Salesman complaint

I tried a Suhr today for about 2 minutes before the sales guy came up and asked "ok what DID you think?" and was basically snatching it out of my hands. I literally played the opening of the Trooper and then the opening of King Diamond's welcome home before basically being cut off. Now if I was playing extremely loud or had been an hour I could understand. If you are trying to sell a guitar that cost as much as a 2-3 year old used car at least give the person a chance to form an opinion. Granted I wasn't going to walk out with anything today but with most purchases I like to start trying out stuff and sleep on it before committing.

These days I've found that customer service matters way more to me than it used to. A few companies have earned my repeat business for as long as I'm still able to play. Some have earned a spot on my blacklist.

Have you guys found a shop that takes care of you consistently or one that consistently pisses you off? I took for granted the great local shops we had here when I started playing.

Most of the places I frequent know me. If it's a car or bike dealership, they throw me the keys and tell me to have fun. If it's a music store and I want to crank it to the point of driving people out of the store, they know I'm pretty serious and allow it. But then I just about never try something out I haven't already researched thoroughly. So I usually know if I'm a buyer within a few seconds.

Clint - where were you at?

If I was treated like that I would likely not return and I would say something to a manager about losing my business.

I understand what some of them have to deal with, greasy 14 year old kids tuning a floor model to drop z and diming amps, but I doubt you fit any of those categories.

Where I shop, I have my guy there am loyal to them and they are good to me. My guy at a Sam Ash knows exactly what I like and I come in, and he let's me know if something fits my general profile of what I like. He knows that I only buy from him, and damn he gives me good prices. I realize that he is making money and we both know that. But that is an exceptional Sam Ash store.

I'm a little torn on this myself. They should have informed you of any "demo of high end guitars policies" they have in place. Mostly all of the Suhr dealers also sell online. If I am a buyer, I do not want a guitar that was allowed to be a demo.

I am sure the dealers do not want to take the hit, and list it as a demo, so the more people that play it, the more risk it has to show play wear. Some guys are tough on guitars. It takes a matter of minutes to put pick scratches on it. I have seen some players really hit the pick on the body when they play. These are very expensive guitars so I think this matters to buyers.
On the other hand, how will a potential buyer know the guitar is for them without some time with it. As well as, there are usually 48 hour approval periods where it can be returned to a dealer. It's kind of a catch 22.

glip - I understand that too. Maybe OP should have asked. But also the shop should have had made it clear to ask prior to demo. If I am in a unfamiliar shop I generally ask before I touch anything.

I am curious to know where OP was at.

There was a shop near me that I went to years ago and the salesman completely infuriated me with his smug, holier-than-thou attitude. The store is one of those stores with pianos and concert instruments as well so you get a different feel than a typical guitar store. The salesmen wear shirts, slacks, and ties to give you an idea of what we're dealing with here. Most of the guys are cool but one guy is just an imbecile.

I took a VH "5150" replica I had to trade in towards something in the store and the guy was immediately like "whoa, hmmm, yeah this is a bit out of our typical...", etc. I told him that it was a Van Halen replica and he was like "yeah, it is cool and all but nobody plays those types of guitars anymore or even knows who he is", etc. It was just anything to be a dick.

swamptrashstompboxes":1gd51r0f said:

glip - I understand that too. Maybe OP should have asked. But also the shop should have had made it clear to ask prior to demo. If I am in a unfamiliar shop I generally ask before I touch anything.

I am curious to know where OP was at.

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Im in Charlotte.
I definitely get wanting to be protective of such a high end piece of gear. Also knowing how easy it is to mess up a guitar Im super careful. I took off my coat and adjusted my posture to where the guitar wasnt anywhere near any buttons or zippers. And I generally play very lightly unless Im at home. Im not a guy who is going to crank up and start chugging hard.

Oddly enough the guys at Sam Ash have been super helpful and will generally give me free reign or when they do check on me its in a welcoming fashion. I guess the downside to that their floor models have taken a beating and they dont have any really interesting guitars imho

Maybe I should make a trip to a shop where they have better access to stock of guitars in this range. This year Im laying off of amps and effects to focus on playing. I do want a couple nicer guitars though so Im starting to shop around and figure out what I want. Its hard to even consider a guitar when I cant really remember anything about it after trying it. I do have a Mayones custom ordered without trying it but that was based on a friends recommendation who knows my tastes.

Yeah that sucks.
I used to looking forward to visiting music stores, seeing what they may have and all that. Due to situations like the OP I’ve really stopped going. It’s been a long time since I’ve visited a store. I can understand a stores stance, I don’t necessarily blame them, I just hate a hassle. I really enjoy researching online and dealing in email or over the phone and buying online. It sucks too because I do like to support local businesses and will even pay a little more if I can get something local.

