Customer Service Still matters here!

[IriverGuru]

On behalf of IRIVER AMERICA, I want to apologize for the delay in responding to email. We have recently switched offices and are training new Staff to handle the Customer Service side of things, both Phone and Email.

I read through the comments and we ask that you remain patient as we get up to speed on product knowledge and updated information. Please take advantage of the FAQ info on the http://www.iriveramerica.com site as well as other individuals here on this site.

In response to the importantance of Customer Service, the reason for the transition was to bring the CS back "In house." We felt it was more important as Direct employees to manage the CS side of things.

We are working hard to get the emails and phone calls responded to in a timely mannor. The number of staff is small, but growing, and we ask that you bear with us as we make these changes.

Thanks for understanding, We haven't forgotten YOU the customer and we will strive harder to support YOU the consumer of our products.


Though I won't be able to answer questions effeciently here, I will try and post info as often as I can. (I've got alot of emails to catch up on!)

We appreciate the support and hope that we here at Iriver can continue to deliver quality products and service.

[musichound]

They better improve on the customer service because that counts more than any other ingredient to make their product line successful.

[devyanks90]

whoooo! an iriver America rep in the forum!!!!

[Ted Yo!]

@devyanks90
What makes you think they haven't been here all along?

@IriverGuru:
Welcome to MR.

[alfmeister]

Chris T:
*Now that Jonathan Sasse (former president of iriver America) has resigned, have you picked a replacement? If so, who is the new president and does he/she have a plan to stay in business for the long term?
**Now that M$ has decided to break their alliance with manufacturers by introducing the Zune; does iriver America have a new partnership in mind?
***There is a new service called Podcast Ready that is being shipped in certain Cowon and other brands of mp3 players to add Podcast functionality. Is iriver looking into a partnership with them?

[musichound]

IriverGuru - Forgot to say...
Welcome to Mistic River. It's refreshing to see an iRiver rep here vs. the trolls that come here from time to time.
Where abouts are you from? You say you work for iRiver America, so is that in the U.S.?

I also agree about the Podcast Ready service. Even though all DAPs received copied Podcasts, the iPod makes it seamless. When I just had my one player, the H320 I never tried a Podcast but since I purchased the iPod 5.5G I find Podcasting extremely addicting.

[clieos]

Welcome to MR.
It is always nice for a company to have some sort of direct connection with its customers, especially MR here is dedicated for Iriver's product. I would also hope that Iriver can understand some opinions and ideas we have here and use them for future improvement

[Breakdown]

Originally Posted by alfmeister

Chris T:
***There is a new service called Podcast Ready that is being shipped in certain Cowon and other brands of mp3 players to add Podcast functionality. Is iriver looking into a partnership with them?

What does Podcast Ready functionality mean and do? I can only think of flagging audcasts to automatically bookmark the spot stopped. (like how video works)

[IriverGuru]

Thanks for the feedback. Its very slow going here trying to get up to speed and familiar w/ product knowledge.

I will try and respond w/ as much info as I can and I am legally allowed to! As to the future management and business partnerships, I don't have that info at this time. I can only speculate that Iriver will make choices that are advantageous for it to make the position in the portable media market more competitive. We will continue to offer great players and great support.

To answer your question, yes we ARE in the US, specifically Washington state, and most of us speak english.

As with the PODCAST, I know that I have gotten other requests and I am still trying to get "official word."

Again, I just work here, I can't offer too much info since we generally last to know.


Chris

[musichound]

Thanks for the update.
I just want to voice that there is a lot of interest in hard disk players that would extend the H100 and the H300 lines. There is constant talk here of why on Earth iRiver stopped production of them. Flash players are nice but IMHO in order to compete in the DAP race there should be at least one line that is hard drive based. I am not talking about the E series, either because that is only a few GB. I am talking about capacities of 40GB or more.

[pachinkoman]

Welcome Iriverguru

Question - are you here on your own? Or are you actually on company time performing company duties?

[IriverGuru]

At the time, I am between calls and actually doing a little R&D on common questions so to update and expand the resources available to Email responces, essentially on my own time though.

Honestly speaking, Im new to the company and I don't even own a portable MP3 player (though my employee disc. makes the new 4 gig look REALLY affordable!) but hope to purchase a device soon. For me, I have a large music collection, but I trely have no need for a large 20-60 gb HD player. Realistically, Im never going to listen to THAT much music. However, I know there are others (a fellow tech being one of them) who has his entire collection stored on a HD player. But Im probably in the minority. I can see the logic in it and given the market for HD player like that of the Ipod, obviously there is a demand.

I have had a chance to play with some of the players, and I too really like the HD players. I too wish that the HD type players make a comeback to compete with the likes of the; dare I say, Ipod. However, given the fragile nature of such devices, i think the flash are a great alternative. But, both have pros and cons.

I don't get to make the call about whats produced, its up to the parent company. The best thing the fans of iriver can do is submit feedback to the site and make suggestions. Im aware that one member has submitted some feedback and that was fwd internally to powers that be. Many of the requests yo have asked for, we here at Iriver also have asked for.

Thanks again for the "mostly" warm welcome. We know we have a lot to prove and still being new, getting up to speed is our first priority.

[DD]

Its good to see iriver putting a bit more into customer service. There have been many solutions to common problems found here on MR which, had they been available through the official iriver customer service, could've saved many people from RMA'ing in belief they had a faulty player.

Such an example is Ted Yo!'s "Device enumeration problems fixes" which have helped hundreds of H10 owners with MTP connection problems. Because of the nature of the fixes (registry edits, etc), its probably not the kind of thing that iriver could hand out as customer service, but its still the kind of thing that it would be nice to see coming from CS.

[musichound]

Is it just me who gets a warm and fuzzy feeling when an iRiver rep posts something here?

[Ted Yo!]

Originally Posted by DD

Such an example is Ted Yo!'s "Device enumeration problems fixes" which have helped hundreds of H10 owners with MTP connection problems.

100's ???
Latest attachment download count is: 10,389
(But every time I post an update it resets. )
Latest unique e-mail count: 476
I can't track the downloads from all the copies people posted on Creative's forum.

Seriously though...
Luckily WMP11 fixed two of the big four problems, so I'm guessing this type of thing will slow down a bit now. If CS still gets a large # of requests I can write a more redist friendly version (unofficially of course), also if you have unique questions you can e-mail me.

[DD]

Ok, tens-of-thousands then (I was being modest on your behalf )

[Ted Yo!]

I was being modest on your behalf

I suppose someone has to be. Come to think of it, it was a bit challenging getting my head through the door this morning.

[IRiverSage]

Hey there are more of us here than you think. Yeah its kinda fun being the guy everybody hates. Think of this as our own little "Heart and Minds" Campaign... just without the mass-devastation or refugees.

Well unless you count DOA players as devastation, or Ipod converts refugees.
MUST STOP BLABBING... Implicating self... Must "Stay the Course"

*BLAM* *Thud*

[emorphien]

Originally Posted by IRiverSage

Hey there are more of us here than you think. Yeah its kinda fun being the guy everybody hates. Think of this as our own little "Heart and Minds" Campaign... just without the mass-devastation or refugees.

Well unless you count DOA players as devastation, or Ipod converts refugees.
MUST STOP BLABBING... Implicating self... Must "Stay the Course"

*BLAM* *Thud*

Well if they've got good humored guys like you, iriver stands a chance!

[BBD]

What if I'm a soon-to-be iPod convert? Can I still be a refugee on the River?