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Gather round boys and girls, I want to tell you a story about a guitar company that knows how to treat customers...
I had some GAS recently for a Dean HardTail Select, I had heard good things about them and they looked juicy and nice :-). I shopped around a little bit and decided to buy it from Musician's Friend. They had it at a decent price shipped with a case and I had bought a few guitars from them in the past without problems. So I pulled the trigger and waited for my new axe to arrive. Upon inspection I was pretty dang disappointed, the guitar had a number of finish flaws that had me wondering how it ever left the factory. I'm talking glue all over the fretboard, sloppy inlay on the 12th fret, I could actually stick a small bladed jewelry screwdriver in the gap between the fretboard and the inlay in a few places, fish-eyes and runs in the finish that they tried to sand and buff out. I was bummed!
I called MF to get an RA and they gave me one and set up return shipping with no problems. At that point I figured I would send an email to Dean Z himself and let him know (politely) that I was dissatisfied with the guitar and was returning it to MF for a refund. I packed it up in preparation for FedEx pickup the following day. While driving around running some errands and whatnot I got to daydreaming about how if I was the owner of the company and somebody had a problem with one of my products and was local or in the area (I live about 30 mins from Dean headquarters in Tampa) I would give them a ring and tell them to come on down and we'll get it fixed up. "Yeah right" I thought to myself, "that's gonna happen - NOT!". Later that day I am home eating lunch and the phone rings - it's Bill the sales manager for Dean USA. He says he just got copied on an email and knew about my problem and that I was going to return the guitar to MF. He apologized for the condition I received my guitar in and invited me down the Dean headquarters in Tampa to exchange my defective HT Select with a proper replacement. I was like DOH!! You betcha buddy! Thanks, I'll be down first thing Monday morning [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Cut to Monday. My wife and I spent about 2 hours playing guitars at Dean HQ and, well, here she is...
I have to give a sincere thank you to Bill Gillespie and to Elliot Rubinson (owner) who both spent time with us and made us feel comfortable and made sure we touched LOTS of guitars and left happy. We left happy...
Check this out....After playing a couple of Trans Amberburst's that Bill had lined up for me I was kind of like "eh". At this point Bill heads off to the warehouse to see what else is around, in the meantime, Elliot Rubinson (owner of company) walks in the room and I recognize him from some pictures I have seen from NAMM and such. He walks over and strikes up a conversation with us, tells me that he is sorry that he didn't personally answer my email (he remembered), apologizes for the trouble and tells to take as long as we want and play as many guitars as we can get our hands on to make sure we are happy when we leave. What a cool guy, no wonder he is doing so well. Anyway, as Elliot walks out, here comes Bill with an ENTIRE BOX of brand new Amberburst HT Selects. He drags the box over to where we are sitting and says "here's all that we have in stock, go through and play them and pick out the one that makes you happy". ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME!!! At this point my mind is blown, this is like one of those dreams that you always wake up from right before the good part comes. Where are you going to find a manufacturer that is going to do THAT for you? Tampa FL baby!
Well to wrap this story up, we had a complete ball unpacking brand spanking new HT Select's and playing the whole box of 'em (we packed them back up like we found them when we were finished - thanks Bill). After playing all of those I played all of the ones that were hanging up in the room and I finally settled on the Brazillia Burst one you see in the pic above. Funny thing is that this one was one of the ones that was hanging on the wall in the "play room". The "play room" is a nice big comfy room that has every Dean guitar set out on wall hangers within easy reach. You literally just hang out in there and grab guitars off the wall and play and oogle and compare. The one I picked is flawless and had the best overall neck, tone and feel of any of the other ones I played and the top is real nice. I think we played about 11 HT Selects in all. It was incredible and was easily the best guitar buying experience I have ever had in 30 years of playing.
After getting my new HT home and setting it up I am very happy and grateful to Elliot and Bill for helping us out. You guys did not have to do that and it was waaayy above and beyond the call. Thank you, it will not be forgotten.
Just wanted to post this and let you all know what kind of company does this kind of stuff for it's customers. Dean guitars!
