Making Customer Service Even Better At Nautel
[February 2026] When you are buying new equipment, sometimes customer service is not a major consideration. After all, the gear is new. It is tested. But, over time, there comes a time you will need to get help from the factory.
Unfortunately, getting customer service these days is not always easy. More often than not, you have to navigate those AI-infested digital menus that frustrate callers and often do not provide the needed information or help. John Wilton looks at the philosophy that makes Nautel Service stand out.
Managing customer service at a transmitter company is both challenging and rewarding. When you are managing customer service at Nautel, it means even more.
Nautel is a company that has never discontinued support on any product – and we have been in business for 57 years. As you can imagine, that can mean a lot of calls!
SUPPORT BASICS
I joined Nautel as Head of Customer Service in 2018, with a background in both sales and customer service. Nautel already had superb customer service – my goal was to make it even better.
My past experiences steered me into looking at the best ways of operating a department, from people to tools. I continually asked my team to look through the eyes of our customers when breaking down processes, policies and procedures.
It helps that our President/CEO, Kevin Rodgers, was at the helm of Customer Service for many years. Kevin really understands the importance of this team.
MAKING CUSTOMER SERVICE FAST AND HELPFUL
Here is how customer service works at Nautel:
- We have technicians on call 24/7/365.
- All calls are considered important, not just “off-air” situations.
Customer service calls can range from “how do I measure this parameter” to “I need a part for this older transmitter” to “I’m off the air,” and everything in between. We had just over 5000 calls in 2025 – our average answer rate over the last year was 19 seconds.
But – if someone is off the air – a button is pressed and the call immediately goes to a technician. In radio, we know Time is Money!
MEASURING THE LEVEL OF SUPPORT
The best way to gauge the effectiveness of anything is to measure it, and we have been doing that with Nautel Customer Service for several years.
I am sure you are aware of the little surveys that pop up in your email after interactions with many companies. The surveys measure satisfaction with our support and ask if the caller considers the case closed.
At Nautel, we take those surveys seriously and really want you to respond to them after you have called us. We are constantly reviewing our results with these surveys and, so far, our average score in the survey measurement system is a 92 (anything above 90 is considered “world class”). We want to move that score even higher.
If for some reason we get a poor score from a customer, we quickly reach out to that customer to see how the situation can be rectified.
UNDERSTANDING THE CALLERS’ NEEDS
One of our biggest concerns at Nautel is the “ageing out” of RF engineers throughout the industry.
We see this in many of our calls, where someone new is managing a transmitter and has little to no RF experience (many new radio station engineers actually have an IT background). This lack of knowledge compounds the situation when an engineer is trying to fix a problem but does not really understand the operation of a transmitter.
NEW TRAINING CENTER
We are addressing this with a Training Center that we opened in the fall of 2024.
Twice each year, we offer basic training on RF and transmitters. We teach theory, typical operation, safety, and Nautel “tips and tricks.” The doors are large enough to bring big transmitters into the Training Center, which gives attendees hands-on experience with an operational unit.
Unlike our free post-NAB session (a three-day training course covering a range of topics including site preparation, safety, Nautel equipment and software, digital radio, and more), these classes are offered at a fee and can be considered to be at the level of an introductory college course.
We believe that any station with an engineer new to RF will consider the fee to be money well spent. You even get SBE credits for attending. (The completion of a Nautel Support Training Center program qualifies for SBE re-certification credits, identified under Category H of the Re-certification Schedule for SBE Certifications.)
Please reach out to my team or myself if you have any concerns about your Nautel products or services.
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For more information of Nautel Authorized Training please visit https://support.nautel.com/training/.
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John Wilton is the Head of Customer Service for Nautel. You can reach John at john.wilton@nautel.com
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