Sam Ash Customer Service
Josh14
Today I went there to pick it up, only to find out that the salesman
who I had talked to reserved an already reserved guitar and it was
gone. They had no more in stock but the salesman, I guess, felt pretty
bad and sold me a guitar that was normally $110 more than the one that
I reserved but for the price of the reserved guitar! I never expected
that kind of customer service from a chain store! Thank you Sam Ash
Music!
Kurt
What kind of service... the stupid screw-up or the attempt at
recovery. As I see it, they made money on two guitars instead of
one. Glad you're pleased. I'd be pissed.
Kurt
MAIB
managed to make you think they were doing you a favor. What kind of guitar
did they sell you, anyway? IMO, Sam Ash has the worst customer service of
any music store I've ever been in, and I've been in lots of them. In fact,
Sam Ash may have the worst customer service of any business of any sort that
I've ever encountered. Sam Ash just plain sucks. I wouldn't buy a pick
from them.
Mark
"Josh14" <ai4...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5e77cf82.0202...@posting.google.com...
Steven Bornfeld
to beg some guy in the guitar department to give the part number to the cashier
so she could ring it up. That took 15-20 minutes.
Steve
MAIB
of their management? the character of their customers?). But to tell you
the truth, I think you're lucky to have found any fingerpicks there. Last
time I was in the place, I actually asked, and they said they didn't sell
fingerpicks. Gave me a funny look <g>. (That was in White Plains.) God, I
hate that place.
Mark
"Steven Bornfeld" <mars...@netzero.net> wrote in message
news:3C7863C5...@netzero.net...
Steven Bornfeld
shrink wrapped flatpicks, but I had to be directed around the counter and ask
twice to find a fishing tackle box with a mix of Dunlop fingerpicks. I really
haven't used metal fingerpicks, but I need x-large at least on my stubby i and m
fingers, and I felt lucky I found any x-large--until I tried to pay for them.
Curiously enough, they had a good selection of classical strings.
Steve
George Gleason
Josh contrary to the other posters if you like the guitar they offer at
least as much as the one thet sold out from under you then congrats on
your new guitar
Play it to pieces but always shop around many times the larger stores do
not see you as a person, just a a mark ready to be hit.
also I bet you will be buying lots of guitars in your life and you will get
to understand that the price of a guitar is no way to determine its
quality and 100$ is a very small price diffrence(unless you were shopping
69$ guitars)
George Gleason
Josh14
an Ibanez AW-10 and they gave me an Ibanez AW-10 CE. Difference? The
one I got has electrics and a cutaway. Switching the subject
somewhat... How should I take care of the guitar? Do I need a
humidifier?
MAIB
No hostility whatsoever, at least not toward you. Congrats on your new
guitar. No one here meant to diminish the fun or importance of buying a new
instrument.
Any hostility you sense relates to Sam Ash. If you did a Google search of
this group, I think you would find a great many comments and stories about
how badly people have been treated at these stores. In my opinion, they are
absolutely horrible. Unfortunately, in a lot of places they are really the
only game in town. Still, many of us would drive all day to avoid buying an
instrument from one of these places. I won't even go in the stores, and
there is one five minutes from my house. But that doesn't take away from
the fact that you have a new guitar; who cares where you got it, right?
Anyway, to answer your question, there are a few things you should do to
take care of the guitar. Since the Ibanez AW10 has laminated back and
sides, you shouldn't have to worry too much about those parts of it. But it
has a solid spruce top, which needs to be maintained at a proper level of
humidity. In some parts of the world, that won't be a problem. In many
parts of the world, it will require that you pay some attention to it, most
likely by humidifying. You might want to consider getting a soundhole
humidifier. You can get these from just about anywhere (except perhaps Sam
Ash <g>). I buy much of my gear from Elderly Music, a very highly regarded
online retailer. You can find them at http://elderly.com/ . One example
of such a humidifier can be seen on the Elderly website at
http://www.elderly.com/accessories/items/LG100L.htm
Other places where you can get these things include First Quality Musical
Supplies, a very good online retailer whose owner participates in this
group. They are at http://fqms.com/ FQMS has a good page listing
instrument care stuff at
http://fqms.com/instrument_care.htm
The Dampit, which you can see there, is what I have mostly used. I now
humidify an entire room with a floor model humidifier, and I leave my
guitars hanging on the wall, so I don't really use these soundhole units any
more, except when traveling with the guitar. Soundhole humidifiers don't
help things like the fretboard or neck. With too much exposure to low
humidity, you can get some shrinking there, and that can mess up the guitar
(frets poking out the sides, etc.). Generally, though, with that guitar, if
you use a soundhole humidifier and keep it in the case when not playing it,
it will probably last forever.
Other than that, wipe it down now and then with a good guitar polish. Do
not use Windex or furniture polish or other non-instrument cleaners; you
could ruin the finish. If you don't have anything else, just use a soft
cloth dampened with a bit of water.
Change the strings often. Try different types and gauges of strings.
