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OK, I have had it with stew mac and no phone number.

Enuff said.

Mike

I wish it weren't true, but the pandemic was not the start of the abandoning of good telephone customer service by most businesses; it was just a very efficient accelerant. Good telephone customer service is not completely dead, but it is pretty rare. Drives me bonkers. If I hear one more recording tell me that my call is important to them, and they are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls, so I have to stay on hold for 20 minutes . . . Grrrr!

On the other hand, some of these same businesses that are miserable at telephone customer service are pretty good at it via other means of communication. My home warranty company is ridiculously bad at answering the phone, but really good at responding to things reported on their website. I think StewMac wants us to think of their customer service in that way: great over the internet.

And whenever I feel myself complaining about bad telephone customer service, I remind myself that there are companies that give "great phone" but bad service overall. I have a guy who is supposed to be sharpening some esoteric cutters for me. He is great at answering the phone. But I have been waiting for my sharpened cutters for 9 months. Maybe he needs to quit chit-chatting on the phone and get some work done!

It would be nice if stew Max members could get through on the phone at least. Maybe an allotment of minutes per year to encourage everyone not to take too much of their time on the phone or something.

But hopefully not a system that makes you jump through all kinds of hoops and tries to lead you away from an actual representative. So annoying.

Pat

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Pat

If you are constantly experiencing higher than normal call volumes, you’re not experiencing higher than normal call volumes, you’re effin understaffed.

This is almost verbatim (minus the profanity) what I say to the person who eventually answers the phone, after we deal with the substance of my call. I thank them for their help, and compliment them on the work they personally did to help me, but then I ask them to formally record my complaint about the wait time, and pass it up the chain of command. I say that the problem is the company they work for won't hire enough people to do their type of job, and I have to pay the price by being stuck on hold for longer than is acceptable. I don't know if it helps, but nothing gets better if you don't politely complain about the things that are wrong.

Maybe it's just me, but I much prefer shooting off an email describing exactly what my question is and then be off to whatever I was doing up until then while the answer gets processed at the other end. The good service guys at StewMac are top-notch, and once your email gets answered to (typically within a few hours), it seems to fall on some kind of a fast track because every subsequent back-and-forth email exchange seems to happen in real time.

I reaeaeally hate having to wait on the line while the clock is ticking (I might be making money instead) so the email suits me just fine with SM.

But then, I’m one of those older guys not in any hurry anymore.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

For me, to be honest, I'd rather never call another company ever again for help on any of the products they sell. Sad state of affairs maybe and it started a lot longer ago then the pandemic but think about it, do you ever really get any help from some dude who is in some other country with no vested interest in the company at all what so ever? And I know SM used to be telephone friendly, heck I remember ordering everything by phone, but talking on the phone now is just a horrible experience. I'd rather do text chat or email and not wait on a phone listening to some crappy elevator music waiting to talk to someone who just reads the label like I could have done anyway.

And THEN you have a written record of everything said.

/rant

I'll never understand why StewMac made the decision to take the greatest asset that they have, their people and hide them away from the world so that we may no longer benefit as we always did from their professionalism and humanity.

Customer service, no the model for customer service was always part of the StewMac value proposition. Sure hope that it doesn't change and it's been very frustrating to me too to not be able to get a StewMac person on the phone.

I’m not focused on StewMac when I say this, because I have not needed to contact them for customer service in quite some time, but many companies that expect you to fill out an online contact form run afoul of the desire (on the customer’s end) to have a written record of the contact. You fill out the form, hit send, and then get a generic message saying they have received it. But in many instances, I don’t get a record of what I sent, and I have had the frustrating experience of never hearing back from the company. Again, not focused on StewMac here. This is one reason why I still stubbornly want the ability to address problems on the telephone; sometimes, the online “service request” gets ignored. A major finishing materials supplier we all know recently did this to me, in fact. If they ignore internet contacts, how else do they expect me to deal with them but over the phone?

Whenever I can't get a response out of Stewmac I reach out to them on Social media. It's strange I get a faster response by reaching out on instagram then I do on there website. SMH

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Whenever you have a Heart of Darkness dealing with these companies you might blame it on the namesake of that other continent of impenetrable jungles - the one who wants us to go prime-al with our purchasing. When we deal with Amazon do we ever expect to have a human connection along the way? Our buying peregrinations may take us to the far corners of the globe, without ever encountering any of the indigenous inhabitants. A recent purchase was a cashmere blend coming from Lower Mongolia that also used some fibers gathered in Australia. The world web is indeed a wide and tangled one.
That Stew Mac may want to emulate the selling methods of this mercantile Hippolyta is not surprising - in fact they have joined hands with her and many of their wares can be found there.
We enjoy the impersonality of internet buying and bill paying (the insomniac's desire to shop at 3am!), but it comes at a cost - there is no longer a human on the other side of the transaction. But there is a spybot that wants to collect your data so you can be added to the things to be bought and sold.

Well, I understand Amazon does not have humans to talk to (they used to). Amzon's software is so good there is almost no reason to get to a human. LMII and Stewmac are specialty companies. Most of the time I have been on the phone with either, their people displayed a breadth and depth of useful product understanding. I needed someone to talk me off the ledge. And help solve a problem. And I needed the solution expidited. I might be wrong, but I don't think expidited shipping is done at Stewmac anymore. Luckily, someone at LMII picked up the phone, explained a a path forward, and facilitated expidited shipping. I felt MUCH better after that.

Also, that stupid chatbot thing Stewmac uses is just that. Stupid. No human at the end of that either. I would be super happy if I could email them and request a call back (to help them to avoid spam).

BuyMirka does that very thing. No pohone number listed. They request you send an email requesting a call, then they call you. I like that.

