Tweeter Customer Service? (1 Viewer)

[Andy F]

Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with Tweeter? They are the company I am focusing on for a retailing class and could use a little input.

From my experiences they have been pretty good. much better than BB and CC but nowhere near as good as my favorite local shop. Any interesting experiences out there with regards to customer service?

 

[Dave Falasco]

Hey, Andy. With the exception of my SVS subs, I've bought my entire rig from Tweeter over the years, so I have a bit of experience with them. I think your statement that they are better than the mass-market megastores (CC, BB), but not as good as specialty stores is pretty much spot-on. As with probably any store, it depends on the clerk that you happen upon. I found a guy that really seemed to know his stuff and worked with him for years to get most of my gear. But I have also met several Tweeters clerks with far less product or industry knowledge. Still a big jump over the CC's in my area, but don't ask them to explain how progressive scanning works, or the differences in sound between a silk and a metal tweeter.
I'm not sure what specific information you are looking for; I don't want to bore you with stuff that may be irrelevant. You asked for customer service experiences--I can tell you that the guy I worked with was very good at spending time with me, answering questions and auditioning lots of gear for as long as I needed to. I would go in there for an hour or two on a slow day and just talk about things I had read, questions I had, or upcoming products that were coming out. Yes, I bought a lot of stuff from him, but certainly not every trip. I can't think of another store that would have been okay with me coming in on a Saturday afternoon with a fistful of CDs and listening to several different speakers, reconfiguring the room setup as I went, for a few weeks at a time before buying anything.
Hope that helps, and if you want anything specific addressed, I'd be happy to share.

 

[Andy F]

I'm just looking for an overall impression, and possibly some really good or really bad experiences.

My dealings with them have been pretty good, although the one i go to in mass tends to completely ignore me because I am a college student. The one in my hometown in maine is much better.

 

[Bill Slack]

Totally depends on who you talk to at them. They have the ability to be incredibly helpful (an oppurtunity BB doesn't really give their employees, honestly.)

One guy used to email me with good deals they had, and open box stuff he thought I'd be interested in. He knew I was doign things on a budget since I bought my first system from him when I was 17. He quit awhile back, but I've still had good experiences with a number of other employees there, just not to that degree.

At this point there prices are too high for me. I no longer need their assistance in choosing products.

Because of their speaker return/trade-up policy, it's still a great place to buy speakers though. And you can get very good deals on them if you look hard enough.

 

[DaveMcS]

Their service dept left me with a bad taste...I stopped by their corporate HQ/Service section and they wanted 125.00 to upgrade the firmware in my Toshiba DVD player...and it would take over a week !!

I opted to ship it to Toshi's "official" service shop in Georgia (I think) and had it back in 5 dyas..for like 35.00 plus shipping..

 

[Steve Sz]

I have been a customer there since the early 80's (put a PROTON tape deck in my new 83 ACCORD back then)and have spent thousands there since.

Last July I bought a 32XBR450 and when I saw the 40xbr700 and wanted one they allowed me to trade up in December with full credit on the 32 that I had for 5 months.

You may pay a little more but in the end I think it's worth it.

money isn't everything in my book.

 

[John Giddens]

Funny you should bring this up. Today I went to go pick up my Klipsch RF-3's from Tweeter, had them do some warranty work on them, the mid range speakers went bad, and Klipsch told me to take the speakers to them. When they were loading the speakers into my truck I noticed the finish on the speakers were all torn up, chunks of the laminate were missing. My speakers were not in that condition when I brought them to the store. I told them to take the speakers back inside and I asked to speak to the manager. He was out to lunch so I had to wait 20 minutes. When he got back I explained the situation, he looked at the damage, and then he went to their computer to look at the paper work. After a few minutes his only two solutions was to refund my money or have me pay the difference for a new set of RF-3 2's, a three hundred dollar difference. My RF-3's were discontinued. I told him that his solutions were not satisfactory, I came in with a set of RF-3's undamaged except for the blown drivers, and I expected to leave with RF-3's repaired and undamaged. So now I'm waiting on him to see if he can find another pair of RF-3's or if Klipsch will refinish the speakers. All the while I've been without speakers for three weeks and I'm suffering DVD withdrawal. So there's a horror story for your log books.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I get all my stuff from my local Tweeter, and have no complaints.

My speakers and receiver were purchased at a specialty audio store that focused on B&W equipment. I would recommend people not buy their sound equipment from chain stores.

In the past couple of months, I've bought and returned all sorts of things from Tweeter, and had no problem. My adventures are detailed in the Music section of this messageboard, but here's the quick run-down.

- Bought a Sony SACD 777 5 disc changer.

- Brought the changer back and did A/B testing in the store with a Sony SACD 222ES. Returned the 777 and bought the 222. This also required getting their credit card because of the significant price difference. Money was credited to me from the return very easily.

- Brought the 222 back and did A/B testing in the store with the Pioneer Elite DV-47A. Returned the 222 and bought the Elite. Again, credit transfer was simple.

- In both cases, the warranties were moved around without a hitch.

- When looking at the Elite, I insisted upon hearing it back-to-back with the last player I bought. The salesman spent a lot of time and effort setting that up for me. The first guy that helped me out wasn't able to answer my questions, so he got someone else. We talked a lot about the player, our respective sound systems, etc. He gave me honest opinions about the products (for example, the player I got didn't sound particularly better than the player I already had for SACDs, but he didn't say it did or try to push that player on me, even though he went through so much trouble to set it up. I wasn't looking for a better sound anyway, just something that wasn't worse, so it worked out.)

- The staff did everything they could to answer questions, including looking for copies of the manual, the remote control, and asking around.

- I also baught a universal remote that I later returned. Their return policy is great. "I just don't like it" is enough of a reason to get your money back without hassle.

I would say that Tweeter is great if:

1. You're looking for product that is not too specialised, like DVD players and car stereo and such.

2. You know something about what you're looking for- do a little research on your own.

I've found that if they don't know something, they'll at least admit it. At Best Buy, I've had the salesmen be blatantly wrong, which cost me a lot of money and frustration. I still love Best Buy for software and prices, but Tweeter is much better for hardware.