PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh BIAB order process suggestion

To avoid any potential goaltending, let me preface my comments by saying what a huge fan of BIAB I am. The product is excellent, the support team is friendly and responsive, and every year's version is a tangible improvement over the last - overall a superior product and company, and I have recommended it to many of my peers.

There's one area that I believe is a substantial area for improvement from a customer satisfaction standpoint, and that is in regards to the order process itself, and more importantly the shipping.

It's a bit confusing to know which version to order when you're upgrading on the website. This is perhaps due to there being so many versions to select from (audiophile, etc.), but it might make it more user-friendly if there were separate links/pages for those upgrading from the previous version ('22 in this case) and for those who are upgrading an earlier version. Just a thought.

The only actual complaint I have ever had with PGMusic/BIAB (and this is nitpicking to a degree) is regarding the shipping process. By way of example, I saw early last week that the '23 version for Mac was now available - outstanding, so I immediately placed & paid for my order for the audiophile upgrade. It is now Friday, 10 days later, and the HD has still not even shipped. I've communicated with the sales team, and was told it would go out this week, and it most likely will ship today or tomorrow. My issue is this: a 10+ day turnaround to process & ship an order, in this day & age, is excessive. Now I wouldn't have a problem with that at all if it were communicated on the front end. It creates frustration to check and check and check for a shipping notification for days on end.

I understand that there are sometimes real-world problems that cause the delays. I just wish there was more proactive communication and transparency from PGMusic when that is an issue, or is going to be.

Whenever I'm producing a project, I always tell the client/artist two things before we begin. First, I tell them how much it's going to cost, and what I tell them is always more than what it winds up costing them. Secondly, I tell them when it will be finished, and again I always get it done sooner than I tell them up front. The reason being I have learned that it's better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver. A lot of that is successfully managed in the way expectations are set on the front end.

I hope this will be taken in the spirit of constructive criticism and (hopefully) helpful suggestion that it is intended.

My order took 10 days total from the order date. 8 days passed before it shipped but when it did ship it was sent by FedEx 2 day service. Maybe it took a few days extra to ship because they were slammed with orders for the new Mac 2023 sale. I hope they sold a ton of them!

The amount of time it takes to ship is less of an issue for me than the lack of communication explaining or preparing customers for it.
As of this morning (5/6), it has been 11 days and my order still has not shipped. Two points regarding that fact: first, that is an unacceptable and unreasonable amount of time to process & ship an order, and secondly, I should not have to track down information from PGMusic if there is a delay of some kind - or even if they are backed up with orders. An email explaining the situation would go a long, long way, but instead....crickets.

*update* after talking with sales, I am now told it could be as long as 1 or 2 more weeks before it ships. I reiterate, I shouldn't have to track this type of information down.

Suffice to say PG Music has a production issue and who knows if if the reason is a result of the Mac uptick in sales. Either way, totally not acceptable. The bottom line is that any reasons that you are given is lip service, up tp and including...... crickets. At the end of the day, you don't have the product. Oh, by the way, you likely paid for it up in advance.

I have not ordered my update yet, but when I do I will tell them that I will not authorize any charges for the item untill it ships. Make'em squirm a little bit. It bugs me to pay for something that I don't have.

I feel your pain. I ordered immediately after the new version went live on the website, and it was over a week before it was shipped. That said, it is apparently a 3rd-party that does the shipping, so sometimes things are out of people's control. It is nice that they allow us to download the new software immediately so we can start using some of the new features ASAP. I wish they'd just offer EVERYTHING as downloads. A CDN is faster AND cheaper than paying a 3rd-party to copy files to a hard drive and ship them out.

I know that but I'd feel better pushing them a bit. But you never know, I might receive it in a couple of days.

Says you. Can't say that I agree.

My order shipped from a large warehouse in California. Took five days to ship and I received it two days later.

Interestingly, there is no shipper name on the label so I have no idea who the carrier is. No complaint here.

It begs the question, why are some orders processed & shipped so quickly. You got yours in a very timely manner, and that's great...but I'm coming up on two weeks since I placed & paid for mine, and it still hasn't shipped. Interesting that some seem to get out the door expeditiously and others do not. At the very least it's something that PGM should look into.

When I ordered mine it was delivered to me in the UK in 5 days after placing the order.

Fortunately, only the Audiophile version requires the drive; all others are available via download.

Some of us have been complaining about this for years. Having an internet connection that allows me to download a 1.5TB Komplete library set easily, I was finally free of having that stack of hard drives. It would be nice if BIAB followed suit.

The audiophile drives did take longer to start shipping. Sorry for the delay.
Yes, we have considered offering it as a download, OR offering new/updated files as a download. That might be feasible, but it is not currently offered (aside from the option to download the regular non-audiophile version).

Thank you for not insulting our intelligence like (others whom I shall not name) by telling us why we don't really want this.

Now, if I had a use for this growing stack of 2TB HDDs…

Just as an FYI.My Canadian shipment for the Mac 2023 update was ordered on Tuesday of this week and I received at 1 pm today (Friday).