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