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where have you received consistent excellent customer service?

Yeah thats pretty bad, dont think i would have put up with a year long delay.
It was my only option for what I wanted. Which is why my experience was kind of neutral in the end even though the second and third attempts were good. I did feel like they were kind of concerned more about the celebrity visiting than my order. Like i don't need to be told, "I'm sorry about that. I will get to it as soon as I can, but Bootsy is visiting today."
 
American Musical Supply -- They are always helpful and friendly on the phone. Make returns easy even when I'm the idiot.
Cheap-domainregistration.com -- Great phone support, patient and friendly.
Fender -- a local Certified tech is about 15 minutes from my home in Port Saint Lucie.
Gibraltar Hardware is fantastic. Provided, at no cost, an adjustment knob for a drum throne that I got open-box on Amazon.
Gigabyte went above and beyond -- Repaired a NOS Mobo I purchased that was comparatively "ancient" in terms of computer hardware and did not charge me.
zZounds -- Same company as AMS, again top-notch support.

Those are the ones that "stick out" in what's left of my mind.
 
Just had another great experience with Baratza over the weekend.
On Saturday morning, I accidentally knocked over our grinder and broke the hopper that holds the beans. I checked the website, sold out on hoppers. I sent an email explaining what happened and asked when they would expect to receive more. About an hour later the owner of Baratza responded that he had a few used ones available that were available. He offered to send us one at no charge, and they would cover shipping. I agreed and said thank you. Within an hour I received another email that a package was on the way to our house via USPS. It will be at our house tomorrow.

-Mike
 
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Always get great service here, but they love me, so.......




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Mike is a great guy. When my house was robbed back in 2009 I got a call asking if I needed to borrow any equipment. Great guy.
 
I have to give a shout out to Tire Rack.

I bought a new set of wheels & tires for my car, and they came with specialty bolts and a "star driver" tool to fit them. While installing them I dropped the tool and it rolled into some hidden recess of my garage that took me a good hour to find. I thought it would be a good idea to get a spare tool, and maybe a couple of spare bolts, so I'm not left in the lurch if I ever lose it.

I sent them an email on Sunday asking if I could purchase some spare bolts and a spare tool. Monday morning I got an email titled "order confirmed" followed by one titled "order shipped". Five bolts and one tool, invoice $0.00. Package arrived today.
 
Mouser Electronics and DigiKey Electronics are both absolutely ace.
Absolutely. I’ll add Allied electronics as well.
The couple times I ordered through Parts-Express were also great.
Yes! And Stewart-Macdonald and Antique Electronics Supply.

I’ll also vouch for both McMaster-Carr and MSC industrial supply.

And Sweetwater.

Completely outside of music, AAA and Amex have always done right by me.
 
This is only one experience, but it was impressive enough to make me a return customer.

I bought one of the cheapest pedals available from Link Removed, and they sent the wrong pedal. Since I bought through Amazon, I sent them a message through their system. A couple hours later I got a message back apologizing. It also suggested communicating directly via email for faster resolution.

The paranoid IT guy in me said don’t do it. Since I already had messages in Amazon’s system, I sent my email address. Within the hour I got an email from CS telling me the correct pedal was shipping that day. There were a couple more emails exchanged to make sure it was actually the right one this time. Late the next morning I took the return to set it by the front door prior to being picked up. I looked outside to find the replacement had already arrived.

I don’t know what their margins look like on the really cheap stuff, but I can’t see any way there was any profit left on my $40 pedal after overnighting it. On top of that, the CS rep seemed not just apologetic, but actually embarrassed, about the mix up.

I haven’t actually bought anything else from them, but on the few occasions I’ve considered something they sell, I’ve always looked there first.
 
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Tracfone.

For the most part, their service just works. But over the years I've encountered a couple of glitches, and they were quite helpful over the phone, pretty much hanging with me until the problem was solved.

This occurred to me because they use Verizon network, and Verizon got knocked out in Wisconsin by a fiber cable getting cut, a couple days ago. So all three of the family's TracFones started misbehaving simultaneously.
 
I know they're a bit of a "love them or hate them" company, but I've actually had nothing but really good experiences at Apple.

Actually just a week ago I went in because the charge port on my iPhone 11 went out, but my phone was also out of warranty. At first they told me that they would give me full trade-in value for it if I want to upgrade, they wouldn't ding the trade-in value due to the bad port, but I asked if they could maybe do me a solid since I actually really like my iPhone 11 and don't really see a reason to upgrade.

The guy went in the back, pulled some strings, and out he came with a fresh new iPhone 11 that they would use for warranty services and just handed it to me and told me to take it. We made sure my old phone was backed up, transferred everything over, and out I walked with a "new" iPhone 11, which is nice because it has a fresh battery that is showing 100% health, so I'll easily get another 3-5 years out of this phone (I'm not the type to upgrade phones regularly). It was fresh in the box and still had the plastic peel thing on it, so it felt like I walked out of there with the latest/greatest hah.

