Recent

Excelcia Music Publishing and Wingert-Jones Publications Announce ‘Ready Sets’ for Concert Band

August 5, 2025

Get Ready to Rock The 2026 NAMM Show: NAMM Celebrates 125 Years with Five-Days of Music, Innovation and Industry Legacy

August 4, 2025

Jessica Tropea Joins Neutrik Americas as Customer Solutions Engineer

August 4, 2025

It’s Back to School Season: Is Your Store Ready?

August 5, 2025

Neil Potter Promoted to Director of National Sales at Allen & Heath USA

August 1, 2025

Sonique Drums Unveils Poly Pro Slim Snare Wire Straps

August 1, 2025

NAMM Announces New Leadership Teams For Women of NAMM and NAMM Young Professionals

July 30, 2025

Jeff Mulvihill Appointed Combo Drum and Concert Percussion Brand Manager for KHS America

July 29, 2025
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
  • Contact
MMR Magazine
  • Subscribe Now!
    • Subscribe Now!
  • Advertise
  • Email Press Releases!
  • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
  • Newsroom
    • News
    • MMR Global
    • Supplier Scene
    • Upfront
    • People
  • Awards
    • Dealers’ Choice Awards Ballot 2024
    • Don Johnson Award Winners Archive
  • Directory
  • Get Support!
No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Now!
    • Subscribe Now!
  • Advertise
  • Email Press Releases!
  • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
  • Newsroom
    • News
    • MMR Global
    • Supplier Scene
    • Upfront
    • People
  • Awards
    • Dealers’ Choice Awards Ballot 2024
    • Don Johnson Award Winners Archive
  • Directory
  • Get Support!
No Result
View All Result
MMR Magazine
No Result
View All Result

Is Customer Service a Dying Art?

Christian Wissmuller by Christian Wissmuller
July 1, 2015
in Last Word
0
938
SHARES
2.3k
VIEWS
Share on Facebook
ADVERTISEMENT

We’ve talked about the return to the notion of craft in this space.

Whether it’s beer or cupcakes or bacon, or Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours that musicians have been taking to heart (and to the woodshed) lately, or hand-built guitar amps made in an Ohio garage, or the continuing emphasis on vinyl records, there has been a marked return to the idea that whatever it is we do, we can do it with a sense of involvement that harkens back to pre-industrial days, before mass production.

ADVERTISEMENT

No one is kidding themselves – industrialized manufacturing, mass marketing, and comprehensive distribution remain the backbone of any commodities business, including MI. But the idea of craft runs like a widening thread through it, creating a benchmark that can leaven the entire process. And while the thread includes acid-etched stomp boxes and Pat Methany’s fabulous Orchestrion, it can also extend to more carbon-based entities. One of those would be Pablo Mastodon, who is a kind of one-man band of customer service for keyboard maker Nord. Mastodon, who works from his home in Tampa, is literally the company’s customer service department, and the availability of a flesh-and-blood person to answer technical and product questions is a complement to Nord’s handmade keyboards, which are cobbled in Sweden. “When you buy a Nord, you get me with it…,” said Mastodon, who provides technical support for U.S. and Canadian customers. “Sometimes they think that I’m a recording when they hear me and they expect they’ll have to leave a message. People are shocked when they reach someone live for the first time.”

He fell into the gig in 2010 when a local electronics business that had been handling Nord’s North American customer service decided not to continue that work. “They knew me as a kind of MIDI geek, and I started and just never stopped,” he says. He keeps similar hours as the musicians he serves, often taking calls during early morning hours, sometimes coinciding when he’s also coming home from a gig. “Musicians aren’t working nine to five Monday through Friday, when most customer service lines are open,” he says. But he does get out of the house sometimes, often to meet the keyboard techs for artists including Usher, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum, John Mayer, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, and Carrie Underwood when they pass through local performance venues.

Mastodon has demo units of all of Nord’s current product models, provided by American Music & Sound, the U.S. distributor of Nord and also his employer. He also has older Nord models in his collection he bought via Craigslist and eBay to help service legacy-product customers. As a technician, Mastodon, whose first keyboard was a Farfisa Combo Compact that he played in local bands in high school in the 1970s, says he doesn’t do “open-heart surgery” on circuit boards; instead, he practices self-described triage on units sent in for service.

