Categories: uncategorized
Date: 18 July 2005 15:56:25
...you come across people or even, shock-horror, a company who transcend the standard levels of 21st Century customer "service", fly in the face of whatever marketing/business orthodoxies the herd are bowing down to this week and get things just right, and thereby bring a lot of pleasure to many people.
This week I stumbled upon one such company: Award-Session. They make very nice guitar amps, pre-amps and lots of other goodies. You can find out about them - here.
Prompt, no hassle, very quick to reply to e-mails, know their onions (well...circuits really), and are just a pleasure to deal with. On top of that they are far more concerned with what their products sound like than what they look like. Around 1989/90 I worked in a music shop in Bath and we used to sell their amps. Every Steve Vai wannabee for miles around would come in and not even give the Session amps a second look because they're not as "rock 'n' roll" as Marshall amps. Needless to say, the few open minded enough to try them were richly rewarded with a great sounding amp which should last decades.
Occasionally guitars need adjusting, woods 'breathe' with changes in temperature and humidity and over time they need an m.o.t. Luckily I've stumbled (been doing a lot of stumbling lately!) upon the good people at Madcap Music
of Westbury, Wilts, a small independent music shop. John, the owner and guitar tech, did a great job setting up my Gordon Smith, explained to me exactly what the problems were with it and how he solved those problems and enthused about Gordon Smith guitars generally. So I've given him my (secondhand bargain!) Hohner Jack headless 4-string bass to set-up. Why would I take it anywhere else? I bet when I go and collect it he will talk enthusiastically about how great the tonal variations are you can get with the active pick-ups (nothing to do with escort agencies!) and tell me all about the bass guitars he's owned in the past.
Another company I've stumbled upon during my peregrinations is the above mentioned Gordon Smith Guitars. A few years ago I had the good fortune of picking up a used Gordon Smith for a song - literally - (a Gypsy 2, semi-solid, cherry sunburst, just in case you're interested). It is sweeeeet! Build quality that puts some of the bigger boys to shame resulting in a guitar that almost plays itself. It'll keep me more than happy for the rest of my days.
Now, here's the point of this post, yes, there is one, apart from simply giving some well-earned respect. If you ever phone or e-mail one of these companies you are very likely to have the pleasure of communicating directly with the (co-)founder/(co-)owner of the company. They know everything there is to know about the product and they have pride in the product because they have made an investment in the product in terms of time/money/effort/skill. When did you ever get service like this from a big company? In order to save you having to think too hard I'll answer that for you. Never. It simply can't happen and never will. Why? Because it's impossible to be enthusiatic about something that you have no personal investment in. It's against our nature, we simply can't do it without selling the things which make us individual human beings, yet we persistently try to do it. Is it really too big a leap of the imagination to recognise that?