Guitar Center great customer service

[ariff]

My family had a great experience at our local Guitar Center yesterday afternoon. We loaded the family up in the van and headed out to Guitar center since my wife wanted to buy a new acoustic guitar. Her plans were to just test drive their guitars to help her make up her mind on which one she wanted. Then we'd look around online\Ebay for the best deal on the one she decided on.
Well my six year old son was pretty excited to go as well. He is really into piano\keyboard and drums. So without us knowing he brought along all the money he had been saving over the last year, around 60 bucks thinking he'd buy something cool there. As my wife was playing I took the kids around the store to look at all the cool stuff and make annoying noises on everything. My son was wearing his favorite hat and decided what better place to keep his money than on top of his head under the hat. Sounded like a good idea to a six year old. Even though we have told him several times the pocket is the best place. Well he gets to the electric drums and he takes off his hat and money then places it on the floor. Hat covering the money so he can put on the headphones and play. All this time I am keeping an eye on out three year old little girl. Well we move onto my part of the store, bass. We look around for a bit and my son says hey Dad I lost my hat. OK no big deal I bet it is in the drum section of the store. We go back and sure enough there is his hat, but guess what the money is gone. Now is when he tells me "Dad all my money was under there". What! Now he is very upset, crying and learning his lesson the hard way about dishonest people. We go see Mom and when she gets wind of this she goes into ultra protective Super Mom mode. Before we know it the Sales manager and several other employees are asking us what is going on. When they hear about what happened they all go ask others if they know of or saw anyone take the money. Of course no one had. Now here is the really cool part. The sales manager asks my boy what he likes. He says I am a piano player. Now he goes running around and comes back with a keyboard stand, keyboard seat and metronome and gives it to him. Probably worth more than the money he lost to begin with.
Wow I was so shocked. They could have easily had the attitude well kid ya learn your lesson the hard way. Next time keep your money in your pocket. But they did not in fact all the employees were very concerned and we got asked several times if we were ok and that they were very sorry this happened. They took a bad situation and made it into one of the best retail situations I have ever been in. My son learned two valuable lessons that day about dishonest people and honest people with big hearts. Needless to say we left with a $400.00 acoustic for my wife. And I know where I'll be buying any future equipment.
Sorry for the long story, but I just wanted to share our great experience we had at GC with you all.

[Dan Knowlton]

WOW! Makes me feel a LOT better about GC.

Dan K.

[Pilgrim]

Nice people and SMART retailing are a pleasure to hear about. Not only were they nice, they were smart enough to seize the opportunity to make a long-term friend. Write a letter to the store manager complementing the people involved, and you'll make another friend yourself!

[ariff]

Oh yeah my wife is already drafting a nice letter to the store manager and Coroprate offices..

[Spinal Tapper]

Very cool - you should mention what store it was specifically so they get a good rep around here on TB.

I had a very similar situation happen to me at my cousin's HS football game back when I was like 8 years old. I had $95 of birthday money in my little kid's wallet, in my back pocket of some Umbro shorts - the only pocket on those things were just the little shallow back pocket. I was running and playing with my other cousins when I lost the wallet.

Someone ACTUALLY turned it in to the concession stand (probably noticing it was a little kid's bright yellow wallet) with ALL of the money in it. There are still good people in this world.

That's very cool what GC did for you and your family. Great story.

[Tommygunn]

Are you sure that was a GC!?


Kiddin, I had a guy keep askin me if I needed any help or he could take any basses off the wall for me. Nice, nice guy!

[I<34080]

Lucky you, last time I was at GC I asked an employee to get a Geddy Jazz down off the wall for me, he says "I'll go get a ladder" he comes back 2 minutes later without a ladder, walks right by me drinking coffee and doesn't say anything. I had to ask another person to get it down.

[ariff]

This was at the Overland Park store in Kansas city.. I bought an ATK from them over a year ago and the sales person that helped me then was there when all this happened. He asked me.. Hey I sold you an ATK awhile back right. Wow yeah ya did. Did not expect he'd remember that.

[DRafalske]

I've had nothing but good experiences at my local GC. Helpful, friendly, knowledgeable people who seem to know their stuff pretty well.
There's another GC north of the city that's the polar opposite. I'm glad the good one is close to home.

[Barnabas]

Its nice to hear about good retailing like this! Thanks for the post.

[scowboy]

Overall I have had pretty good experience with the GC here in Sacramento. The prices are always fair and when I have needed something extra they have been generally willing to oblige. There are one or two guys I won't deal with but the rest are generally very accommodating. The biggest problem for us here in Sacramento is they just sell a lot of crap basses and the better amps don't seem to move at all so you see the same Markbass and Ampeg amps and a lot of Acoustic stuff.

Anyway I never pay full price for anything there but when the sales hit I usually find someway to leave my money with them.

[Rick_no7]

The night before, GC was visited by 4 spirits, among them the Ghost of Customer Service Past which reminded GC of what customer service had once been!

I heard they bought a big goose for the family down the street!

[Bardley]

It's sad that a number of idiots out there can ruin the reputation of all of the stores. From what I can tell, GCs vary wildly from store to store. I've been in some that were great, others that were not.

I'm glad you have a good store and manager there. Be very thankful. Good people seem to be getting harder to find all the time. IMO.

[Yakob]

While I have not had many good experiences with the Guitar Center in my area (poor set-ups and wiring, half the time the employees don't want to talk to you), I have had good experiences with MusicGoRound, specifically the MGR in Wilkes-Barre where they fixed the nut on my bass free of charge and set the bass up, also free of charge. They put up with all my issues and annoying questions without a peep...

The service was especially shocking considering that all the times I "dropped" the bass off, I had to ship it to them, and THEY paid for shipping to fix the bass.

[kencasino]

I sent an email to corporate about a good experience I had at GC. The next day I got an email from the Tucson GC thanking me for the comment and mentioning that the person would be rewarded for that kind of service. Some people have troubles with any store anywhere, It is not possible to get ALL great employees at EVERY store, but my experience has always been great at the Tucson store.

[electracoyote]

With all the gleeful Guitar Center bashing that usually erupts on this web site, it's really nice to hear something positive.

I'm a 30+ year pro, and I happen to like my local GC's (all three of them), I know the staffs and managers well, and this kind of bend-over-backwards behavior is the norm for me.

No, it's not the perfect retail outlet. What retail outlet is perfect? It is what it is, the buyer also shares in the overall success of any transaction, and I think there are a lot of good peope at GC more than willing to be helpful.

Great story, thanks for sharing.

[Pilgrim]

I hadn't been into the GC in Fort Collins in probably six months, but when I went in and started noodling around on that Dearmond I bought, the tall gent in the pic I posted remembered my name. Very pleasant guy.

[Steve!]

The best experience was when the guy gets the bass off the wall via ladder, gets a seat, gets a cord, ques up the best amp, and stays there and listens then says "You have a good groove"

[lomo]

The problem with GC is not GC, but simply that the relative success of GC and the 'net have done to virtuially all other small music outlets what humans have done to virtually all other life forms on Earth. Balance is hard to reach.....

[finalrequiem]

I haven't had any bad experiences at the OKC store, other than an associate telling my sister that "Bass players are easy to buy for. All you need to know is if they want "rough" strings or "slick" ones." lol