Naim Service Request in US

It’s the Christmas holidays so what did you expect, really?:thinking: You’ll have to wait until they open again, it’s not more difficult than that.

I think we might be seeing here a difference in expectations around holiday season customer service between two different continents.

For those of us in America, it can be hard to imagine that any business could go the latter half of December without answering their phones.

For many in Europe, it might be harder to believe people would expect you to respond before the new year.

5 Likes

Personally I wouldn’t be upset unless it got to like mid January with no response as I’d expect them to be back at work early January and then need to go through the backlog of messages. I’m honestly impressed Richard and Neil have been on here at all over the holidays. We are lucky in the U.K. that I’d just check when my local dealer was open but if I was trying to contact naim or a distributor like you are I’d expect a wait.

3 Likes

@Bart has not given advice yet, neither Glevethan, or El Marko. They all live in US.

This has to go through Montreal, Canada from what I understood

1 Like

Then it must be the distributor in the US that is the problem, not Naim themselves… You realize that you are lucky, Naim’s Swedish distributor is 10 minutes from where I live :innocent:

2 Likes

There is no US distributor - it’s all handled through Focal Naim North America and they are in Montreal, Canada. They have a service arrangement for US customers who ship to a US address and the rest is all handled by Focal Naim (that way you don’t have to deal with customs, duty or taxes).

6 Likes

Please try this route after Jan 1.
It is from an auto message from Michel Rousseau (Focal-Naim NA)

ticket@focal-naim.com

I’ve been leaving voice messages since a week before Christmas on a US 800 number. When i worked in business if i was off on vacation or was out of work my voice mail message informed you of that when you called my number. Every number i got transferred to had a voice mail message in French. I don’t speak French and neither does 99% of the people i know. Thats horrible customer service to me.

Seems like you have had the reason explained to you and how to proceed by other helpful forum members over there so how about you act on their descriptions instead of continuing to whine?:thinking:

2 Likes

Hoping not to “jinx” anything I have not had to interact with Naim / Focal Naim N.A. for any service matters. I have heard generally good things about their work and so I would also assume that the week between Christmas and New Years is simply not the time to be expecting a response.

Also I would not be leaving voice messages and assuming they are getting to the right place. It appears that OP’s telephone mode of contact is not being effective and to keep returning to it is quite obviously an exercise in futility. They WILL answer the phone and/or email once business resumes after New Years.

Finally, I would be engaging the help of a Naim authorized dealer in my local area even if I did not purchase from them. I would introduce myself, note that I purchased said item before I knew of their store, and that I would appreciate a little help to engage Focal Naim NA service. Most dealers would lend a hand.

Even more finally . . . I am pretty sure that naimaudio.com. is the domain of Naim Audio in Salisbury UK; not of the Focal Naim America distributorship and service organization. Not helpfully it appears that the Focal Naim America website is under re-construction.

5 Likes

I will add a few quick comments to add to many of the helpful posts above from fellow Naim fans. As a dealer, we see a lot of different types of users. Not everyone is comfortable performing network set up and network diagnostics. This is not your fault, but acting on your own may lead to a lengthy downtime for your system, which may not be necessary.

It may well be that Naim UK has correctly identified your Uniti Core as the source of whatever problems you have been experiencing. It is also possible that the Core is not the problem itself, but may be hampered by some other problems which make it hard for you to use, and thus a source of frustration for you. In our work with customers, many people have experienced problems of this type. Someone experienced with network set up might be able to help you without anything needing to be shipped anywhere.

A good local dealer can be invaluable in this sort of dynamic. I urge you to reach out to them for help in diagnostics, which is always the first step prior to assuming something needs to be repaired.

The second point is to note that we have used the Naim/ Focal team in North America for many repairs over the years, and their team is excellent.

Third, and finally, this time period may be more difficult for them to respond quickly to new repair requests due to the fact that they are rolling out a whole new web portal system for their dealers in both Canada and the US.

Best wishes,

Bruce

    • List item
4 Likes

US Naim dealers are hit or miss in terms of quality of customer service. Most are readily available to take your money for an order but few seem to be available to help you with anything else. Pro Musica in Chicago was always a great dealer when I lived there. I haven’t had great experiences with dealers here in AZ.

I’ll echo what others have said about the holidays. Some places shut down for the last half of December. Yeah they should communicate better but it is what it is. Hopefully the OP gets some help after the holidays are over.

5 Likes

Very true!

Two US based owners have been quick to comment on this and I will be the third. Contrary to what Bruce has said, in my +20 years of Naim ownership, many US based dealers are poor imho.

The quality of UK based Naim dealers is significantly better.

Caveat - back in the old days one could ALWAYS receive stellar service from Messrs. Koster and West

5 Likes

When I switched dealers, b/c I needed more home support,I have returned to Innovative Audio in NYC to purchase my first Naim system. Great service and support, but then I know the owner going back 40 years.

Who was your previous NY based dealer?

Signature Sound in upstate. Rich was great and he has amazing ears and audio sense. He would visit his mom in Westchester and swing by to maintain our stereo. When his mom passed, he could no longer come down b/c it was not economical and thus home service was no longer possible. Moreover as we aged, our need for home service increased.

When our Rega system got trashed because of home renovation, it was time to move on. We needed a NYC dealer.

Rich had the best audio hearing and Rega setup I have ever encountered. Had our circumstances not change we would have remained with Signature Sound. Again I am super satisfied with both dealers. Also i don’t believe Signature Sound is a Naim dealer so once we decided to explore Naim it meant we needed to move on. To Rich’s credit, he fully worked with Innovative to facilitate a smooth transition.

Moon Audio’s response to me was that they do not provide any technical assistance whatsoever. Naims website says they are my first point of contact. Moon just kept sending me the same information over and over even after i told them i was getting nowhere. I contacted another local dealer and they said if i had purchased it from them they would take it from me, verify my problem and forward to Naim if necessary. They simply referred me back to Moon.

1 Like

Thats a poor show, from Moon Audio.

Perhaps @Richard.Dane can suggest a way to unstick this…?