The Break-Up And Make Up Of Me and Guitar Center
Tighten up ya headbands, True Believers and True Deceivers, it's ere'bodee's favorite Mega-Blogger. I promised my new friend Jeremy Cole I would blog about my experience with them, and here we go.
So I finally make my order for my Maschine, and I decided to go with Guitar Center, the brick-and-mortar store on Atlantic, but they didn't have them in stock. I've been checking prices online on the site, so I said "What-the-hell" and went with them. Enough with the talking and get with the walking. I wanted to buy from GC to make up for all the time I've spent just test-driving everything in the store. There's a couple of my 10-minute beats in Guitar Center on the Triton, Motif, MPC (1000, 2500, 4000), it's fun to see how much I can recall even though I don't use them everyday anymore. Anyway, I loiter a lot there, so I was giving them the business out of loyalty; I'm that kinda guy.
So I go to the site, make my order, and It's showing "Completed Order" and generates a receipt. I even pay a little extra for 3-Day shipping. Fantastio. They tell me I'll receive an email when my order ships.
No email.
I log back into my account on Guitar.com and generate a trouble ticket. The system says I'll receive a response within 24 hours.
I get a response in the aforementioned time-frame. A nice representative hits me back and tells me my order was held up by adverse weather conditions. He refunded my 3-Day money and said the order would be shipped no later that Tuesday the 8th.
I thanked him for his reply, and asked if I would still receive an email when the order shipped (I was thinking that it might not, since the order was pending). He told me that it would, but if it didn't I could just check my correspondence on the GuitarCenter.com website. Once again, fantastic.
All this was the week prior to the Superbowl. Tuesday comes... and goes. No email, and no update on the site. Now I'm cranky. I'm starting to feel like Big Worm, and GuitarCenter is my Smokey. You playing with my emotions... don't make me fuck you up. This was Wednesday.
I tweeted out my frustration, and I demanded my money back, because I had every intention of getting my money back and going to Zzounds.com or Sweetwater.com. The representative informed me that my order was already on the way out. Ordinarily, this would have made me happy, but I had no way of tracking because again, the email never came. He provided me with the tracking number and I saw that my order did indeed ship on the day they said it would.
I went to Twitter to check my responses and saw that Jeremy Cole had inquired about the status of my order. I told him it was on the way, but I would probably never again use GC because of the lack of regard. He asked if I would email my order number so he could look into it. He put me in touch with Scott, a manager over at GC.com.
Scott asked what my version of events were. I explained that I understood about the weather, and I didn't expect anyone to be able to do anything about that, but I was upset that I asked a simple question and someone effectively lied to me. He asked if maybe the email had been caught by a spam filter. I conceded that could be a possibility, but I pointed out that I got no correspondence indicating that the order was shipped until I asked for my money back. I knew he could see my account, so he knew I wasn't making it up. I told him in the beginning of the conversation that I'd worked customer service before. After I pointed that out, he respectfully said, "You didn't lie when you said you've done this job..."
Scott then offered me a $100 gift card and 20% purchase off the site. I was impressed at the generosity of the offer and the sincerity in his voice. You can tell when people really want to make things right, and I totally appreciated it. I didn't go into this thinking of how much I could get out of it, I was seriously offended at the way I was treated by a company that I liked. Scott put that back right immediately.
I'm also impressed that Jeremy was out there in the Twitterverse, seeking out opportunities to right situations on behalf of his company. That's proactive thinking. That's one way to make sure you stay on top... listen to the "Little Guy", your frontline people, your customers.
While it's important to help everyone you can, sometimes you want that one "Raving Fan". I learned about this in a Customer Service class. You want those people who become advocates for you, because they have access to people who might not be familiar with you. Raving Fans are your best friends.
When someone has a good experience in a business, statistics show they may tell one person. When a person has a bad experience, he tells ten. The math is not hard, but you need to make it work to your advantage. The good stories have to be created. The hardest thing to fake, is sincerity.
To be honest, if Scott would have offered half of what he did, I'd have been satisfied... but he don't need to know that. Great work, guys.
