Good customer service experiences: Because it does happen

[Spudman***]

The folks at SKB, the case company, are very good to their customers. I had a locking knob for my pop-up mixer case disappear and they sent me 3 more free of charge after I called them.

Next time I called it was to inquire about their case hinges. I had several get real saggy and now will no longer hold the covers in place. They sent me a big bag of new style hinges and pop rivets to replace the old ones with...free of charge. That's pretty cool if you ask me.

[oldguy]

Bob Pletka at Eurotubes. Always great to talk tubes, fast service, all around nice guy.
I actually stumbled across TheFret from a link at Bob's site.

[NWBasser]

Bob Pletka at Eurotubes. Always great to talk tubes, fast service, all around nice guy.
I actually stumbled across TheFret from a link at Bob's site.

When I ordered my new tubes and bias probe from Bob, he walked me through the entire installation and setup. Awesome guy!

I'll give a shout to Tom Clement, clementbass.com, for offering great advice when I had a very minor issue that I thought was related to my bass. It was the cord, of course. It's always the cord that causes me problems.

Tom's one the coolest people around to talk to and will really go to bat for his customers. He happens to be one of the best bass builders around, IMO.

[Spudman***]

Bob Pletka at Eurotubes. Always great to talk tubes, fast service, all around nice guy.

Certainly a great guy to talk to. Last time I called we talked about everything but tubes for at least a half an hour. At the end he reassured me that I'd be happy with my tube choices. He didn't forget his 'customer' after all the 'friendly' talk we did.

[syo***]

I know I never waste an opportunity to plug Bare Knuckle Pickups so I'll plug them again. The owner, Tim Mills, is incredibly fast on the email and stands behind his work. He responded to my initial email enquiry within an hour while on holiday in France (now I wouldn't do that for my own dear mother). I had one problem pickup which was promptly made right. If you read reviews on BK pups you will see that almost everyone loves them and mentions Tim by name in their review as having been a great help.

As for online retailers I'm a fan of Soundhouse here in Japan. Always amongst the cheapest prices (for Japan anyway) with Amazonlike efficiency. I think they'll even ship abroad. Site in Japanese but they do offer guidelines for doing things in English I believe.
http://www.soundhouse.co.jp/