Guitar Center — Local services in Centennial

Holy smokes. I just had a NOT-great experience at this store.

I ordered a used guitar from the website and had it shipped to this store. I thought that it would be a better (quicker) experience than simply shipping to home, but now I don't think that's the case. (Not sure if there is any benefit to the ship-to-store.) Anyways, when I enter the store, I proceed to the sales desk and patiently wait my turn. There were two people behind the desk. One was busy buying a used guitar for the store from a customer. One was working on the computer. I waited maybe 10 minutes. Not terrible.

When it was my turn, I stepped to the desk and the sales guy mumbled (and this is a direct quote) "what do you want?" I said, "I'm picking up an order." He said, "You should have had them mail it to your house." I explained that I thought mailing to the store had some benefits, and then realized I was about to get in an argument with the front desk guy. I took a deep calming breath and paused. The sales guy then said, "what is it?" I said, "a guitar..." and then gave him the model number. I asked him if he wanted the order confirmation number. He didn't acknowledge the question. I then mentioned that "your customer service really isn't very good here." He then asked my name, went into the back, and got the guitar.

He presented the guitar (didn't ask for my ID or anything) and said, "sorry the customer service wasn't good." I didn't know what to reply to that, so I said, "thanks," took the guitar, and left.

It was such an odd purchasing experience, that I went to car and opened the packaging to make sure the sales guy didn't snap the neck. He didn't and I'm sure he has a fine respect for the instruments... but he was soooo unfriendly and seemed soooo put-out that I actually thought he might punctuate the experience by damaging the guitar. Again, the guitar was in great shape, but the whole experience was, frankly, bizarre.

The positive end to the story is that I gave the guitar to my kid (birthday present) and he really liked it. In fact, I hear him playing now in the other room. Sounds great. So I'm ultimately happy with the purchase, but if I had to buy another guitar, I would probably pay more to not have to interact with that store.

Maybe the solution is to just ship anything you buy from Guitar Center to your home address. Or just avoid this particular store. Or, maybe, they just need to get better--much, much better--at...

Management made a bad situation right!

TLDR: The Store Manager and Sales Manager both exude politeness and Integrity, and that kind of leadership is bound to trickle down to the employees! Props for leading from the top and doing the right thing in a crappy situation.

The situation: Two weeks ago I had an upper strap button put on my acoustic at this store. It was placed left of center on the heel and I couldn't figure out why. I saw what appeared to be some flash or something under the edge of the felt washer and I asked what it was. The repair guy told me it was flash from the drill, and that he tried to get it off with his fingernail, but couldn't. At that point, it sounded odd but I left, as the store was about to close.

Two weeks later: Playing the guitar in a sunny room and I can see silver by the "Flashing". I grabbed a screwdriver and removed the strap button to find that it wasn't in fact flash, but the guitar repair guy (don't remember his name) had apparently either broken off a screw or a drill bit in the neck of my guitar and then covered it up with a re-drill and lied to me.

Needless to say, I was pretty pissed. Mistakes happen, but lying to my face? I immediately put the guitar in the car and drove back to the shop.

At the store: Waited a moment for the store manager to be free and asked to speak to him off to the side. Pulled the button off again and he was as shocked as I was. He asked how he could make it right. I asked that they either buy a new neck and have it replaced at a third party, or buy back the guitar and replace it. He took some pictures of it, bought it back as a used guitar, and gave me a new one on the spot.

I didn't expect that level of service. I didn't expect that level of calm and empathy out of both the Store Manager and the Sales Manager. I was in and out in 45 minutes and couldn't be more pleased with the integrity and prompt correction of a mistake.

As we all know, bad employees sometimes exist, and sometimes people lie out of fear of reprisal when mistakes are made. However stellar customer service and integrity in a retail setting is rare, and incredibly appreciated.

We can't always prevent mistakes, and neither can they, but you can confidently buy here, because the management knows the meaning of customer service and integrity. I'll definitely be back...

Address of particular store is, 9647 E County Line Rd Englewood, CO 80112

I purchase a guitar processor ( used ) upon getting it home to plug it in to play around with it the unit won’t even power on. I have played guitar ( acoustic ) for years but only recently started playing electric. My neighbor before moving here was a significant guitar player from a big 80’s band. I am not going to included name as he has nothing to do with the issue and I have no idea of his business relationships just know he was a cool dude and could party like well a ROCK STAR. The stores answer for this issue was you can return it for a refund. I myself am a very busy man that works 18 hrs a day ( how I afford live by 80’s rock star’s ) and my time is money I lost. So now not only did I not get what I paid for I also lost probably about 2-3 hrs of my time with ordering, pickup, returning unit, and all for nothing. I have no working product and if I want one I will have to do the process all over again as it wasn’t offered a exchange, perhaps discount towards the purchase of a different unit, or any other sort of compensation for the time I have spent to get a product that is worthless. It has nothing to do with the money of the matter yes it was a used unit but I as I’m sure most people do held guitar center to a standard of quality and trusted that I was getting at the very minimum a usable product. Well don’t make the same mistake I did and think this of the company, they know that the sale of one person of my stature ( nobody in music business ) won’t hurt them one bit and may as well told me to Fk OFF and we as consumers have allowed them to be able to do this. Now I grew up in small town with small business the damn guy seen you 5-6 times a year knew your name what strings and pics you wanted and if you did have a product issue would have drove to your house with a working replacement if that’s what was need to satisfy a customer. I’ve ramble here long enough so I’ll go ahead and wrap this up with a BIG FK YOU GUITAR CENTER learn to stand behind your products and appreciate the fact that you have customers because the small local places sure did before you put them out...