The importance of good customer support

[voxman55]

I bought my Pod Go towards the end of June, and it was a tough decision as to whether I went for the Pod Go or the Mooer GE300 which would have been around £140--150 more but had a lot more features with an aluminium case, MIDI, tone capture, 10 stomp buttons, fast button access to 15 blocks, synth, 30 min looper with ability to save loops, and a twin chip set that made it a lot more powerful than Pod Go.  Amp and cab models were comparable in quality and it had really good write-ups with no serious bugs reported, and a number of bona-fide upgrades.   So, it's safe to say I was tempted as at least on paper, it looked a more sophisticated unit, with a size and weight that was not dis-similar to Pod Go.

 

But the single biggest reason I went with Pod Go was because of Line 6's reputation for excellent customer support - at the end of the day, I was buying an electronic item that could fail and I wanted the peace of mind that if anything went wrong, I had the confidence that Line 6 would sort it.

 

So three and a half months on, I'm pleased to report that, following the bug fix upgrades, my Pod Go has been functioning well with no problems.  However, and forums such as The Gear Page refer (attended by Line 6 folk), a handful of others haven't been quite so fortunate and there have been a few cases reported of quirky behaviour that a firmware reload and/or factory reset couldn't fix, and even a thin white line appearing across some screens that appear to be a problem with the screen itself.  But the good news is that once folk raised a ticket, Line 6 were brilliant. They arranged for the faulty unit to be returned and, to their credit, didn't even wait for the return before sending a brand new replacement unit out.  With the number of Pod Go's sold it's inevitable that there will be a few breakdowns here and there, but the most important thing is that Line 6 Customer support was always there to put it right - no fuss, no arguments, no delays - they just got it sorted.  And for me that's worth it's weight in gold.

 

Owners of the Mooer GE300/250/200 haven't always been so well served not least because Mooer are based in China and there is no real UK/US customer support, certainly not with anything like the same infrastructure/dealer network as Line 6. And whilst these units have largely been very reliable a few folk have had to struggle with trying to get support from China and there have been some customer frustrations inc the difficulty of having to return units to China for repair/replacement inc language issues.   I have no doubt that Mooer will get better here as they get bigger, and if you can get through to them they are supportive, but that's not much comfort if you're struggling with a problem unit.  

 

So whilst I find myself inevitably wishing the Pod Go had a bit more power and features, and the initial bugs were a bit of a pain, I'm confident that I made the right decision from the perspective of peace of mind and should anything go wrong I'm confident that Line 6 will be there to sort it quickly.     

 

 

[olerabbit]

Same with me. For me Line 6 is the most reliable brand in the market with the best cutomer service.

That was one of my reasons to buy a POD Go besides sound, handling, gig suitability and workmanship.

 

In my country we have a 2 years warranty by law with cost free services. Big dealers grant in addition another 1 year guarantee where you have to pay transaction cost.

So if I buy eg from Thomann it’s my service partner for 3 years in total.

 

After these 3 years there are official L6 service partners in case of a repair (see L6 website).

And you have a living forum with involved users and even L6 experts joining - wow.

 

This concept is convincing to me.