Learning how to change strings make is easier to keep them fresh. It also
provides a good opportunity to clean and polish the guitar. There are a
number of websites with very good graphics illustrating string changing
techniques (I had been playing for years before I really learned the right
way to do it). I'm at work, so I don't have my Favorites handy to recommend
any. You might try looking under the Acoustic Guitar magazine website; I
think they have links and some nice pages. See http://www.acguitar.com/
Again, good luck, and have fun with it. Hanging around here can only help.
There's a great deal of knowledge and skill here, of which I am a relatively
poor example.
Oh, one other thing, you will see references to "GAS." This is an
affliction that you will probably soon acquire. It is a terrible, terrible
thing.
Mark
Josh14 wrote in message <5e77cf82.02022...@posting.google.com>...
Kurt
<messe...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Hello Josh,
>
>No hostility whatsoever, at least not toward you. Congrats on your new
>guitar. No one here meant to diminish the fun or importance of buying a new
>instrument.
>
>Any hostility you sense relates to Sam Ash. If you did a Google search of
>this group, I think you would find a great many comments and stories about
>how badly people have been treated at these stores. In my opinion, they are
>absolutely horrible.
Mark,,
Just to add fuel to the fire, I decided I needed an additional couple
of 'dampits' plus some entertainment so I headed off to my local Sam
Ash store here in sunny Connecticut. I poked around the store for
awhile, enjoying some amazing examples of highly amplified distortion
from one end of the store while someone else was seeing how loud they
could make the drum effects sound from the keyboards at the other end
of the store. I finally grabbed a couple of dampits off the rack and
headed to the checkout line. I was second in line, behind one other
person who was buying a single item.
A store clerk walks buy me and asks if I had a "sheet" written up
(what is it with these "sheets", is that how they compute
commissions?) and I said 'no', and he said "well follow me and I can
take you down here, right after I finish taking care of this fellow"
and he proceeds to walk to the entire other end of the store. I stood
there and watched him walk away, wondering why in hell I'd walk all
the way to the other end of the store to stand behind the guy he was
helping, while I was already next in line. Suffice to say, I gave
the young lady my two dampits, paid for them and left. Never did get
a "sheet" written up <shrug>. Another successful SA trip!
Kurt
chaya
to the "well-respected" store so fast it would cause them pain. There
are always exceptions to the rules - sometimes you will find nice people
at Sam Asch and at Guitar Center, and sometimes you will find horrible
people at the small stores. You just never know.
csj
Noah Zable wrote:
>
> ai4...@yahoo.com (Josh14) wrote in message news:<5e77cf82.0202...@posting.google.com>...
> > "...I never expected
> > that kind of customer service from a chain store! Thank you Sam Ash
> > Music!"
>
> I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell my Sam Ash story, and
> this is it.
> Last year, I bought a used guitar from a well-respected vintage guitar
> store. The guitar had a case with a three-tumbler combination lock. I
> called the store and asked if they could tell me the combination. They
> basically blew me off; told me to go find a locksmith. They obviously
> didn't bother to ask the consigner for the combination, and didn't
> even offer to go back to him now to ask for it, even though they
> obviously knew who he was! (He had bought the instrument from them in
> the first place, and then consigned it with them)
>
> I called the manufacturer, who told me to go to a dealer. The closest
> dealer was a Sam Ash store. I took the instrument in to the Sam Ash,
> and the kid in the acoustic guitar section told me that basically you
> just have to try all the combinations, that it could take no more than
> a couple of hours, but eventually you'll figure out the combination.
> He said he's done it before a number of times for customers in similar
> circumstances. So one Saturday I sat in front of the TV watching a
> football game and came across the combination within a half hour.
>
> The customer service from the chain stores is frequently disparaged,
> but this is one example where the service provided by the kid in the
> chain store, where I had not in fact bought anything, far exceeded the
> treatment I received from the high-end dealer from whom I purchased
> the instrument.
David Drucker
opportunity to tell my Sam Ash story, and
Sam Ash stories? I got your Sam Ash story right here:
It was the mid-sixties, and I sashayed (we did that a lot in the
mid-sixties) into Sam Ash -- the original store, on Utica Ave, in
Brooklyn -- looking for a summer job. Much to my amazement, I was hired. On
the morning of my first day there, Paul Ash sent me downstairs to put the
stock room in order. I spent four days in the sweltering basement,
schlepping bass drums, harps, and amplifiers -- tube amplifiers, with huge
transformers. On the morning of Day Five, Rose Ash (Sam's miserable widow,
who ruled the roost from a stool by the front door) fired me for not being
on the sales floor enough.
dd
Ken Cashion
I was not in the mood for another guitar and had given up on
finding a high-school era black arch top like I had then. This was
back in mesolithic south Texas.
I had checked from Mobile to L.A. -- I mean, I walked into
guitar stores and hock shops looking for one.
Found two in private collections and they wouldn't talk about
prices -- which means I could not have afforded one.
Then the DeArmond X-155 blow-out started and some were BLACK!
I got into the Feeding Frenzy with many others trying to
locate one.
