written. hope Astell & Kern take notice and act accordingly.  

 

[warrior1975]

Well said bflat. i am 100% with you on all the suggestion & references you have written. hope Astell & Kern take notice and act accordingly.  

Would be nice... But I doubt it. It would probably push a few more people here anyway, for sales. Their CS seems to be the biggest legitimate complaint here. Price is another, but I personally, don't consider their price to be something to complain about. Yes, it's expensive, but nobody is forcing you to buy their products. You either want or not. I still want the AK380cu... And will get one in the near future. Price is what it is, unfortunately.

 

[Chan007]

I just contacted my dealer, If I don't hear a response soon guess I am just going to charge back my money with my CC company. Not going to deal with this BS.

 

[420204]

I just contacted my dealer, If I don't hear a response soon guess I am just going to charge back my money with my CC company. Not going to deal with this BS.

May I suggest reaching out to your distributor first, they usually have the best contacts.

 

[Chan007]

Is that reallly my job as customer? Reseller is my last resort. If they cant grt through to ak im done.

 

[warrior1975]

I understand your frustration, but if the distributor handles it, does it really matter? No trying to be argumentative, you are completely correct, and I'd be absolutely frustrated myself.

 

[Chan007]

How exactly do i contact the distributor?

 

[AlanYWM]

AK and other such companies will continue to thrive as long as there are consumers willing to pay their asking price no matter the after sales service 

 

 

[420204]

How exactly do i contact the distributor?

Just look up on AK's homepage who the distributor of your country is and contact them.

 

[Chan007]

Now the facebook rep isn't responding either....
 
Well, charge back filed, let's seem if I get a response now. I wonder if they will come running now that I got my money back and still have the player. (will gladly return it)
 
AK will NEVER get a dime of my money EVER again. Nice products. Terrible, disappointing service.

 

[musicday]

Now the facebook rep isn't responding either....

Well, charge back filed, let's seem if I get a response now. I wonder if they will come running now that I got my money back and still have the player. (will gladly return it)

AK will NEVER get a dime of my money EVER again. Nice products. Terrible, disappointing service.

I am really sorry to see how this is ending.
And extremely disappointing that they are not Really listen to the costumers.
I am hoping that in the next player they will use AMOLED screen which is cheaper then LCD to source those days.
AK products look good esteticly but don't have the highest quality components inside!

 

[spkrs01]

I think it's a little unfair to AK as the DAP actually functions on it's balanced 2.5mm output, so for balanced only users like myself, I don't have a complaint. 
 
But then AK aren't actually helping themselves by going AWOL on it's customers.
 
They should really offer an easy fix, and that is to put the FW 1.23 live on their website so their customers can have a FW that was working well with both outputs, while they work on a new FW which is what I think they are doing?!
 
Sometimes, if only companies think on their feet and offer solutions, they will get a lot less bashing..........

 

[Ruben123]

I think it's a little unfair to AK as the DAP actually functions on it's balanced 2.5mm output, so for balanced only users like myself, I don't have a complaint. 

But then AK aren't actually helping themselves by going AWOL on it's customers.

They should really offer an easy fix, and that is to put the FW 1.23 live on their website so their customers can have a FW that was working well with both outputs, while they work on a new FW which is what I think they are doing?!

Sometimes, if only companies think on their feet and offer solutions, they will get a lot less bashing..........

Err hello...? When paying that idiot amount of money it should work 100% well. And for sure the most important thing should work! Most don't use balanced so the single end has to work. And wow $3500 and not even giving any response is really bad. Besides this the quality control seems quite bad overall. I don't know for you, but if I bought even a $200 notebook with the touchpad not working, I'd be mad. Would you say it's OK because you can use short keys?

The dap doesn't function at all. And for the price it's insane such a thing can happen, and if it happens, they should work their #### off for fixing it, not giving no response as it seems they're only interested in audiophile's money.