Dear Musician's "Friend"... you suck.

What a worthless pile of [email protected]#$ company. I've been a loyal customer for years. Then I order something (which was technically my wife's birthday present to me) and they send me the wrong color (this was a closeout not available on the regular website clearance item... no color selector option.) Fair enough, I contact CS. Then the fun begins...

I had been told by two separate Customer Service people hours before my order on Monday that the color I wanted was in stock. Now, a third CS guy refuses to acknowledge that the color I wanted was in stock, and claim the entire item is discontinued. This idiot who is "handling" this case is doing nothing more than searching the Musician's Friend website for my item, seeing "product has been discontinued" and not even reading my e-mails or looking further into it. He said I could special order it from the manufacturer. Freaking idiot... I already know it's been discontinued so how could I order it from the manufacturer. I know there are piles of them sitting in the MF warehouse and they're too lazy to find the color I want. I doubt they suddenly all disappeared between Monday when I ordered, and yesterday when I received it.

I've repeatedly asked by name to talk to the people who promised me the color I wanted. When I called and asked them to look up who I chatted with on Monday night (online cust. serv. chat) he said "we have no way of knowing." That is the biggest pile of bull I have ever heard. I work in a call center and EVERYTHING is recorded, logged, and assigned a reference #. I've told them repeatedly I will not leave them alone until this is escalated to a manager. Even if it IS out of stock, they ought to make it up to me SOMEHOW since two separate people told me the day of my order that I would receive the exact color I ordered.

I work for customer service and I know firsthand what is like to talk to angry customers but we go out of our way to take special care of them because 1) being yelled at sucks and 2) we want to keep their business. Musician's Friend doesn't seem to care AT ALL. I don't even think their management cares. Worst Customer Service Ever. Thanks for nothing Musician's "Friend."

 

I ordered this bass:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/B.C.-Rich-Mockingbird-Platinum-Bass?sku=510806&gt

until YESTERDAY when I started e-mailing and calling Cust. Service (I was very nice at FIRST), it did NOT say "this item has been discontinued" and it did NOT say "due to the size/weight, shipping is an additional $69.99"

I guess I'm glad I didn't have to pay for shipping.
The hilarious part is, I initially e-mailed them (on Monday) to see if I could get red because the only two pictures are red and black. The lady who wrote me said "Yes, we have red in stock. We originally ONLY had red in stock and just recently got black." Then I talked to a different guy that same day who said "We only have red." And I said "You can assure me if I order right now I will get red" and he said "yes." So I ordered. And what color do I get..?

SILVER!!!

 

Emailing them and bugging them until they 1) tell me red is in stock (at which point I would send silver back and get red) or 2) acknowledge that red was not an option despite it being promised by two people and then make it up to me in some other way (discount or something) If red was never really an option I will keep the silver but I expect to be compensated in some way (hah like that will EVER happen with them!!)

I 100% support small business too. Even though I work for a pretty big company, we don't outsource our CS to overseas call centers and the managers actually DO care about escalated issues.

 

Yeah I know GC and MF are one and the same.

I do most business on TB, Ebay, Bassgear.com or locally because I can't afford to buy things brand new. Once every now and then I'll find a good deal on MF or elsewhere but I'd way rather deal on an individual level on TB or somewhere like that because big companies just don't give a damn...they have enough sales to make up for one bad customer experience.

 

Hey thanks for the heads-up on the management link, man. I e-mailed management AT musiciansfriend DOT com just now and OH BOY can I be a crabby customer. I spelled out the whole situation in exhaustive, excruciating detail, cutting and pasting the details of the moronic customer service escapade I experienced. Man in the end it is not such a big deal but I just want someone higher up to fix the situation and acknowledge that their underlings are idiots.

 

Oh I didn't mean lazy warehouse per se, I meant the lazy CS kids I talked to on the phone / email. Lazy as in they seemed to just give me "stock" responses without really reading my concerns versus actually looking deeper into the issue. I'm not blaming the warehouse-it's the CS people that communicate directly with the customer. Working at a place primarily devoted to CS I know that sometimes the temptation with "difficult" customers is to just give them the stock response and hope they go away.

I did exactly what you said about contacting upper management.

 

Good points, but, I didn't belittle anyone. I simply called them on their sub-par CS. I've never heard of customer service paying minimum wage. I live in call center heaven (or hell) here in Omaha where wages and cost of living are well below the national average. The lowest would be approximately twice minimum wage ($10=$11) but more commonly somewhere between 2.5 to 3 times minimum wage ($12-$16 or so.) So yeah it might not be like they're rolling in money but they're not exactly just scraping by.

 

Hey, they just managed to redeem themselves. I e-mailed that [email protected] e-mail address last night and one of the team leaders called me this morning. He apologized and explained that they never had red or black in stock. They just used those pictures because those were supplied by the manufacturer. He said the reps should have known that and I shouldn't have been given misinformation. He said he'd definitely be having a chat with the reps who gave me wrong info. I opted to keep the bass and he also gave me $30 credit toward whatever I want and it never expires. He apologized for my time being wasted. He was helpful and professional and cool about it. So MF has managed to redeem themselves to some degree. Lesson learned: for complaints, e-mail the management e-mail directly! Thanks everyone. This thread's as good as closed in my book.

Oh one more thing, if you ever have a complaint or talk to a supervisor/team lead and want to call rather than e-mail, here is what to do:

Call 1-800-776-5173 (regular number). Get to a CS rep with their menu system. You may even be able to bypass the menu system by hitting "0." The Supervisor extension is 2529. I couldn't find a way to enter it so I just asked the CS rep to connect me to 2529. They may make you explain a bit but it's not too much hassle. I think that extension is used by all the supervisors for escalations. Good luck.