Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm curious.

Suppose you sell a guitar, and the customer experiences a problem with the guitar. The customer is frustrated -- and rightly so. He spent a bunch of money on an instrument that has a real problem, and he perceives that it is a problem with the guitar, not with anything he has done. In those moments of justifiable frustration, the customer is tempted to go on an internet message board and say things about you that reflect his frustration.

Obviously, we all know about freedom of speech and all that. He is legally entitled to do whatever he wants. But legal issues aside, what moral obligation do you feel the customer has to communicate with you and give you a chance to make it right before he lambasts you on some guitar forum? Have you had customers lambast you publicly before giving you a chance to make it right, and how did it turn out?

And how does your answer compare with some of the comments on this board about our experiences with other products?

I do not want to re-hash Fillippo's thread about bandsaw blades. But his thread did get me thinking: Do we have a double-standard?

One thing I know from seeing such things happen.....

Generally, when the maker posts on into the originator's post with a comment of confusion and the statement that said person never even bothered to contact them first.. that you do both stand behind and warantee your own work..... there's usually quite a bit of pushback against the griper on the forum.... We usually reserve griping about a company after normal lines of recourse have failed.....

It doesn't work nearly as well when someone who knows the maker posts.... but the whole "Have you called up Jim to talk about this" question seems to have an effect - especially when they say "No".....

Anyway, that's what I would do....

Filippo, I would agree that no two situations are exactly the same. I hope you don't take offense -- I'm not trying to force answers on anyone, just ask questions.

So, in that spirit, what standard would you articulate that would justify a guitar purchaser strongly and publicly criticizing a luthier without first communicating with the luthier and giving the luthier a chance to make it right?

Although I have an opinion about all of this, It's not something I feel strongly about. I'm just curious.

The hypothetical situation is not so fictitious actually. IIRC, here on this forum about a year ago, a guy from NY was gutted, spitted, and roasted before he was even made aware of the situation. ( a finish problem on a guitar). He felt 'hung out to dry' by the general populous here. I'm sure someone with more smarts than me could find the thread.
Fortunately, I have never been in such a situation. (not to say there's never been problems with my work, it's just been handled pleasantly)
And yes, I think we do enjoy a double standard here. In general, our face to face interactions are generally handled with a bit more caution and respect where as 'faceless' companies are fair game.

Kelby, I, having only sold about 40 guitars, have never had this problem however one of my customers who bought a guitar probably 10 years ago now came back to me about having a little finish problem. Oh ok no biggie I thought, when I saw the guitar I was horrified, the finish literally pealed off in spots. He had every wright to complain but was kind enough to come to me first. I won't say what kind of finish it was in this thread But I have mentioned it in threads that people talk about finishes...

Ok anyway here is what I have seen on another forum I frequent about bicycles (another passion of mine) A guy started a thread about how terrible the service was at XX bike company and people responded in kind. It was looking really bad for the bike company then all of a sudden a new poster comes in, the owner of the company, and wrote a very elegant message and apology and offering to remedy the situation and all of a sudden the thread took a whole entirely different turn and people started actually bolstering said XX bike company.

So maybe try that approach?

As I said earlier too....

How would Fillipo's travails have gone differently if an actual Laguna rep had come on the board here and said "Despite our best intentions - we occasionally have a bad blade go out... Let me give you a call and we will sort this out."

If Fillipo would have then posted back "One in a row was enough for me... I hate your product and just don't want to fool with this thing anymore" - we would probably have looked at him like he was the whiner...

I guarantee the conversation would have been different....

Instead, Laguna never showed up and instead.... half the folks on the post responded with "Yeah, I bought one of those things and it didn't perform... When I called the manufacturer back up - they wanted to charge me a fortune to fix their mistake"....

So... back to the OP's comment.... If said person complaining about the Luthier's work posted... and all the other folks on the board posted back - all having the same experiences with said luthier's guitars being substandard and the Luthier himself being unresponsive.... then said Luthier really ought to do some soul searching....... just like said Bandsaw manufacturer apparently needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong with their blade design, blade construction, or both....

Thanks