I got my Strictly 7 Boden and....

[DarkWolfXV]

What actually bothers me, is that you are saying "OK, no biggie"
Why the .... are you conforming to mediocrity? You paid for that guitar, it better not be less than perfect, especially if its a custom.

 

[SamSam]

I'm really sorry about your build man, I hope you can sort something out there.

To the Washburn doubter, dude Washburn have put out more epic guitars than Ola will ever make himself, they have a vast amount of experience and I doubt they will mess these up. Ola won't risk another venture like this unless he's certain it will work. Just look at the Parkers Washburn are making.

Hell, I'd say you will definitely get a great instrument from their custom shop, quite posibly better Strandberg than you will from Ola!

And to the guys sat around the 300 mark on the list, I'm speccing out mine with Ola now

 

[Basti]

S7 posted something on facebook addressing this case in particular and apologising if I'm not mistaken, I just wondering if they have actually got back to you/got round to sorting things out?

 

[Lorcan Ward]

Curran here guys, I spoke with that guy for about 35-45 minutes on the phone and gave him two options for his complaint.
The option he wanted to pursue BEFORE he posted this, was that we build him a new body, send him pix, and let him chose from about 12 different bodies. I know everyone hates that knot/wormhole in the wood, and I get it, you all hate the knot/wormhole in the wood. This guy tells me it is the greatest guitar he has ever played and he loves it but for this cosmetic issue. I must be weird, but I DIG how that looks, I love those kinds of things, Jim and I must be bored with plain grain wood or something. We are going to build this guy a new body if he still wants one. So you can all hate Jim, and me, and everything that gets built by S7 if you want, BUT I know that we work really hard to build the best guitars we can. We apologize that you ALL think this is unacceptable and lame, and going forward we have some ideas to try and not have this happen for people that buy S7 Guitars. I also know there is an endless issue with people not getting responses from Jim through emails when they want. It is the same old discussion, if Jim answers every email he gets right away, he would literally spend 16 hours a day on the computer and NOTHING else. With only two other guys working in the shop full time and one on site painter, and one new trainee, this would cut down our production by more than 1/3 or more. Jim tries his hardest to get to these emails as often as he can, and I have been trying through the facebook to help as well. Things are always improving and we are all working our hardest on every level for this company. I hope this address' the concerns and lets you all know that Jim and S7 have not left this guy out in the cold over the cosmetic flaw of his guitar.

Taken from their facebook page.

 

[Datura]

Has a passive aggressive feel to it.

 

[zuzek]

I know everyone hates that knot/wormhole in the wood, and I get it, you all hate the knot/wormhole in the wood ... I must be weird, but I DIG how that looks, I love those kinds of things, Jim and I must be bored with plain grain wood or something.

Fool. What part of 'customer is king' do you not understand when running a professional custom build business? If your paying customer wants a mahogany body soaked in buffalo mucus, it should be in your best interest to try and achieve that. You literally say that you already know everyone but yourself hates knots or wormholes in wood. Then why are you using bodies for US$3000 custom builds that have this?! Your personal opinion and taste is of zero value and should never be superimposed on a customer. There is zero moral ground for any defense here. Own up to the fact that you screwed up.

I also know there is an endless issue with people not getting responses from Jim through emails when they want. It is the same old discussion, if Jim answers every email he gets right away, he would literally spend 16 hours a day on the computer and NOTHING else.

'Right away?' Customers wait for several weeks, if not for all eternity, until a reply can be found in their inbox. When Mayones, where I've bought my guitar, is able to answer any and all queries within 24 hours, you should be able to do the same, if not beat it. They are your direct competition for crying out loud. Want to know a secret about doing good customs business? If you get this one right, you've won half the battle... Can't guess it? Service.

I don't buy their defensiveness and excuses. If you realize that you are unable to attend to customer queries, you simply hire an extra person to do it. There is no excuse about extra financial cost. The improvement in reputation and service quality will pay itself back multiple times over...

...provided you get the quality of your product right though.

 

[technomancer]

Got to love the passive-aggressive attitude, especially since they're only correcting the issue because this went public.

Not trying to start shit or any flame wars or that Im even saying I wont touch anything thats not a "real" strandberg. Ill just wait until a bunch of these new bodens start coming out and getting reviewed. As big as a company washburn is, it is still possible for them to put a bad product out. Also Ive never seen any washburns in person before that weren't cheap off shore made guitars. Maybe its because Im too young or for whatever other reason but I just dont have that faith in them you have

Washburn's cheap imports are a far cry from their USA stuff, the USA shop builds amazing instruments. These new Bodens should be fantastic guitars.

