Hey all. This review is about the customer service I just received over the phone (Sept 7 2020 ~noon). I called to inquire about piano rentals, which was clearly advertised on their website (checked on Sep 7 2020). The lack of effort from the person on the phone (or worse, effort put into trying to be off-putting) was so unimpressive that I felt bad for him. It would have been better for him to not pick up the phone in the first place.
The entire dialogue was curt, irritated, lazy responses. The summary below is a paraphrase, not verbatim.
Me: Hello, I'd like to inquire about piano rentals
Him: No we don't do that.
Me: Oh, I see. You know, your website says you do
Him: No we don't have pianos.
Me: Oh... Are you only for services?
Him: No. {pause} ... pianos have been back ordered for months, due to covid. Honestly you're going to find it hard to get a piano. (sounding irritated at this point)
Me: Oh. Actually, BTW, that's not true-- (the other shops where I found available pianos were Colton Piano and Silicon Valley Piano, FYI)...
Him: Oh really?
Me: Yeah... (now, wanting to stop the conversation) Oh well... Okay, thanks have a good day
Him: {just hangs up. No "thank you for calling" or "No problem, goodbye" or "You too, have a good day" or even "ok bye" }
One would think he could afford to speculate when pianos might be available again and advise me to call back then, or if that is too uncertain (which is understandable) at least address the fact that the website is out of date, as that's a contributing root cause for my irritating inquiry.
It confuses me when a person doesn't understand a tiny bit of positive effort goes a long way. It was like my phone call really inconvenienced him. If there was a legitimate reason (i.e. he was having a bad day for a real, more important reason) the better approach is not to pick up the phone. Once you decide to pick up the phone, you're now signed up to put in effort, and if you're not going to bother, the fault is yours.
I came away from my phone call to Music Exchange, only more appreciative of the interactions I had at Colton Piano and Silicon Valley Piano. Both of these other stores leave you with an experience you expect, where you are welcomed to discuss pianos, go figure, they enjoy selling pianos to people interested in playing piano, and are interested in people feeling good about the piano they just bought. read more