I am curious what questions y'all are asking of StewMac that you need a phone number?

Shipping/Tracking info is automated, order status can be seen from your account, usage instructions are usually included on the product page, and related products that may help you are linked on the product page. If I have a question about an item, I use the "contact us" feature and usually hear back within a day. I'm normally not in the biggest hurry, but I can understand that others may be.

There was a time when you might call up StewMac for advice on your project, or what to buy in order to accomplish this or that task. But that kind of advice is easily found searching or asking here (or MIMF, Delcamp... maybe not facebook groups, a lot of inexperienced people giving poor advice unchecked there, but I digress). If that is the level of service and product knowledge you'd like at the end of your phone call, how much would StewMac have to pay that person to where they wouldn't be better off just repairing guitars for a living? That seems like quite an expectation compared to a normal customer service role.

So with that said, allow me to relate a recent experience with StewMac, with the caveat that I can accept having to contact them through their webpage. I need a replacement donut for my True Channel Binding Jig, not because there is an issue with the one I have but because I intend to modify it to accept a larger bit and prefer have an unmodified one on hand as well. I explained that to them. Now, I could spend $140 to buy the whole router carriage that the donut is attached to, but I only need the donut itself, so I asked if I could purchase only that. Well, they do not sell that, but they were happy to send me one for free as a courtesy and without even charging me shipping (my StewMax membership recently expired, but I will renew it soon).

If you ask me, that is excellent customer service. Sometimes it is easier to offer great customer service through email, because you can go the extra mile for someone and sort out a solution before giving them an answer.

In my experience StewMac does a great job, has good products, ships them quickly, fullfills orders correctly, answers my emails in a timely fashion, and offers easy returns. If I have any gripes, there are a couple of Sloane classical machine models I'd like to see make a return. But no phone number is okay by me.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier

Another positive message about StewMac overall (not focused on the lack of phone access):

I needed an electric motor for my buffing arbor (after experimenting with small hand buffers, I want to give the large wheels another go). They are currently running a 15% off deal, which made StewMac the least expensive way to get a new electric motor appropriate for the task. I ordered it on the website on Sunday afternoon. It arrived on my doorstep this afternoon. That’s really one day delivery. Hard to beat when you need things.

The problem with the telephone call is there is a person on the other end wasting their time waiting to take your call, or you are wasting your time waiting for a call back. I guess that is why texting is so popular (says the luddite who doesn't have a cell phone).

I don't think it matters at least to me if information that I require from StewMac can be found a different way such as on a self serve web site.

People, some people want to purchase our stuff from people and prefer to have someone to speak with and this used to be what Stewmac was best at and legendary for.

It's a strategic business decision to roll-out the barriers to human to human contact for a company and it can have dire consequences especially when done without considering what we call in marketing speak "buying styles."

Again some people prefer to have a human to speak with to reassure that we understand what we are purchasing and that it's suitable for our application.

I don't see this move on StewMac's part as contingent on the pandemic either, they did it for cost reasons and likely will continue this way also for cost reasons.

Is it a wise move? Not in my view. When you set the stage for your market participation by jumping through hoops for people with superb customer service as StewMac has done in the past it's both noticed and missed when it's taken away from us.

Marketing is my field and how I spent most of my life in a real job and I also used to teach marketing and various approaches to being what we called an elephant hunter. No elephants were harmed writing this post.

I disagree with StewMac and think that they have taken some of the nicest, most caring and knowledgeable people in the entire industry and bottled them up sequestered from the people who need and appreciate them.

Bad move StewMac please consider providing us with a human to speak with. When I can't reach a human and want to and instead receive an email that my email has been received it pisses me off and frustrates me to no end.

I can relate to Mike and agree.

Thanks

I rant frequently about having to deal with algorithms instead of human brains. The computer expects certain words in a certain order, and I don't play that stuff. Consequently, my frustration level jumps quickly to high levels. A live human can usually read between the lines (provided they are really interested in helping me).

I also rant frequently about putting bean counters in charge. Bean counters are important, but they only see beans. They have difficulty seeing what the beans represent - they can't quantify something that is not a bean. For instance, goodwill is not a bean, but it used to be a common component of doing business.

The personal touch is always preferred, and always succeeds in business. Unfortunately, most of the folks in charge these days don't get it. Once companies are run by groups instead of individuals, it's a lead pipe cinch customer satisfaction will take a nosedive. StewMac deserves whatever befalls them.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I'm with you there, Chris. I had several personal experiences of bean counting types coming into an efficient and profitable engineering practice and totally screwing things up for everyone.

I've had a number of questions on products not covered in ad copy, incorrectly noted, or which would be documented but for lack of a dimensional drawing. Waiting 24 hours or more for a response to email usually sends me down the road.

Mr. Melia - Re: it's over. No work of great dramatic value (opera, Super Bowl half-time show, pandemic, etc.) is over until the exceptionally-well-gifted-in-body-mass, designated-female-at-birth person sings...

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I called SawStop today and heard someone on the other end say, "Hello, this is SawStop," after one ring. Threw me off.

duplicate - - - please delete.

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Peter Havriluk

I suspect the product-savvy staff at Stew-Mac has largely been replaced by a purchase-fulfillment service provider who offers warehousing services to anyone who pays. The web site has no phone number, no street address, no stated location.

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Peter Havriluk

21 N. Shafer St. Athens, OH 4570

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I believe they still pack and ship from their old HQ in Athens. I’m in another time zone and would never call them anyhow. All my dealing with them over the past 10 years has been via email. I’ve noticed no recent change, they reply in about the same timeframe they always have.

Yeah imagine that, wow!! Good customer service! We should be sure to give kudos to those who support us well so this is good to hear James.