Customer satisfaction – Success

It appears that I have a happy customer. Faced with a choice of paying the $40 to ship the amplifier back to me, and have nothing for his trouble, or given the offer of a $100 rebate (on a $345 amplifier) he took the check. So the check is in the mail, and we are both anticipating positive feedback from the transaction.

I did some follow up research before mailing that check. I learned from the good folks at George’s Music that amplifiers are usually shipped with the tubes already installed, as I did. They are often in cartons marked fragile, which mine wasn’t. And even with that precaution, amplifiers sometimes arrive at their store with broken/damaged tubes. He was candid enough to mention Mesa Boogie as a brand that particularly had trouble with tubes damaged during shipping, and which they no longer carry. So it made it seem reasonable that the tubes in the amp I shipped were damaged by a clumsy DHL driver or package handler.

The buyer also e-mailed to say the amplifier, when connected to an outside cabinet, lost the rattle that he thought was a cabinet rattle. It still had a tube rattle, but with new tubes, would be livable.

So I have a happy customer (I think). And I learned a lot about tube amplifiers and shipping. Fortunately, the Mexican Stratocaster I sold arrived quickly in Florida and was met with a satisfied buyer. I’m hoping for more of the same when the Gretsch Duo Jet sale closes on Sunday night.

I just hope there aren’t any more expensive lessons lurking within the Gretsch!

Customer satisfaction

I believe strongly in satisfying customers, no matter what business you are in. Whether you offer a product for sale or a service, the customer needs to feel good about the transaction. Bad customer service will kill a business faster than almost anything else I can think of.

So now I have an opportunity to live by that principle.  The winning bidder for a guitar amplifier, which I sold for my hairdresser on e-bay, is unhappy with the product. I listed it as new, which my HD told me it was, and the buyer thinks its used because it has some smudges on the case. And even more importantly to the buyer, the tubes and case both rattle on low frequency notes. The buyer claims to have talked with a friend at a Memphis Guitar Center who says the tube rattle is fixable, but perhaps not the case rattle.

I’m no amplifier expert, but I agree that the tube rattle is fixable. I just fixed my own rattling tubes in a Carvin amplifier, if “fixing” you mean “replacing”. But the solution did work. The case rattle is more puzzling, as I didn’t notice it when I tried the amplifier in my house, hoping to avoid this very problem.

So today I will talk with HD about his amp and find out as much as I can. How much did he use it and still call it “new”. How much would he be willing to give back of the purchase price if the buyer will accept it at a lower price?  Does he want to give me his money back and he can keep the amplifier? And how much will I be out from my own pocket keeping my customer happy?