I am a music store owner and I've learned alot over the years about how to get the help I need. First, I give the names of those who know the particular product to my customers if they need more than I might know about a certain issue. By giving them the name of the person at Roland, Yamaha or Korg here in the USA, it's the first step to getting a proper answer to their question. At Korg, it sometimes requires me to give them the name of the Product Manager who will talk to anyone rather than the guys that just do the tech support. The most frustrating thing to me is that most companies now have a few to several techs all taking questions on all keyboards including the non arranger type and the arranger type and unfortunately they might have great knowledge on one type but not the other. Years ago this was not the way it was. Arranger guys and non arranger guys (and gals) answering questions. But economics today doesn't allow the Manufactures in their opinions to have so many tech support people. This is true with all three major companies here in the US. When a phone call is made to Yamaha, there is a front line person who takes the information or question and passes it on to one of 3 or 4 techs working at Yamaha. They try to return calls within 24 hours if possible. If you email them, there are thousands of unread emails from all around the world so it sometimes takes them much longer to respond. There are a couple of guys at Yamaha who really know the arranger products and when I can't get through, Steve Deming (you know from this forum) has always been there for me when I need him quickly and with a must need an answer now question.
At Roland, Jan Vogels is the main technician who knows the Arranger keyboards. I've spoke with other technicians who clearly knew very little about a VA7 or G1000. So, I make sure I ask for Jan when I have to know something now!
It's a matter of knowing who to call and how the system works to feel like customer support is doing it's job well.
I have nothing but nice things to say about dealing with Generalmusic and Ketron as well. I know that these companies seem to respond so much nicer when a person calls and starts the conversation with kindness rather than being bitter and upset right at the get go. Believe me, I've had my share of nasty people on the other end of phone conversations over the years but I do find that friendliness seems to work the best and knowing who to call.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George et al,

Thank you for the various inputs on this subject. It has been my experience in many other non-music related situations to try to talk to someone and be patient and use'nice' words instead of bitterness.

Overall, I can believe that Yamaha does as well as can be expected. You have answered my questions. Thank you!

Now, I have to wait for a few weeks to get the money to purchase the PSR2000 of which I have firmly deicded to buy.

Keep on playing!


------------------
MusicJohn

Tom,
I plead guilty to being rather "tenacious" about customer service/support issues. Jerry K from Korg, nice guy, doing a good job and all that, so no slam against him here. I suppose what really got me started with Korg and their lack of support as I saw it.....

1. IMO, they treat their arranger customers as aliens while they cater to their workstation customers.
2. Their support phone # is buried so deep on their website it took Jerry K. to give me instructions to find it.

Ok....all you haapy Korg campers that have the total opposite experience...this is just my opinion and my experiences with them, the same as others have had an equally miserable time with Yamaha.

so don't send me hate posts, please.


------------------
jam on,
Terry
http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

It has been my experience that Yamaha does an excellent job supporting some of it's "pro" line . One need only visit the Motifator site and that becomes very evident. Yamaha, in tandem with 3rd party companies ( keyfax.. etc ) offers add on software for the Motif, R7000, etc. Also, their forum is admin'ed by A Yamaha employee(s)

Unfortunately, my experience with their arranger gear has not been the same. Twice when my arrangers went down for the count in botyh cases I waited almost 3 months for a solution / repair . One problem is that the authorized repair center was swamped with work. Another is that getting parts from Japan seemed to take forever. Well, in the second instance, I got tired of waiting and I sent my PSR2000 back for a full refund. I have told this story here enough times as it is, so no need to rehash the details. Through all of this I remained cordial and very courteous, except I got a tad more agressive toward the end the second time around.

My dealer shared in my frustration. It was his opinion that based on his dealings with Yamaha, that he concurs with my thoughts on Yamaha after - support on it's pro line vs it's arranger line. George Kaye and I even discussed this.

No sour grapes here. I am very happy with my Yamaha Motif ( which I got when I sent my PSR2k back ) . I liked many things about the 2000 I had ( and the 1000 I briefly replaced it with ) and I will buy another Yamaha arranger when the time is right ( maybe the Tyros, maybe the PSR2100 ). Also, a plus side to the lack of 3rd party software / support from Yamaha itself for arrangers is that there are very creative arranger users such as Michael P Bedesem, Brian Miles, Simon Williams, to name a few, that have provided and freely shared add on software , styles, webspace, etc that they created themselves. The Yamaha arranger user community to me is an excellent group of people overall, who share so much and for that reason alone make the experience of owning a Yamaha arranger that much better. Also, I see that Steve Denning ( from yamaha ) posts here, and that is a step in the right direction as well.

My experiences with Korg were equally poor in the days when I owned a bug ridden M1, but that is many years ago, and I've needed nothing at all for my PA80 ( mine has worked great since I opened the box ), so I cannot pass judgement on today's state of affairs.

John, I think you're gonna love the 2000 btw. Enjoy it. There still isn't anything like it at it's price that I've seen to date.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-27-2003).]