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Congratulations to DR Strings

Two years ago (maybe a little less), I ordered 4 sets of Jonas Hellborg signature strings (maybe I was the first person ever to place an order on these strings) through Bass Central.

As soon as the strings arrived to me, I discovered that there was a mix up in the gauge of the strings. I contacted BC and they contacted the DR company. Mr Patrick Denniston (on behalf of the DR Music) send me an email apologizing for the mix up and promised to get back to me as the production line related problem got resolved. Mr Denniston has been very professional and helpful to my inquiries regarding the Jonas Hellborg signature set and offered me a set of DR strings as an apology.

The Bootsy Collins signature set (5 string) arrived and was happily used on my Brase I.

Time passed by and three months ago, Mr Denniston informed me that "There haven't been any further developments regarding the Jonas sets. I've not received any notice that the idea has been abandoned, but it seems other projects have caused it to be put on the shelf indefinitely."

In order to rectify the situation he offered me to get different sets of equal value, plus an extra set as a gift for my patience and the trouble I had gone through.

I have never seen such a behaviour from a larger scale company; only in small(er) production lines (Dingwall, MTD, Ritter, Status to name a few that I've dealt with) had a great human and professional conduct with a customer like myself.

In another instance, I bought an expensive set of strings from another company in the UK while visiting there. When i put the strings on the bass, the E and A strings rattled from the inside (like the outer windings had separated from the inner windings and from the core). When i called the company (in another country) they asked me to ship the strings to them (ok till here) but they did not offer any further assistance as to what would happen afterwards. When i told them that their strings were not represented in my country (to that moment) they did not offer to replace the set free of charge. I did not bother to ship the strings to them, nor I am willing to try their products any longer.

Not all companies are bad at conducting business but the good ones need to get a nod of approval by us, the customers. And not all customers are spotless when they are trying to get a deal or when they behave like they own the company or the employee that serves them. Mutual respect is a must!!!!

Kudos to DR Music and Mr Denniston.
 
Everyone gives them a lot of grief, but I've had similar good experience with Rotosound. I got a 5 string set of their flatwounds and the B string seemed to be dead out of the pack, compared to the other strings. I sent an email to the address on the package and got a reply almost immediately from their customer relations guy. I had told him that I really loved his strings but had had some other problems occasionally in the 5 or so years I used them. He explained exactly what probably went wrong on the production line to cause each problem and promptly sent me 2 more sets of their flatwounds and another B string to replace the dead one. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed, especially that they sent them all the way from England to Colorado when they have (as he told me) a US office!

Anyways, despite an occasional problem with their strings, I think this situation ensured my business for years to come!

Karl Zickrick
 
I've been using Dr's for like 10 years now. In that time I've had to bad string's (pretty good average) in which the inner core pulled away and rattled. In both incidents they replaced not just the string but the whole set.
Try getting that kind of CS from most manufactures.
 
then why can,t I get a response frim them. I just bought a set of hi-beams about a week ago from georges music in springfield pa and the B string was dead right out of the box. I went to the store and they told me to contact the manufacturer I did via email and I havent heard anything yet. WHAT GIVES!!!!!!!!
 
da drive first said:
then why can,t I get a response frim them. I just bought a set of hi-beams about a week ago from georges music in springfield pa and the B string was dead right out of the box. I went to the store and they told me to contact the manufacturer I did via email and I havent heard anything yet. WHAT GIVES!!!!!!!!

when did you email them? DR is a big company, they are probably full of email as it is. fender took me a month to reply to when i emailed them, DR probably wouldnt take any longer than them.
 
i had good experience with Rotosound, Dean Markley and Ernie Ball.

i use for quite a while the Rotosounds and they have been more then great with their customer support...
i don't use DR (because of the price) but i always heard good stuff about them.