I definitely get the being protective of such an expensive piece of equipment but I would prefer they just keep an eye out or even tell me their policy. The other time I went here was to try out a Kemper. They didnt even know how to hook it up. I ended up using headphones with it then I bought one. A few months later I sold my Kemper after not really enjoying it. If I would have been able to spend a few minutes with it I could have reached that conclusion without wasting money.

I dont blame you , that's frustrating, on the stores behalf they dont know how to treat people and dont know how to spot the ones that actually know good gear and appreciate it. So they probably get nervous knowing how easy something scuffs/ nicks. Not saying you would do such but they do happen. Funny thing with GC and SA, they let you be and even take home forever and bri g back 30 days later with. O questions asked. Unfortunately they dont carry much imho. 2 stores here in charlotte and both lack any boutique guitars/gear. SA is here and same thing. It's cool they are so easy to work with yet dont carry much. I never liked the * watch the employee play the guitar for 20 minutes until you about have to beg" well can I play it? Kind of stores. Gear heads get something in there hands they like and want it's not going away from there gas, not leaving with the gear only makes it more dominant. Lol so that cat may have definitely lost a sale if you actually had a chance to know if it was "the one" happy hunting

My rule of thumb on.boutique gear is to ask if you can demo not assume. Unless it GC or big chain

They don't know if you are a respectful player or just some wanker who will scratch their stuff up, and they can't afford to take the chance. ALWAYS ask to play an instrument, it's just common courtesy. You wouldn't go to someones house and just pick their stuff up and start playing it/turning knobs, would you?

sutepaj":jut1xnvy said:

They don't know if you are a respectful player or just some wanker who will scratch their stuff up, and they can't afford to take the chance. ALWAYS ask to play an instrument, it's just common courtesy. You wouldn't go to someones house and just pick their stuff up and start playing it/turning knobs, would you?

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Lol....comparing a retail store to someone’s house. Most stores if you waited for when you could get help or attention to try something you would have waited so long you may have started developing arthritis to where you can’t play anymore. A decent sale person would have qualified if he was a potential buyer or a wanker before deciding to take the guitar.

When its something really expensive as in case of the Suhr I went to the counter and asked. Im not going to chase someone around to play a 3-400 Ibanez.

On the flip side, I never would have purchased an Ibanez Prestige if I didn't pick it off of a hanger at GC. It wasn't something that I would have been interested enough to ask. I figured I'd see how it was. 5 minutes later I pulled out my wallet. Prior to that I was a Jackson guy full fledged and wouldn't have played one as I hadn't had the best experience with Ibanez prior. The store got $1.5k they would never have gotten, and I was an Ibanez guy who likely never would have.

But I do ask. Prior to the internet era, everything was realisticlly a floor model in one way or another.

Generally if in doubt ask. But I must say that it is a pain to wait 10 minutes for a clerk to grab something off of a wall.

a general rule of thumb in sales, is to treat everyone equally and make no assumptions. I've seen people in designer clothing who are complete possers and others who look disheveled and homeless, but in reality, they have money to spend but just dress how they want. That's not always the case, but if you treat everyone equally, it should lead to more sales success. That 14 year old kid who tunes to z and looks like a punk, could have a wealthy parent who wants to get their kid into music- ya' never know.

I've had very few bad experiences at music stores. East Coast Music Mall (Ed Roman's old shop in CT) comes to mind. They were just weird. it was a weird store.
There was a place in New Haven called One Flight up Guitars. They actually kicked me out, my very first time in the store. They thought I was someone else (I believe they went out of business FWIW).

However, they seem to be the exception. Matt's Music and The Axe Palace (both outside of Boston) have been great to work with. High end stores that'll let you play anything.
The Music Zoo on Long Island have been the same.
Even Sam Ash in NYC has been fine (though, I've never bought anything from that store).
There's a store called Brian's Guitars that I've been to a few times, but haven't bought anything yet. High-end PRS/Mayones/ Tom Anderson dealer. They've been super helpful and professional. I've been thinking of picking up a PRS Custom 24 floyd, and they might be the shop for that.

Anyhow, I'd shoot an email to the store that you had a bad experience with. Give them a link to this thread. Just let them know that there is a right and wrong way to treat potential customers.

The Axe Palace and Matt's Music have been really cool to me. I bought a Splawn 2x12 even though Scott is about 15 minutes from me. It was the same price and had the cosmetics/speakers I wanted. They got it to me in like 2 days.