I have been there for a standard electronics repair on an electric guitar, and was not satisfied…read moredue to the following points:
- When I was handing in the guitar, the colleague who estimated the cost and would do the repair started complaining about some tasks which he might need to do (such as widening some potentiometer holes for CTS pots, which was not even necessary in my case) and said how he hated doing this on some Chinese guitars.
It is a pity to hear that some jobs that some customers need could be hated at all, considering they will also be paying a good price for the job. An why offer a service that you possibly hate?
- He mentioned having to screw the pickup covers back in (since the wiring goes through the pickup cavities) as if it was a big deal. I had actually taken those out to make the start easier for him.
In the end, I realized that one of the pickup covers was put upside down, recognizable due to the slope between the body and the pickup covers. So apparently it was not a trivial job indeed.
Besides, under the other pickup, it appeared that the base plate cut the outer tube of the pickup cable, though luckily not the metal wire inside.
- Even after having discussed the job together in presence, the final cost turned out to be higher, which was tried to be rationalized by saying that the job took even twice the time they estimated, and they would be doing a favor by not charging twice the amount, although there was no further complications on the electronics.
This is an error in self-estimation of 100%, which should not happen for someone who offers this service professionally. Another colleague said they had to rewire everything, which was simply not true, because only two elements were swapped and the remaining three elements were already connected and still are with the old wires I can very well recognize.
- They also said almost nobody gets their guitar back in less than two weeks when I got it after one week. I had no complains on the timing anyway, but when their website mentions 3-5 days, it makes no sense to try to present this as something special.
- When I got my guitar back, not everything was put back into place, such as the tremolo springs, and the strings were loose, which would take 1-2 minutes of effort, as it did at home for me.
So I was not able to hear the guitar and test the new parts there, which is of course not necessary, but would have been nice.
- Here is something delicate, which could be considered as part of a subtle expertise someone might have or not. When there are three matching potentiometers, two of them usually face each other with their connections, and if you have a split shaft and use knobs with screw fitting, it pays off to be careful about the alignment of the pots so that the screws of the knobs appear as a mark looking in the same direction when the two pots are rotated by the same amount while dialing the volume. In my case, it was a bit unfortunate that they went for the unmatched/opposite alignment, ignoring this detail.
- Eventually, it was a rather suboptimal experience, and with the unfortunate comments on other customers' repairs and contradicting arguments within the staff members it was also a kind of self-humiliation for the store which carries a serious name, and which I tried to like.
There would be room for improvement on communication with the customers, on the consistency within the staff, and on some skills regarding the cost-estimation and the execution of the repair.