But wherever he falls on the spectrum of technical adroitness, Mastodon sets a high bar for customer service at a time when the phrase has achieved the status of a contradiction in terms. Cornerstone companies like Comcast, which controls roughly 19 percent of subscription cable TV market – and which would have controlled over a third of the entire country’s broadband service had its planed merger with TWC been allowed to proceed – routinely comes in dead last in customer service polls. Verizon, AT&T, airlines, and other pivotal companies are not far ahead of them, and the dreaded phone trees that greet customers of even small companies these days, putting them through gyrations that eventually lead them to Manila or Bangalore before they talk to a human, have become ubiquitous and inescapable.

Which is why Pablo Mastodon makes such a difference. Even he describes what he does as “a luxury that not a lot of companies can offer.” But it is one that more companies can make a better effort at.

Tags: customer serviceDan Daley
Previous Post

The Secret to Success? Adaptability

Next Post

Vigilance All Year Long Is Crucial For Local Music Education

Related Posts

Last Word

The Gathering of the Tribes

June 6, 2022
Mike Lawson
Last Word

And They’re Off…

June 1, 2021
Mike Lawson
Last Word

A Virtual Return to Musical Fitness

February 22, 2021
Randall Smith, founder of Mesa/Boogie
Last Word

Weeping and Gnashing of Frets

February 1, 2021
Photo by Sebastian Ervi from Pexels
Last Word

The Year It Wasn’t Worth It

December 2, 2020
Last Word

NAMM Show 2020 at the Edge of Music’s Future

January 20, 2020
Next Post

Vigilance All Year Long Is Crucial For Local Music Education

Please login to join discussion
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

It’s Back to School Season: Is Your Store Ready?

August 5, 2025

Excelcia Music Publishing and Wingert-Jones Publications Announce ‘Ready Sets’ for Concert Band

August 5, 2025

Yamaha Drums Adds Jamie Miller to Artist Roster

August 31, 2017
Tom Capo

KPODJ: The Gold Standard In Pro Audio Retail

January 26, 2017

Excelcia Music Publishing and Wingert-Jones Publications Announce ‘Ready Sets’ for Concert Band

Get Ready to Rock The 2026 NAMM Show: NAMM Celebrates 125 Years with Five-Days of Music, Innovation and Industry Legacy

Jessica Tropea Joins Neutrik Americas as Customer Solutions Engineer

It’s Back to School Season: Is Your Store Ready?

Excelcia Music Publishing and Wingert-Jones Publications Announce ‘Ready Sets’ for Concert Band

August 5, 2025

Get Ready to Rock The 2026 NAMM Show: NAMM Celebrates 125 Years with Five-Days of Music, Innovation and Industry Legacy

August 4, 2025

Jessica Tropea Joins Neutrik Americas as Customer Solutions Engineer

August 4, 2025

It’s Back to School Season: Is Your Store Ready?

August 5, 2025
ADVERTISEMENT
The Latest News and Gear in Your Inbox - Sign Up Today!
  • August 2025

    Articles | Digital Issue
  • July 2025

    Articles | Digital Issue
  • June 2025

    Articles | Digital Issue
  • May 2025

    Articles | Digital Issue
  • April 2025

    Articles | Digital Issue
© 2005 - 2025 artistpro, LLC
7012 City Center Way, Suite 207
Fairview, Tennessee 37062
(800) 682-8114

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Now!
    • Subscribe Now!
  • Advertise
  • Email Press Releases!
  • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
  • Newsroom
    • News
    • MMR Global
    • Supplier Scene
    • Upfront
    • People
  • Awards
    • Dealers’ Choice Awards Ballot 2024
    • Don Johnson Award Winners Archive
  • Directory
  • Get Support!

© 2005 – 2024 artistpro, LLC 7012 City Center Way, Suite 207 Fairview, Tennessee 37062 (800) 682-8114

This is Modal Title

Click Me
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?