 

[Rev2010]

Got to love the passive-aggressive attitude, especially since they're only correcting the issue because this went public.

Yeah that response was worse than keeping silent. They still don't get how to handle customer service. You never mention the customer complaining, you simply apologize and offer to fix it. That whole bit about Jim would be on the computer for 16 hours a day answering emails is laughable. S7 is nowhere near as popular as other custom shops, there's no way he gets such an incredibly high flood of emails as to take that much time. And even if he did have a lot of emails I can't see why he'd have to interrupt his woodshop work, answer them after hours!

I feel bad for them in a sense, I'd spoken with Jim in the past and he was a very nice guy, and in the time they've been around he's improved substantially from his earlier work. All that doesn't matter though if they don't have the savvy for proper customer service.


Rev.

 

[engage757]

Where is that on their Facebook page? I am not seeing it at all.

 

[Datura]

Maybe he's so out of touch with computers it takes him 16 hours to find his emails?

 

[TVasquez96]

LEMON GRAB UNACCEPTABLE - YouTube

 

[Black Mamba]

I know everyone hates that knot/wormhole in the wood, and I get it, you all hate the knot/wormhole in the wood. I must be weird, but I DIG how that looks, I love those kinds of things, Jim and I must be bored with plain grain wood or something.

Curran that's great. When YOU'RE spending 3 grand on a custom guitar, by all means request as many wormholes as YOU like, since YOU love it so much. The thing YOU'RE forgetting is that the recipient of the guitar did not request wormholes.

 

[MF_Kitten]

When Mayones, where I've bought my guitar, is able to answer any and all queries within 24 hours, you should be able to do the same, if not beat it. They are your direct competition for crying out loud. Want to know a secret about doing good customs business? If you get this one right, you've won half the battle... Can't guess it? Service.

Hell, I've had emails answered by Schecter... F'ING SCHECTER! They could simply not have any form of customer service and still do fine, yet I got an email back about it!

All builders I have emailed, even when it wasn't to ask about pricing or whatever, have replied to me quickly.

 

[JP7]

I can't believe that they would charge that and somehow justify it to themselves. They shouldn't be able to sell that guitar. The attention to detail is astonishingly low the neck being partly flamed? Nigh high E? Endurneck not perfect? WORMHOLES? Im sorry to hear this happened to you man. I saw your post on Guitar Porn on facebook I like that your getting the word out there so more people don't get there money taken for a bad product

 

[cardinal]

Talk about digging a deeper hole. Appropriate response would simply have been a sentence to the effect of "we're aware that customer is dissatisfied and are working to make it right." Not passive aggressive attempt to justify an obvious issue.

 

[AscendingMatt]

definitely passive agressive. They dont care they just want money imo

 

[jsl2h90]

WTF so glad I waited for the washberg run. That sucks man I would be pissed and expect nothing less than perfectiom at that price. S7 will get none of my money. For what its worth, HNGD man.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I must be weird, but I DIG how that looks

It's not your guitar, you ....waffle.

 

[Erockomania]

16 hours? BS. That means if he waits ONE day, then he has 32 hours of emails to answer. I get 200+ emails daily and I don't spend more than a couple hours tops. If he has 1000+ emails per day, he NEEDS TO HIRE SOMEBODY to help him in order to GIVE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I'm sorry, if you are putting out several $3000 guitars per week and plan on keeping your business, having some employees to take care of the customer service aspect is worth far more than the salary of the person you will hire. Customer service is king. It's that simple. A company putting out mediocre guitars can get away with a higher price tag if they have GREAT customer service. Alternatively, a company that builds great guitars will not stick around if their customer service is shit even if the price is reasonable for what you get. When you bring these questionable business practices into the equation, you have a company that will fail. Bad customer service and poor QC will spell disaster for ANY company. There have been too many of these stories about S7G to think they stand a chance unless they turn this crap around quickly.

If they don't see this, they don't deserve to be in business because they simply don't understand the basics.

 

[leonardo7]

Wow thanks for the support and concern guys! People need to know which companies to stay away from.

Its interesting how many people have PM'd me on here or Facebook telling me about their issues that they have not came out publicly with. I am definitely not even close to being the only one. By the way, the Nuno Bettencourt Washburn I played at NAMM '12 was actually in the top two nicest playing 7 strings at NAMM '12 from what I remember. I was totally impressed with it. Anyone who is skeptical of the Washburn CS is just being paranoid and has no clue. They do good work, dont trip.

