Awesome customer service from Musician's Friend

[Legion303]

Usually when I post it's to complain about something, but these guys went above and beyond. I got a cheapo bass guitar (Dean Zone XM) so I can stop resorting to using a pitch transform on my acoustic guitar when I want bass sounds, and it came with shipping damage (thanks, UPS). Specifically, something heavy crushed the face of the box, pressing the lowest 3 strings against the 22nd fret hard enough to kink them and damage the winding. The rest of the instrument is fine and it's holding its tune, though the strings are going to break sooner rather than later.

I shot them a polite email and said rather than ship the entire thing back on their dime, I would be happy if they would send me 3 individual strings of whatever comes stock on this model. The reply from Chris was that they don't carry the exact strings that came with this model but he offered to send me a twin pack of D'Addario nickel-wound strings instead. These are ordinarily $18 per pack, on sale for $20 for the twin, and way above what I would expect a company to offer for slight shipping damage to a $130 instrument.

[Liontamer]

Musician's Friend definitely deserves some props for that. Especially when it was UPS that messed things up in the first place. Musician's Friend could have easily said "Oh well," so they're really awesome for stepping up where UPS (unfortunately) failed.

EDIT: @UPS is quick on the Tweeter: http://twitter.com/UPSHelp/status/152400289293533185 - Steve, if you want to talk to them to further explain the situation and see if they'll help in any way, let them know. If you don't want to tweet, you can email them at twitter@ups.com.

[OceansAndrew]

In the wake of the extremely high profile and hilarious PR blunder that happened a few days ago, this sort of service is even better to hear about. Nice work, Musician's Friend, way to live up to your name!

[DrewGourley]

Situations like this make you wish that something like this would go crazy-ass-viral and elevate this company to a new high.

[DusK]

Stuff like that is the reason I've used Musician's Friend for years. They didn't even hesitate in sending me a new powered mixer when the first one showed up broken. The new one arrived less than a day after I shipped the old one out.

Simply put, they freakin' rock.

[Legion303]

Especially when it was UPS that messed things up in the first place.

Well, there's a little blame on both sides. The packing could have been more than two small strips of bubble wrap crammed to one side of the instrument. But yes, they did step up in a big way. Thanks for the tweet!

[zircon]

Yep I have multiple, similar stories from MF as well. For example, I had purchased some acoustic foam that I didn't have the chance to really look at for about 48 days after I got it, due to my move. Normally I wouldn't be able to return them, get a credit and exchange for something else. But not only did they let me do this, they even let me exchange for a cheaper kind of foam.

[Bleck]

I almost bought a Brian May Guitar, on sale, from them just yesterday

and then I found out they don't ship certain items to Canada and flipped a table in rage

[LuketheXjesse]

I almost bought a Brian May Guitar, on sale, from them just yesterday

and then I found out they don't ship certain items to Canada and flipped a table in rage