I talked to a nice guy at Sam Ash, yes, they had just a couple
in the store and one was black and yes, he would send it and he would
put a catalog in the box for me. No, they had no DeArmond cases and
weren't sure where one might be.
Then I started reading all the horror stories of credit cards
being charged for guitars that were on B.O. and stores selling guitars
that they then went looking for.
I heard of the stores that had salespeople removing the
guitars from stock and buying them themselves to put up later on eBay.
I didn't expect to get that guitar.
I did. And it had the catalog in it.
However, many folks got their hopes up to no avail.
Thank you, Sam Ash, for the gorgeous black X-155 -- I have
since installed gold art deco tuners, gold knobs, and re-cut the
pickguard to match the art deco of the DeAngelicos.
And, oddly enough, Guitar Center, had no DeArmond cases in
stock -- according to their computer -- but a guy who had worked at
the N.O. store a long time said the computer was wrong and for me to
come get it.
The case had been around so long, it wasn't in inventory, but
he had gotten tired of moving it around to get to other cases. That
is how he remembered it being "back there."
It has "DeArmond" on it and has deep, deep plush. It had a
small scuff mark (from natural wear) so the guy took a bunch off and
gave me his store discount besides. I got a good deal -- so there --
a good story for Sam Ash AND Guitar Center.
Ken Cashion, One lucky Dude.
>ai4...@yahoo.com (Josh14) wrote in message news:<5e77cf82.0202...@posting.google.com>...
>> "...I never expected
>> that kind of customer service from a chain store! Thank you Sam Ash
>> Music!"
>
>
>I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell my Sam Ash story, and
MAIB
service? I almost thought this post was a troll. . . . . Let me just say
this. If Sam Ash was a dealer for the product in question, and you were
sent there by the manufacturer for the purpose of resolving your problem,
they should have done something more. For example, they should have at
least offered to work with the manufacturer to get the combination. Or
change the locks. Or figure out the combination themselves. Or something.
All they did was say, "Hey, man, if you sit with it long enough trying every
possibility eventually you'll get it." Duh. That's customer service? Wow.
That's very sad, actually.
Mark
"Noah Zable" <hoan...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:9b2be87.02022...@posting.google.com...
> ai4...@yahoo.com (Josh14) wrote in message
news:<5e77cf82.0202...@posting.google.com>...
> > "...I never expected
> > that kind of customer service from a chain store! Thank you Sam Ash
> > Music!"
>
>
Greg N.
> they should have done something more. For example, they should have at
> least offered to work with the manufacturer to get the combination. Or
> change the locks. Or figure out the combination themselves. Or something.
Mark,
Guitar cases don't have serial numbers. Hence, nobody keeps track
(there is no way) of the lock combinations of the case locks. No
dealer, no manufacturer. And if this was my case, I'd probably have
forgotten the combination within a couple of weeks after consigning the
thing. I have a few old briefcases in my basement where I can't
remember the lock combinations.
A typical 3-digit briefcase lock has exactly 1000 (surprise!)
combinations. Going through them will take 20 minutes at most. It's
not worth a phone call, let alone driving down to a dealer.
Greg N.
MAIB
Still, I hardly think it provides an example of stellar customer service.
Just an example of basically nothing... perhaps of being less than surly.
Oh, BTW, I set all my briefcases to "000" to make it easy.
Mark
"Greg N." <yodel...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3C7BBFA1...@yahoo.com...
Lumpy
> You're kidding, right? I mean, you actually
> All they did was say, "Hey, man, if you sit
> with it long enough trying every
> possibility eventually you'll get it."...
I'm thinking of giving guitar lessons like that.
"customized lessons 4-U"..lumpy
Kurt
<messe...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Oh, BTW, I set all my briefcases to "000" to make it easy.
I imagine all the combo locks on briefcases really make them pretty
much inpenetrable to the criminal element.. They probably look at a
briefcase with those shiny gold locks and think "fergetaboudit"...
it's locked up tighter than a drum. .. Mark, you really should
choose a unique three digit code that you'll easily remember so some
enterprising thief can't get at your important papers.
Kurt <ever helpful>
MAIB
the Important Papers. And yeah, I feel the same way about most locks.
Waste of good resources.
Mark
"Kurt" <ande...@snet.net> wrote in message
news:g0en7ucai7tpkuddo...@4ax.com...
Steve
Those always did crack me up. I mean, no thief'd ever think to just steal the
damn briefcase and deal with the locks at their leisure...same goes for guitar
cases (exception: flying as checked luggage).
SEFSTRAT
music webpage: http://members.aol.com/sefstrat/index.html/sefpage.html
Greg N.
> OK, point well taken. Maybe there was just nothing more they could do.
> Still, I hardly think it provides an example of stellar customer service.
> Just an example of basically nothing... perhaps of being less than surly.
Well, look at it this way: Even (or, especially) a very simple solution
is very valuable information, if that simple solution never occurred to
the person seeking advice. It's certainly not "basically nothing" in
my book.
I'm a consultant, can you tell? :-)
Cheers,
Greg N.
MAIB
<chuckle> Yup.
Mark (paid to argue)