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GOOD Guitar Center experiences?

#41
Jehos said:
The best thing you can do is have a good working relationship with one of the assistant managers. Hang around, wait for somebody to call for a manager to approve a discount from somebody, buy from the guy that shows up. Mine is Eric, and it's handy that he normally works in keyboards and pro audio, where I buy almost all of my big-ticket stuff (excluding actual bass gear).
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This here folks is the key to winning the "Guitar Center" Battle. Exactly what was said here...find a Manager.

My Church has done a TON of business with GC over the years and we have a fantastic relationship with the Store Manager and Sales Manager. Now, as a bassist, I have not bought alot of bass gear from them, but have from time to time. But as far as recording and PA/ keyboard gear..a ton. These guys are in their late 30's know their stuff, are gigging musicans and bend oer backwards for us when we come it to buy. I will not get into the discounting we get but lets just say there is a number bolded in "White" on their green-screen monitors...you get the point. 99% of the time no other store or online retailer will even touch the price I get from my guys.

Anyways, yes there are the punk idiots that walk around like they own the place and thats why they have such a high turn over rate. I walk in, ask for one of my two guys and buy from whatever department I need to...they will help me the whole way through, when they are done, they go back to the office or on to another area that needs assistance.

SO ask for a MGR, make them give you a price that will have you come back, then, go back! Build an account and a rep with them and watch the discounting put $$ back in your pocket.

And just for the record, I buy all my pro line bass gear from small shops who are dealers for what I like to use, one of which I've done business with now for close to 20 years and I get the same treatment there too:)

Managers and owners people...managers and owners.
 
#42
R D Maynard said:
I broke the E string on my '62 Vintage Jazz, which is strung w/ TI flats and is my main bass right now. Normally, I don't shop at GC, but on a fluke I stopped in at the store in El Cerrito, CA, to see if they could order me a set - I know they don't carry them regularly. Lo and behold, they had 2 sets that some other guy had ordered and never picked up. So I bought one, and they only charged me something like 34 bucks, which is less than what I paid for the last set I bought mail-order, (no shipping charge, of course.)

They're not always a-holes....
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That's where I bought my American Jazz Bass, I was pleasantly surprised considering all the horror sotries I'd heard on here.

The sales staff were well educated and very nice! I was happy to give them my money.
 
#43
LedBelli Bass said:
99 out of 100 GC guys ARE COMPLETE F$$##KING MORONS!
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LOL every GC rant begins with:
something is found online obscurely named, went to a GC store, requested it, got blanks looks, and expect the trillions of items to be memorized by the staff, acts indignant, stomps off like a brat.


{PS: I've seen some complain about them not know what "pots' were... holy s--- man, that's like going to -any- auto mechanic and asking for a BVF slide carb. I work on cars and I have no idea *** that is.}
 
#45
My experiences at GC have been pretty much 70/30 bad to good - I did just get a decent used bass there - $900 for a Lakland 4-94 that was not, in fact a 4-94 (US neck, apparently Skyline body) but mostly it's just an act of self abuse dealing with GC so I don't go.

One reason folks, myself included, post so harshly about GC is to warn young cats off of them - - Many kids think GC is the only game in town and that is rarely the case. Add to that, GC is, by all appearances, attempting to run other vendors out of a traditionally open market by saturating an area with stores and product... And now they won't even negotiate prices.

I have no doubt that there are good folks working for GC, and I'll bet there are even some good store managers - but the company is annoying and so I choose to spend my money elsewhere.
 
#47
i got a surprise. a GC in Miami (kendall) was able to help me decide what amp to look for AND also answer a few of my tech questions. they have a room full of basses and that extends to another wall! the ratio of guitars to bass is probably 2:1 also.
 
#48
60bass said:
IMO GC is in the business to make money. They don't want to lose you as a customer. If they know you are a pro, they will treat you accordingly. I've been in enough GC's to know that they have a different set of rules when dealing with a pro versus just some kid off the street.
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This is what I was trying to say earlier, thanks for putting it better than I could. Since GC has a policy of letting any snot-nosed punk in off the street to abuse their gear (and everyone's ears) for as long as they want, the sales people have the tough job of trying to actually make sales while they're putting up with all the snot-nosed punks. You have to make sure they know you're not just a window shopper who isn't worth their time. The only good way to do that is spend money in the store.

If you go in with the attitude that all the employees are idiots, they're going to treat you like the a-hole you are and save the good service for the paying customers.
 
