Not serving EBMM well

[bassmonkeee]

I went to buy flats at my GC and they had no EB bass flats at all!

Did you ask them to order any? I wanted 5 string sets of EB flats for my Bongos, and my guy at GC ordered 5 sets. Two for me, and three for stock. I think it took about 10 days from when I asked to when they were on my bass. And, they are AWESOME.

 

[paranoid70]

I will have to say that my local Guitar Center does do a pretty good job of keeping their gear in shape. They are smart enough to put the cheaper instruments at an easy to reach level, and the more expensive stuff like Stingrays way up high. Only tall freaks of nature (like myself) can reach these quality instruments.

I also have to admit that I will sometime go to GC to buy some thing innocuous like strings, and spend an hour and a half trying out basses, guitars, amps, etc... So, if I am in there goofing around with any instrument within reach, I am sure 100 other guys are doing the same thing every day.

 

[SteveB]

Did you ask them to order any? I wanted 5 string sets of EB flats for my Bongos, and my guy at GC ordered 5 sets. Two for me, and three for stock. I think it took about 10 days from when I asked to when they were on my bass. And, they are AWESOME.

Wait.. you wanted 5 sets.. he ordered 5 sets but only two were for you?

 

[francric]

Wait.. you wanted 5 sets.. he ordered 5 sets but only two were for you?

Southern math...................

 

[Quarter]

Perhaps there is an opportunity here for for GC to increase their sales ratio for walkins.
The thought being that if they had dedicated traveling tech(s) that serviced their inventory on a regular basis, then more inventory would go out the door as opposed to just being put back on the wall because of issues.
More sales = less time something sits in inventory = higher profit.

 

[tkarter]

Don't forget that 30 day return policy. That Stanky is probably how that Sterling got those strings on it.

tk

 

[bassmonkeee]

Wait.. you wanted 5 sets.. he ordered 5 sets but only two were for you?

I wanted 5 string sets of flatwounds.

Too many paint fumes there, Steve...

 

[SteveB]

I wanted 5 string sets of flatwounds.

Too many paint fumes there, Steve...

I forgot that some folks have one string too many! I'll take the 'walk' and go with the paint fumes, though! A hyphen would have worked for me.. 5-string sets.. instead I thought 5 string sets.

Wow my wish came true!

Ed O

Glad I could indulge your wish!

 

[ptg]

Perhaps there is an opportunity here for for GC to increase their sales ratio for walkins.
The thought being that if they had dedicated traveling tech(s) that serviced their inventory on a regular basis, then more inventory would go out the door as opposed to just being put back on the wall because of issues.
More sales = less time something sits in inventory = higher profit.

Great idea!!!!!!!!

 

[Ken Baker]

Years ago when I worked at our Sherman Oaks store, my district manager called and said he was coming by for a visit (inspection). When he arrived I walked the guitar floor with him. He found guitar after guitar with broken strings on them, hanging on the wall. All I could say was "Just think how bad it would have been if you DIDN'T call ahead!"
My point is that keeping the guitars clean is part of the sales persons job. But you know how hard it is to keep all those plates spinning. And because we encourage customers to play any guitar or bass that they want, our instruments can get funky fast.

It's a tough job cleaning up after loads of kids that come through the store wiping their grubby mitts on instruments that you're trying to sell.

PS: If I had one wish, I'd wish that someday there will be a post about "all the perfect basses" I saw at my local Guitar Center store. Wouldn't that be cool.

It'll never happen and you know it. A better thing to wish for might be for us to rave about the excellent help we received from a Guitar Center employee. Ed, your people are your store. Build your people and you'll build your business. Case(s) in point:

I have three GCs available to me within a reasonable driving distance; Brea, Fountain Valley, and Cerritos. None are perfect and all three are about the same size (or so it appears to me).

We have always been fairly well treated at the FV store, where the staff is decent and reasonably willing to help. We did buy a new non-EBMM bass from them a while back and the experience was good.

The Brea store has always been an adventure for me because I never know what I'll walk into. There was (probably still is) a Bongo 4 HH in there that I picked up and immediately put back down because the neck was coated with some nasty sticky substance. It was so bad I had to go wash my hands afterward. I told a staff member about it and got one of these:

Man, I love this image.... Anyway, I buy strings there on occasion. Maybe.

Then there's the Cerritos store where I bought my Bongo. The bass was NOS and had been there for 3 years or so, and they were blowing it out on Green Tag. Helluva a good price - certainly one that I couldn't easily walk away from and probably right about cost. Based on profit, they had little reason to give me any special treatment. But they did. They treated my son and me like kings. Obviously, they wanted to sell a high end bass - even at a steep discount, but the way we were treated went beyond that. In addition to the good treatment, they sweetened the already good deal with all kinds of freebies and a decent price on a hardcase. Alex Vega handled the sale and did an exemplary job.

Moral of the story? It's all about the people. The stores all sell the same product for the same prices, so what we have left as a selling point are the people that we talk to in the store.

Ken...

 

[bubbao]

Thanks...

Thanks for the store reviews Ken. I really appreciate all the input from this forum.

BTW, All GC reviews and stories good or bad get read and passed up the ladder.

Ed O.

 

[JimB52]

The GC in Cherry Hill NJ is generally well stocked, although most of the basses could use a set up. The staff is pretty informed and pleasant, but I am an old guy that buys stuff from time to time and is gentIe with guitars that I don't own. I keep going to visit the 30th Stingray there, some day it will follow me home.
Jim B

 

[oddjob]

I live litteraly a mile from GC Cincy and am in there all the time. ITs like Ken said - I never know what I'm going to get. There is one salesman who bends over backwards to help me (Tim Brown) and a few that kind of help and a boatload who stand around counting holes in the ceiling. I started buying there because Tim and Micha (who is no longer there) bent over backwards to help me. IF I needed something they got it, if it wasn't right they fixed it, if I said I wasn't interested in something they didn't push it. In short they treated me like I wanted to be treated.

Now though, unless I find Tim, my pricing is inconsistent (I have been asked to pay 4 different prices for the same strings over the cousre of 20 days) and wait times are hard to predict (someitmes it is right away, sometimes it has been over 20 min).

It IS a decent store. I WILL shop there again... but it is frustrating that I have to "play the game" each time I walk in. I am not bashing, I just want it to be... better (for lack of anything else).

 

[strummer]

I was at a GC in Las Veas in january (the newer one) and all their MM basses were far out of reach The bass guy ws real nice, though he had a thing for Fe*d*r, and we had quite a talk on keeping absses up to spec. He admitted he kept the action a little high on the expensive stuff, and said good players never minded but it kept a lot of dirty hands off the precious basses Other than that his basses were fine, though some gith gunked up strings, but those were like 200 dollar basses...

 

[Big Poppa]

Hey Ed Ii hope these threads are passed DOWN

 

[boomer074]

Oddjob I also agree Tim at the cincy store is an awesome person to deal with, always friendly and helpful. Now some of the other folks that work there that's I got two words completely clueless.

 

[oddjob]

Oddjob I also agree Tim at the cincy store is an awesome person to deal with, always friendly and helpful. Now some of the other folks that work there that's I got two words completely clueless.

Tim just rocks - not only that, but I caught him right before he ordered his SR5-H some months back, he didn't know that they HHs were incoming. He changed his order to a Carbon Blue/Black Pearl HH and is a happy man because of it (nice to know he is one of us)