Guitar Center — Local services in Kentwood

EDIT: I was told to email them so I did. Never heard back. NICE JOB GUYS!!!

Okay. I'm giving this a 3 star review because I am taking into consideration the positive experiences I have had here as well. There have been many times when I have been met with a friendly face and been given great customer service. BUT TONIGHT WAS THE LAST STRAW WITH THE BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Should I have been crying on my way out of the store tonight after a return? Maybe the manager on duty (There were three unhappy guys there. I don't recall.their names) thought I deserved to.

I'm going to break down the general behaviors that seem to be nurtured at this Guitar Center. You know...Part of the employee culture: Don't help the customers even though you have seen them looking around in a daze for 30 minutes. If someone walks up to the counter and asks for help, make sure you make it evident that the conversation you are having with other employees who are not helping guests is far more important than their need for assistance. Always treat the customer as if they are an inconvenience. Make them feel as though they do not belong there. If you have a large volume of people at the store and someone walks up to the counter, make that person feel unwelcome by slamming something down on the counter when you ask them "can I help you".

I returned a kalimba. The manager was Impatient, rude and behaved as though I was ruining his entire life by being there. Through the whole ordeal I made attempts to make him lighten up a bit just to ease my own anxiety over the whole thing but it was met with silence. I was asking questions because the manager I had spoke to earlier in the day had told me that since the purchase was under my husband's card, my husband's signature was needed and so I wanted to make sure my husband was there at the counter to sign simply because the guy was being so Impatient and rude. I was afraid to make any eye contact with him eventually. He asked me to sign and I asked okay, so you don't need my signature abd he actually SNAPPED AT ME with a NO. I DON'T. Then went on to treat me like I was being rude and Impatient with HIM by saying "Just gimmie a sec. I have a lot going on here right now." And he walked away. As he walked away and I could feel my eyes starting to well up my husband said he was in earshot to hear me tell him, "I'm.not being Impatient with you here at all." To which he said nothing.

He had to give my refund back in cash and I just kept my head down so he could not see me crying and my thank you could barely come out. I walked out of the store with my head down and tried to keep it turned from him.

I cried in the car for around 10 minutes before I felt I had myself gathered in enough to drive safely.

I'm calling corporate in the morning. No "I'm sorry" from this dude, who treated me like this for as long as he did, would be genuine. And he put it out there with such a cavalier demeanor that it us obvious to me that this was not just a one-time...

I've been shopping on and off here for over 15 years. They've always had really great staff and management. The biggest problem you'll run into here are other shoppers, although that is seldom the case! Jokes aside, the main point is the staff are awesome, I'd have a hard time finding a reason why someone would take issue with them. Other than that there's not much to say about any particular branch of guitar center that you can't say about pretty much all of them. They have a wide selection of nearly every quality and brand of guitar and bass, and even drums and synth and vocals. It's a nationwide chain for a reason, they have just about everything you could ever possibly need as long as you have the money for it. You can probably find cheaper deals on certain websites and you can definitely find some crazy deals on FB marketplace instead if you want to turn searching for deals into a small time hobby, but the time commitment for those deals is high and you never are guaranteed things will turn out like you hope. Here you don't have that problem and that's really nice. They also do sell some pretty solid deals on used gear. I got a used fender squire for just over 100 bucks in 2007 (probably more like 130-150 nowadays, and the squires back then were of worse quality than today). That may not sound like a steal but it has custom Seymore Duncan pickups and as an aspiring luthier I can tell you they were installed correctly and never caused me any issue. If there was ever any issue with the electronics, the technicians at guitar center fixed it before I ever played it. It still plays great (except right now I took off the neck since I am building my own as a replacement, so it's temporarily out of the game) and it will continue to do so for a long time. I also just recently bought a used Orange brand mini amp for less than 75 bucks, and it sounds amazing for such a little guy. I also picked up a Mark Bass solid state amp for only 250 which I didn't even know was possible, but it sounds spectacular. They're smaller so they're not ideal for large gigs but I'm just using them for at-home use and they get much louder than I could ever possibly want. Honestly this place is pretty great. I wish more local businesses could compete but honestly they do a good job for a chain, I've never had a...

If you want great selection and competitve prices, this place is great...but don't shop[ there if you don't already know almost exactly what you want. Their huge stock is second to none, but it was obvious on my two visits to the store that they work on commission...and they're pretty shameless about it.

I needed a simple guitar cable (first time I've ever owned an electrified guitar), and the first one recommended by the sales guy was $85: the most expensive cable on the rack. Really?! I bought a different lifetime-guaranteed cable, which fit my description of what I had told him I wanted EXACTLY, for less than $20. I also wanted to buy a new set of strings, Elixirs were the most expensive strings on the rack, and the first ones he tried to sell me on. (I've used coated Elixirs before and loved them, so I actually took those)...

and when I came back in again to have a pin added to the beautiful used guitar I'd just traded for, the repair guy spent the entire time he was doing the job basically telling me I'd gotten shafted and that it is a piece of worthless junk. He made sure to tell me that the work it needed would far exceed the value of the instrument. He then said "well...just have fun playing it" (the implication was, "while you can"). Even HE seemed to be trying to maneuver me into scrapping my smooth-as-butter sounding older, used guitar and buying a new one from them.

The selection at RIT Music on Plainfield is FAR smaller, but they don't insult my intelligence, trying to sell me WAY more than I need. And they don't demean my equipment...they just help me take care of it. I'd rather order something I have to wait for from people I trust to help me make good and appropriate decisions than go someplace where I can pull anything off the shelf immediately, but where I don't feel I can trust the advice of the staff.

In short, if you KNOW what your doing, and if you KNOW what you want, Guitar Center is a lovely place of business. But if you're like me - more of an amatuer - you're better off shopping online than swimming with the sharks in the waters of Guitar Center...