Post your good customer service stories

[Reverend Conehead]

There are plenty of stories of people getting lousy customer service. Let's talk about good customer service because that really happens plenty of times.

Here's mine. This might date me, but I owned a daisy wheel printer, but without the tractor feed. As a result, I had to put paper into the printer one sheet at a time to print up my documents. Way too cumbersome. The old daisy wheel and dot matrix printers used tractor-fed computer paper. For the daisy wheel printer that I had, you needed to buy the tractor feeding system separately. So I went to a computer place to order one. It was taking forever to come in because they were having problems with their vendor. I would go in and they would be like, "I was on the phone with them trying to get it." They clearly did care about my problem. It was a vendor thing. So one day I was out doing my errands, and I stopped by that computer shop and the guy immediately knew why I was there. He jokingly said, "You sure are picky. You order something and you expect to actually get it." It made for a good laugh and lightened the mood. They followed up again and finally talked with someone at the vendor who knew what they were doing, and got it sent out expedited shipping.
...
This was good customer service, despite their having hit a big obstacle, which was a hard-headed vendor. The dude was smart to use humor to break the tension when I was starting to feel really frustrated. A little humor can go a long way. In this case, it helped to make up for the vendor who was dropping the ball.

Your turn. Post about any good customer service that you've had.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

zzounds.com

When I was looking to order my Gibson Les Paul modern.
I first went to sweetwater.

The reason I liked sweetwater is that they had the option of viewing the actual guitars and letting you pick the one you liked vs just picking the guitar from a stock picture.

That way you can see the flame or quilt in the tops, gives you the actual weight of each guitar and so on.

Musicians friend and Guitar center does not give you that option.

Sweetwater also will assign you a salesman that you can talk with over the phone and look things up.

The guitar I wanted was not in stock, nor was the next two I was considering.

So I looked at zzsounds.com and they also had the galleries for the different guitars with the weights and so on.

I inquired about a few things and they got me a salesman who went over some things.

I had a specific amount of money I wanted to spend. They had the guitars in stock. I asked if there was discounts available since it was a good little chunk of change for the guitar. They gave me a pretty good price drop. Enough so that I added some strings, strap and a new Boss Katana amp which I also got a discount on all of those and still it was at my price I wanted.

The price was better than expected, the customer service was helpful and the order was delivered quickly without having to pay extra.

So if you like guitars or accessories and other musical instruments...If you like sweet water but you can't find what you want in stock.

Give zzounds.com a look.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

zzounds.com

When I was looking to order my Gibson Les Paul modern.
I first went to sweetwater.

The reason I liked sweetwater is that they had the option of viewing the actual guitars and letting you pick the one you liked vs just picking the guitar from a stock picture.

That way you can see the flame or quilt in the tops, gives you the actual weight of each guitar and so on.

Musicians friend and Guitar center does not give you that option.

Sweetwater also will assign you a salesman that you can talk with over the phone and look things up.

The guitar I wanted was not in stock, nor was the next two I was considering.

So I looked at zzsounds.com and they also had the galleries for the different guitars with the weights and so on.

I inquired about a few things and they got me a salesman who went over some things.

I had a specific amount of money I wanted to spend. They had the guitars in stock. I asked if there was discounts available since it was a good little chunk of change for the guitar. They gave me a pretty good price drop. Enough so that I added some strings, strap and a new Boss Katana amp which I also got a discount on all of those and still it was at my price I wanted.

The price was better than expected, the customer service was helpful and the order was delivered quickly without having to pay extra.

So if you like guitars or accessories and other musical instruments...If you like sweet water but you can't find what you want in stock.

Give zzounds.com a look.

That's good to know, thanks. I've never bought from zzounds, but I'll consider them when I need a guitar. I'm a big Sweetwater fan too. I bought my Sire S7 FM from them. At one point, I wanted to buy an Ibanez Artist AR320 QA, but Sweetwater was out of them, so I bought it from Guitar Center's web page and I bought its case form Sweetwater. I know a lot of musicians badmouth Guitar Center, but I've had good luck with them. I bought my Takamine acoustic from them. The young guy at Guitar Center who helped me buy my acoustic was very good at customer service. It came down to that Takamine or a Seagull, and I liked them both a lot, but the Tak felt a little better in my hands.

 

[darthseinfeld]

Rochester Passport office. They were so nice and helped I felt compelled to right a glowing Yelp review

Then I got my passport in 3 weeks

 

[Creeper]

I have had good experiences with zzounds too, but Sweetwater is almost unbelievable. Last year I refurbished and refinished an old Guild acoustic and needed a soft case for the finished product. I checked all the usual sites but found exactly what I was looking for at Sweetwater. I had never purchased from them before. I couldn't believe the service, just for a soft case! The sales guy emailed me multiple terms before and after the case arrived to give me status and to check to see if I was happy. He seemed genuinely interested in my satisfaction.

I am not a fan of Guitar Center. Musicians Friend used to be a great store for musical equipment. But my first stop now is Sweetwater.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Sweetwater has a used section https://www.sweetwater.com/used
Guitar center does as well https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used?typeAheadRedirect=true

I bought my Gibson SG Supreme from the guitar center used section.

I find it kind of interesting to surf both areas when I am bored. Just to see if you can find a decent deal and so on.

I think you can get some better deals on Guitar Centers used site. However they do not provide many good photos or full descriptions.
You can however contact customer support for more info.

 

[VaqueroTD]

Publix grocery store. Only once had a subpar experience and the place was going through a remodel so I guess I can give it a pass. Privately owned companies > publicly traded companies. Not even close.

 

[Creeper]

Sweetwater has a used section https://www.sweetwater.com/used
Guitar center does as well https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used?typeAheadRedirect=true

I bought my Gibson SG Supreme from the guitar center used section.

I find it kind of interesting to surf both areas when I am bored. Just to see if you can find a decent deal and so on.

I think you can get some better deals on Guitar Centers used site. However they do not provide many good photos or full descriptions.
You can however contact customer support for more info.

I am a big fan of browsing the used sections as well even though I am not in the market to buy any more equipment. I sold off tons of stuff a couple of years ago on Reverb, which is also cool to browse. Some stuff brings back memories from my youth.

 

[nobody]

Not to sound trite or anything, but you can turn almost any customer service experience into great customer service by being polite, patient, and treating the person you're dealing with like a person and not a cog in the machine. That little bit of respect will usually make them bend over backwards to help you in any way they can because in today's culture, it's rare.