-ere'bodee's favorite mega, blogninja and future Maschine Owner
Last Package Update:
Orlando, FL, United States 02/11/2011 6:41 P.M. Arrival Scan
*sigh* Patience, Young Skywalker. Free. Your. Mind.
So I finally make my order for my Maschine, and I decided to go with Guitar Center, the brick-and-mortar store on Atlantic, but they didn't have them in stock. I've been checking prices online on the site, so I said "What-the-hell" and went with them. Enough with the talking and get with the walking. I wanted to buy from GC to make up for all the time I've spent just test-driving everything in the store. There's a couple of my 10-minute beats in Guitar Center on the Triton, Motif, MPC (1000, 2500, 4000), it's fun to see how much I can recall even though I don't use them everyday anymore. Anyway, I loiter a lot there, so I was giving them the business out of loyalty; I'm that kinda guy.
So I go to the site, make my order, and It's showing "Completed Order" and generates a receipt. I even pay a little extra for 3-Day shipping. Fantastio. They tell me I'll receive an email when my order ships.
No email.
I log back into my account on Guitar.com and generate a trouble ticket. The system says I'll receive a response within 24 hours.
I get a response in the aforementioned time-frame. A nice representative hits me back and tells me my order was held up by adverse weather conditions. He refunded my 3-Day money and said the order would be shipped no later that Tuesday the 8th.
I thanked him for his reply, and asked if I would still receive an email when the order shipped (I was thinking that it might not, since the order was pending). He told me that it would, but if it didn't I could just check my correspondence on the GuitarCenter.com website. Once again, fantastic.
All this was the week prior to the Superbowl. Tuesday comes... and goes. No email, and no update on the site. Now I'm cranky. I'm starting to feel like Big Worm, and GuitarCenter is my Smokey. You playing with my emotions... don't make me fuck you up. This was Wednesday.
I tweeted out my frustration, and I demanded my money back, because I had every intention of getting my money back and going to Zzounds.com or Sweetwater.com. The representative informed me that my order was already on the way out. Ordinarily, this would have made me happy, but I had no way of tracking because again, the email never came. He provided me with the tracking number and I saw that my order did indeed ship on the day they said it would.
I went to Twitter to check my responses and saw that Jeremy Cole had inquired about the status of my order. I told him it was on the way, but I would probably never again use GC because of the lack of regard. He asked if I would email my order number so he could look into it. He put me in touch with Scott, a manager over at GC.com.
Scott asked what my version of events were. I explained that I understood about the weather, and I didn't expect anyone to be able to do anything about that, but I was upset that I asked a simple question and someone effectively lied to me. He asked if maybe the email had been caught by a spam filter. I conceded that could be a possibility, but I pointed out that I got no correspondence indicating that the order was shipped until I asked for my money back. I knew he could see my account, so he knew I wasn't making it up. I told him in the beginning of the conversation that I'd worked customer service before. After I pointed that out, he respectfully said, "You didn't lie when you said you've done this job..."
Scott then offered me a $100 gift card and 20% purchase off the site. I was impressed at the generosity of the offer and the sincerity in his voice. You can tell when people really want to make things right, and I totally appreciated it. I didn't go into this thinking of how much I could get out of it, I was seriously offended at the way I was treated by a company that I liked. Scott put that back right immediately.
I'm also impressed that Jeremy was out there in the Twitterverse, seeking out opportunities to right situations on behalf of his company. That's proactive thinking. That's one way to make sure you stay on top... listen to the "Little Guy", your frontline people, your customers.
While it's important to help everyone you can, sometimes you want that one "Raving Fan". I learned about this in a Customer Service class. You want those people who become advocates for you, because they have access to people who might not be familiar with you. Raving Fans are your best friends.
When someone has a good experience in a business, statistics show they may tell one person. When a person has a bad experience, he tells ten. The math is not hard, but you need to make it work to your advantage. The good stories have to be created. The hardest thing to fake, is sincerity.
To be honest, if Scott would have offered half of what he did, I'd have been satisfied... but he don't need to know that. Great work, guys.
-ere'bodee's favorite mega, blogninja and future Maschine Owner
Last Package Update:
Orlando, FL, United States 02/11/2011 6:41 P.M. Arrival Scan
*sigh* Patience, Young Skywalker. Free. Your. Mind.
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