I could easily respond to everyone but just randomly chose a few.

By the way, there seems to be another issue with your guitar. The neck was supposed to be Birdseye Maple, not regular maple with some flame. Both the neck and the fretboard must be birdseye maple.

Birsdeye or flame, all I know is that I got one of the three pieces with absolutely no figuring at all

That looks like more than just a worm hole to me. It looks like a full-blown knot (note how the rest of the grain flows around it).

Black Limba often has a lot of worm holes in it, especially the pieces with the black and red streaks... that's where a lot of the colour in limba comes from. I always do my best to avoid worm holes (although they don't bother me personally), but in Black Limba, there's often nothing you can do if the customer wants really crazy streaking.

That said, i would never build (or ship) a guitar with worm holes without addressing the issue with the customer first.

Thats all it takes, discuss it with the customer beforehand, decide on whether your going to use it or not and there shouldn't be any issues. I think these guys bought the cheapest priced swamp ash they could find. It was probably priced well because it was marked down due to to knots and holes.

That's the part that pisses me off. What a ....ing spin job.

You nailed it. That might be the most annoying part of it all, right up there with the issues having existed to begin with. He was talking to me like Im a n00b. I had to listen to him for 15 minutes trying to convince me that I should prefer the guitar the way it is, because after all, thats how they wanted it.

I give this company a year or two, tops

The guys at S7G appear to be broke given all of the evidence. I dont see them surviving in the guitar making world for too long. I suppose I could send the guitar back and they would have to refund me but he's saying it will take 3 months for a refund! 3 months!? Ive paid nearly 3k here, half of which I paid over 6 months ago, and now Im going to wait 3 more months with no guitar and no cash? And with a company that could file for bankruptcy in that timeframe?

Hey,
you were quicker than me - I was just about to post the statement from above here as well.

It is devastating to watch some of these guitars surfacing and hearing the stories.

We are doing everything in our power to help set things right.

Thanks for everyone's support!

/Ola Strandberg

I support you Ola! Your designs and guitars are fantastic to say the least! You gave Strictly 7 a shot, they had the world ahead of them, and they failed.

Curran here guys, I spoke with that guy for about 35-45 minutes on the phone and gave him two options for his complaint.
The option he wanted to pursue BEFORE he posted this, was that we build him a new body, send him pix, and let him chose from about 12 different bodies. I know everyone hates that knot/wormhole in the wood, and I get it, you all hate the knot/wormhole in the wood. This guy tells me it is the greatest guitar he has ever played and he loves it but for this cosmetic issue. I must be weird, but I DIG how that looks, I love those kinds of things, Jim and I must be bored with plain grain wood or something. We are going to build this guy a new body if he still wants one. So you can all hate Jim, and me, and everything that gets built by S7 if you want, BUT I know that we work really hard to build the best guitars we can. We apologize that you ALL think this is unacceptable and lame, and going forward we have some ideas to try and not have this happen for people that buy S7 Guitars. I also know there is an endless issue with people not getting responses from Jim through emails when they want. It is the same old discussion, if Jim answers every email he gets right away, he would literally spend 16 hours a day on the computer and NOTHING else. With only two other guys working in the shop full time and one on site painter, and one new trainee, this would cut down our production by more than 1/3 or more. Jim tries his hardest to get to these emails as often as he can, and I have been trying through the facebook to help as well. Things are always improving and we are all working our hardest on every level for this company. I hope this address' the concerns and lets you all know that Jim and S7 have not left this guy out in the cold over the cosmetic flaw of his guitar.

I thank him for going public and stating that it will be resolved. That is appreciated. Im not going to pick apart the lies, or misinterpretations of this statement as I feel I have done that enough.

I dont care about how many emails he gets and about how much time is wasted on emails etc. I care about my email and I care about my situation. Lets not forget why we even have a situation to begin with. By the way, Jim sure does have the time to email us when he needs money.

Finally, its not about getting the issue resolved, its about asking me to pay in full several months in advance, then asking again saying its ready to ship in a few days, then lying and saying it has a cracked top right after I do pay in full, then sending me a B stock and in the condition it was in, then being ignored, then being treated like an idiot. If he wants to build me a new body then I will believe it when I see it. If I get a new body built then yes I will be happy with the guitar, but it wont change the BS I had to go through to get it. I dont think people want to deal with a company that has these risks.