#50
While they can be frusterating at times (such as some of the discounts") I do like the GC nearby to me, in Robinson. The guys there were helpful, and they have the largest selection of music stores around where I live. Its either GC or Volkwein's, so I'm glad there is a Guitar Center. When I want to buy something, I look it up online, read reviews, compare prices, check what's in stock, and make a "wish list". When I arrive at Guitar Center, I just have the guy point me where to go a try out everything on my list. If I like it, I buy it.
 
#51
I'll go on record as saying that I prefer GC over my local mom and pop store. A friend had a recent bad experience with them, and it reminded me of how lousy they've been before. There's one guy who lets me take home gear for a week to try out, but the prices are so outrageous (usually 30% higher than the average price) I never wind up buying them there. I almost feel bad taking advantage of the one cool dude that works there, but then I remember what knobs everyone else there is.

And I had my first bass lessons in the back of the store. The teacher was one of the business partners, and a joke... spent more time getting high and talking about protecting Mother Earth than anything else. $20 for half an hour with this loser? I quit after a month and played punk.
 
#53
We have a fairly new GC in Fort Collins, CO. All my interactions with the staff there have been positive and pleasant. Some of them recognize me when I stop by, even though I'm not in there very often. I bought a 4x10 GK cab there and they were very helpful and pleasant. No complaints from me!

We also have a locally owned store called Spotlight Music, and they're very nice folks.

I enjoy shopping at both.
 
#54
NickInMesa said:
Another thing: when I called to ask them how much for a setup, they replied they were not really the best place to do this and gave me the number to the best luthier in the area (who did a superb job, BTW).
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Yeah the guys that they've started bring in (my local GCs never had in-house repair until 2008ish) are definitely not the place to go, but it's understandable that they have to up charge to cover the cost of renting space there. The guy at the GC in Boston is pretty cool though, they don't have a real space for him, just a bench (not sure of what they'll have in the new store which opens today). I saw him doing work one day and asked if he could touch up some cracked solder joints on my bass, took 5 minutes and only charged me 10 bucks. Seemed reasonable to me at least.
 
#55
One bad experience is enough for me to write off a retailer. The number of previous good experiences is irrelevant to this. I've tried giving GC mutliple chances as I am an idiot. They've failed miserably three times on large purchases for me. I think they have shot themselves in the foot for me permanently now. I'll go there for small items, I just bought some Hearos there a couple days ago, but for anything more than a hundred or so bucks I go elsewhere.

A bad service rate of 10% is atrocious and still leaves a possible 90% of people talking about their good experiences. IME GC-OKC is hitting at least around the 33% crap rate.
 
#58
I deal with the North Austin GC branch and the pro-audio guys there have saved me a couple times most recently when the reverb unit for our PA went out during sound check. I called and they had the box up front and the assistant manager even offered to deliver it if we need it.

As for the bass side there's a super cool pro in the bass section at that really knows his stuff and he plays a lot of gigs so he tries most of what's on the floor in live situations. Most recently I bought a MarkBass TA-501 as back up amp and the DI was a little scratchy after a couple months so they just ordered me a new one with no questions asked. Now I have a TA-501 new in box.

I do most of my bass gear shopping at Bass Emporium but everything else is at GC and I've always had a great experience with this store.
 
#59
Godbody said:
And I had my first bass lessons in the back of the store. The teacher was one of the business partners, and a joke... spent more time getting high and talking about protecting Mother Earth than anything else. $20 for half an hour with this loser? I quit after a month and played punk.
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That is freakin' hilarious. And you make a good point. Saying that all mom and pop stores is good is ten times less likely to be true than saying all Gcs are going to be bad. Big corporations like that have standards accross the board which are actually followed to varying degrees. So called mom and pop stores across the country can and will be literally on all points in the spectrum of incredible to crap. GC has QC, which is not all that great, but its universal. Not so with a small time bunch. Point is I have to judge each store on its own merits. Kind of sounds like people and race doesn't it?
 
#60
Any day the kids are out of school is not going to be a good day at GC.

The Houston Westheimer store has 3 sales people that I love doing business with and point me in the right direction when they have new stuff. No BS, no pressure, good info. I think once the guy appeared stunned when I made a $800 purchase after trying it out for 5 minutes. I have bought lots of stuff from them. Unfortunately, I made most of my major purchases before they were on the scene and/or buy stuff they don't have from Bass Emporium in Austin.

The Houston NASA store experience has been very negative including trying to get a Mark LMII Bass Head to try out from the lamo sales people(never did, bought one from afellow TBer) and a buffoon employee in the drum section who thought it would be cool to play drum solos at max force next to the bass section. *** was he thinking. My award for "Management Most Absent".
 

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