Guitar Center vs. Sam Ash
For the past couple of years, Guitar Center has been my music store of choice. I made a trip into the Sam Ash at Ontario Mills in Ontario, CA a while back and deemed it too pricey for my tastes. Guitar Center’s prices seemed more reasonable and they are closer to my house. Two electric guitars, an amp, strings, a case and other accessories later I bought a couple of microphones from them. Got them home…they were rather pitiful in quality. I returned decided to them. I get there, and spend 15 minutes waiting to return them, as none of the sales people want to deal with me when they find out I am bringing back defective merchandise, since they are paid commission. I understand that, I have worked in sales before. But I’m sorry, I you are not a good enough sales person to make money and take the hit of a return, then you really shouldn’t be in sales my friend. The guy that sold me the crappy mics is there, sees me, but instead of addressing my issue, he asks me to wait…he’s trying to close a sale with another customer. Finally, he has time for me and my little problems and I begin telling him how I got nothing but static from them and wanted to exchange or return them.
Now, the appropriate action here would have been to apologize, and ask me what he could do for me. But that is not what happened.
For the next 15 minutes, he tested out the 2 microphones. 15 minutes. 15 minutes I had to stand around. ‘check, check 1, check, check, check 1, check 1, 2, check 1, 2” Oy vey. I’d like those 15 minutes of my life back. When he is satisfied that the mics are indeed crap, he walks me back up to the register. I ask what else he has in a similar price range and the lazily points in the direction of the mic case and mumbles an unintelligible product number. I looked at him in disbelief before circling around the case trying to decide which mics he was referring to. Apparently, his legs had stopped working as he didn’t actually remove himself from behind the register to show me the comparable microphones. I think he must have gotten tired of waiting for me though, as he eventually meandered over and pointed out a set of microphones that were $200 more…each. Riiiight. Needless to say, I got my money back and booked it over to Sam Ash. It was now 45 minutes until they closed for the night thanks to my debacle at Guitar Center and I was 15 minutes away. D’oh.
Arrived at Sam Ash at 8:30pm, closing time is 9:00pm. A young guy in the mic section pointed me away from the uber expensive studio mics and to the more reasonably priced ones. Then, much to my surprise, he plugged in the mics for me to test out. I told him about the fiasco with the mics at Guitar Center, he asked what brand I had gotten there and then he looked at me in confusion when I told him. He had never heard of this brand that I had been led to believe was such a great brand. Then he showed me how the brand I was currently testing also made a $21,000 sound console thingie. Uh, yeh, the quality was much better. Sadly, they were going to cost more than the ones they tried to sell me at Guitar Center, but I got them anyways. Not only did they guy at Sam Ash knock off almost $100 each on the mics, but he gave me a free mic cable – the one we tested the mics on. He said that way I knew for sure that it worked since we tested it. This whole process – 15 minutes. 15 minutes! Better service, better product, less time.
RIP Guitar Center.
I am now a Sam Ash customer for life.
I'm going guitar shopping this week...at Sam Ash. Even though I have to drive right by Guitar Center to get there. Maybe I'll flip them off as I pass by.
File under: how to keep (or lose) a customer
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