Ryan Rockich

Review of Southtree

I sent Southtree a simple tape to CD transfer proj...

I sent Southtree a simple tape to CD transfer project as a first time customer using a deal I found on Groupon. After receiving updates via email all along the way, I thought things were going rather smoothly and was impressed with the company at first. The last email even stated that their techs were looking over their work to make sure everything was right before shipping it out. Unfortunately, nothing has gone right since.

The CD(s) I received were missing entire songs as well as some songs being split over multiple tracks. How anyone worth their salt in A\V production could have checked my project over, found that, and then put a stamp of approval on it I will never understand.

I called immediately for return instructions. After being told that they had deleted the source files and would need my original tape to remedy the problem, Southtree emailed me out a call tag. Upon receiving and checking my project over, they then emailed me back a confirmation that mentioned something about a DVD. Well, right away I was leery since my project was not at all a DVD transfer, so I called to make sure everything would be done right and shipped out in enough time before Christmas (after all, this was to be a gift to multiple people). An employee by the name of "Katie" assured me that the techs were busy reworking my project and that it would arrive via priority shipping by Christmas eve.

Some days after Christmas had passed and my project finally arrived (for the second time), I was doubly dismayed to find that there were only 2 tracks on the CD's, each track having multiple songs on them. What a terrible disappointment! Upon calling Southtree for an explanation, Katie told me the reasoning behind putting multiple songs on one track was to eliminate the problems I had experienced before, namely the track splitting and omissions.

As I was quick to tell Katie, anyone with even the most basic background in A/V production knows this is a totally unacceptable solution, not to mention taking the lazy man's way out. A real professional would have adjusted their equipment thresholds for gaps of silence in between and during songs. Should taking that measure not fully work, the technician ought to have fine tuned the parameters until the final result was one song per track as it should be. This is a time consuming ordeal, and the whole reason I farmed out the project to a third party to begin with!

At this point, it was painfully obvious to me that no one at Southtree could be bothered to do their jobs right.

After speaking with a supervisor ("Josh"), I was told that he would check to see whether or not they had actually gotten rid of the source files for my project and, should that be the case, he would then have to send yet another call tag out for me to return my tape so that the job could be done. If not, they could reproduce the CD using the same files. (Hours later, I'm still waiting for that email).

In any event, Josh apologized and politely offered to refund my money, saying how sorry he was that my experience with Southtree had ended up being such a poor one.

Long story short: the sound quality of the tracks I did receive was very good. The customer service is an abomination (average hold time to speak to a human being was around 10 minutes each time I called). Quality control? Non-existent. This seems to be a case of a young company with young employees in desperate need of some seasoning when it comes to follow through. Hopefully, my debacle will be a lesson in customer service Southtree can and will learn from. Sadly, I'll be taking any future business of mine elsewhere.

Update 1/8/15: Received the refund. Josh said they still had the source files and could redo the project without my having to send the original tape back in. Just received the new CD's. End result? STILL WRONG!!! Missing tracks/split tracks all over again just like the first time. I'll be calling to talk to the owners tomorrow.

UN. BE. LIEVABLE.

Overall Grade: F+