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Dean guitars other than being a satisfied customer.
FS
I had some GAS recently for a Dean HardTail Select, I had heard good things about them and they looked juicy and nice :-). I shopped around a little bit and decided to buy it from Musician's Friend. They had it at a decent price shipped with a case and I had bought a few guitars from them in the past without problems. So I pulled the trigger and waited for my new axe to arrive. Upon inspection I was pretty dang disappointed, the guitar had a number of finish flaws that had me wondering how it ever left the factory. I'm talking glue all over the fretboard, sloppy inlay on the 12th fret, I could actually stick a small bladed jewelry screwdriver in the gap between the fretboard and the inlay in a few places, fish-eyes and runs in the finish that they tried to sand and buff out. I was bummed!
I called MF to get an RA and they gave me one and set up return shipping with no problems. At that point I figured I would send an email to Dean Z himself and let him know (politely) that I was dissatisfied with the guitar and was returning it to MF for a refund. I packed it up in preparation for FedEx pickup the following day. While driving around running some errands and whatnot I got to daydreaming about how if I was the owner of the company and somebody had a problem with one of my products and was local or in the area (I live about 30 mins from Dean headquarters in Tampa) I would give them a ring and tell them to come on down and we'll get it fixed up. "Yeah right" I thought to myself, "that's gonna happen - NOT!". Later that day I am home eating lunch and the phone rings - it's Bill the sales manager for Dean USA. He says he just got copied on an email and knew about my problem and that I was going to return the guitar to MF. He apologized for the condition I received my guitar in and invited me down the Dean headquarters in Tampa to exchange my defective HT Select with a proper replacement. I was like DOH!! You betcha buddy! Thanks, I'll be down first thing Monday morning [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Cut to Monday. My wife and I spent about 2 hours playing guitars at Dean HQ and, well, here she is...
I have to give a sincere thank you to Bill Gillespie and to Elliot Rubinson (owner) who both spent time with us and made us feel comfortable and made sure we touched LOTS of guitars and left happy. We left happy...
Check this out....After playing a couple of Trans Amberburst's that Bill had lined up for me I was kind of like "eh". At this point Bill heads off to the warehouse to see what else is around, in the meantime, Elliot Rubinson (owner of company) walks in the room and I recognize him from some pictures I have seen from NAMM and such. He walks over and strikes up a conversation with us, tells me that he is sorry that he didn't personally answer my email (he remembered), apologizes for the trouble and tells to take as long as we want and play as many guitars as we can get our hands on to make sure we are happy when we leave. What a cool guy, no wonder he is doing so well. Anyway, as Elliot walks out, here comes Bill with an ENTIRE BOX of brand new Amberburst HT Selects. He drags the box over to where we are sitting and says "here's all that we have in stock, go through and play them and pick out the one that makes you happy". ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME!!! At this point my mind is blown, this is like one of those dreams that you always wake up from right before the good part comes. Where are you going to find a manufacturer that is going to do THAT for you? Tampa FL baby!
Well to wrap this story up, we had a complete ball unpacking brand spanking new HT Select's and playing the whole box of 'em (we packed them back up like we found them when we were finished - thanks Bill). After playing all of those I played all of the ones that were hanging up in the room and I finally settled on the Brazillia Burst one you see in the pic above. Funny thing is that this one was one of the ones that was hanging on the wall in the "play room". The "play room" is a nice big comfy room that has every Dean guitar set out on wall hangers within easy reach. You literally just hang out in there and grab guitars off the wall and play and oogle and compare. The one I picked is flawless and had the best overall neck, tone and feel of any of the other ones I played and the top is real nice. I think we played about 11 HT Selects in all. It was incredible and was easily the best guitar buying experience I have ever had in 30 years of playing.
After getting my new HT home and setting it up I am very happy and grateful to Elliot and Bill for helping us out. You guys did not have to do that and it was waaayy above and beyond the call. Thank you, it will not be forgotten.
Just wanted to post this and let you all know what kind of company does this kind of stuff for it's customers. Dean guitars!
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Dean guitars other than being a satisfied customer.
FS
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