This isn't the only time they've helped me out. They did similar with an iPad in the past, and they have returned a few small items (charger, a trackpad) out of warranty as well.

Apple does get a lot of hate though, so maybe I'm just lucky and have a good store near me with people that actually want to help.

As far as my favorite place to go because the people are so awesome and it's just fun to visit, I really love Motor City Guitar in Michigan. Everyone there is super fun to shoot the breeze with and I feel like I could hang out there for hours without feeling like I'm getting pushed out.
 
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Does my dealer count? .....I've been visiting him for 7 years, which is significantly longer than any other retailer I have dealt with over the decades.
:laugh: :roflmao: counts bigly!

“Those employees not fired with enthusiasm, soon will be”. It was the prime directive...
:thumbsup: good for band members, too!
 
I'm with you in regard to Apple @basslicks. We drug a crusty old iMac into an Apple Store a few years ago that had a wonky HDD. The lady helping us explained this iMac was well past the warranty, but since Apple wanted us to have a good experience in their store and to be able to continue to use this iMac (it was a 27" with the schwanky display, quite the gem when new) instead of throwing it away, they fixed it anyway by putting in a brand new HDD and charged us $0.

-Mike
 
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The first place that comes to mind is the Topeak company: No mater how many times I call to complain that their product is a POS, they're always super friendly, super understanding, and willing to bend over backwards to make me a happy customer. So they send me a brand new replacement at no charge. Every. Time.

Seems like an incredibly stupid business model...I mean, howzabout building products that don't fall apart all the time, and then you won't have to replace them for free all the time? :::shrugs:::
 
Indeed, Apple is great with customer service. As a native NYer, sometimes a little overboard with the niceties, but excellent nonetheless.

Another unexpected company that's pretty excellent is Huish Outdoors. I'm big into scuba diving and they've acquired a number of big gear companies. You'd normally think that would be a bad thing, but they've been fantastic at dealing with issues I've had with some of my gear. Nothing but great experiences.

Also speaking of diving, Edge/HOG is excellent. I have a HOG-branded drysuit made by USIA. I ordered it with a p-valve and it leaked on my first dive with it. Turns out it was a bad seal from the p-valve install. While it was out for repair, the owner of Edge/HOG offered to send me his own drysuit to use in the meantime. Now that's customer service.
 
Hello old thread. Time to add two....
Uhaul. We just finished a move from the middle of New Hampshire to the very south eastern tip of Texas, basically Canada to Mexico, in one of their 15' vans. The entire experience was A+. I worked with a gal on the phone to book it, $2,300, then she tossed in a coupon for $215 off that I didn't even ask for. She stayed in touch with us up to the day we picked it up and checked in a couple days before we were to return it. We returned it today and the guy at the Uhaul center was efficient and friendly. We returned it freshly washed and cleaned up inside. He took one look and told us everything is fine, so we can be on our way. The entire process took maybe five minutes to return it and they released the credit card hold about an hour later.
T-Mobile. We signed up for their.300 MB (plenty of speed for two of us) fiber Internet Friday night when we arrived in The Valley. The tech showed up exactly on time the very next day. A clean cut and friendly young man who knew his stuff. We notice the speeds are dragging in the far corner of the house so I call today and they upgrade us to gig fiber for another $15 a month which put us now at $50 a month. Then the gal tells me there is a promo for two months free we can get and then if I agree she'll toss in a $100 gift card to use anywhere. Then we go back to why I called, and she tells me the tech will be out between 8-10 AM Tuesday, tomorrow to upgrade the service and add an extender to get the whole house with good coverage. I ask if it might be the same man who came on Saturday. She checked and verified yes. Every single person we have talked to at T-Mobile, from the folks at the store we went into first on Friday night to the gal I spoke with today have been kind, gracious, and well spoken. We're going to look into switching our cell service to T-Mobile now too.
We were a little uncomfortable going into the T-Mobile Experience store on Friday since we're both senior citizens now and they have pop music blasting, the magenta lights flashing and it's kind of this rave/party vibe. The gal who helped us, who I found out is younger than the wallet in my pocket, was quite kind and made us feel comfortable, like hip old folks.

-Mike
 
Dobson fiber. They're only in Oklahoma and Arkansas but that's lucky for me. They couldn't get the cable laying machine past our A/C unit. So the laid it on the ground. They called twice a day to check on us until they got it buried. The one other time I needed them was due to a car hitting a big connection box. When you call them a person answers. And actually checks on the problem. In this case it took a few hours to fix. We got a call every couple of hours giving us an approximate ETA of coming back on.
Consumer Cellular. They really are cheaper for one. Coverage is just as good. I had to reset my phone back to factory once. I called them and a person answered. In just a few minutes we had the eSim on my phone reactivated and working.
 
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