Customer Service (Ovation Guitars)

It seems as though when I deal with customer service with guitar equipment everyone is always extremely helpful. Customer service through a computer company, on the other hand, is notoriously bad. Everyone’s been there, talking to someone overseas who barely speaks English – it sucks.

A while back I wrote a blog about a situation where I landed a free guitar case through customer service at American Musical Supply. They were extremely helpful and went above and beyond what I expected.

Not long ago I had a run-in with Musicians Friend. There was a cello string that didn’t come and didn’t come. They were really easy to deal with, but it sounded like there could have been problems had there been a more expensive order in question. Regardless, I received the string in good time once I contacted them. In 10 or so orders from them, one mistake is permissible.

Today I had another run-in with customer service; Ovation guitars via KMC Music.

Why would I be dealing with them, you might ask? I mean, I don’t have any Ovation guitars. Well, that’s not entirely true. My 12 string is an Applause, a company that Ovation bought. It’s basically the Squier of the Ovation name.

So what do I need for my 12 string? Nothing. Because this isn’t for my 12 string.

It’s for my Adamas.

Yes, that would be #8. Going on the Fender analogy, Adamas guitars are the Fender Custom Shop of the Fender brand. They’re the top of the top, at the forefront of technology and performance. I’ll post on the actual guitar later.

So what do I need for my Adamas? Well, I bought it used. And the guy I bought it from is very hands on. In searching for some body sound, he decided to install some additional pickups. However, in doing this, he ripped out some of the fan-bracing :gasp: under the bridge.

Observe:

Was it a bad idea? Yes. Will it ruin the guitar? Most likely, it won’t. The top is carbon fiber. But, that still leaves me and my rather aggressive playing style to want to not take chances.

So I emailed Ovation (KMC Music) this afternoon, and explained my situation. Within half an hour I heard back from them. The guy asked for which braces I needed to fix and my address. He’s going to find some spares and send them and it sounds like it’ll be for free.

It’s not so much that I’m getting them for free. It’s more the fact that all I had to do was ask and they’re going out of their way to help me out with an odd request. And they have never seen a dime from me on any purchase. The mere fact that I now owned one was enough.

What does this do?

1. It endorses the brand. Regardless of whether I would blog about this or not, I’m more likely to get another Adamas down the road because of my positive experience with these guys.

2. It protects the brand. Adamas guitars sound great and look real cool too. If I saw a guitar in disarray or saw one “randomly” break, regardless of the brand, it would paint a bad image of the brand for me. Enabling users to take care of issues like this prevents that picture from ever being formed.

There will be more to come in the next few days, as I get to play the guitar more and eventually do a little write-up on it. Stay tuned!