Guitar Center

While I especially like the service and intelligent helpfulness at Guitar Center, Fresno (and their phone support is so exceptional, that I wrote a praise letter to the regional manager), I resent that the New Corporate Bosses have tied the hands of the managers so that I cannot get the Great deals that I was accustomed to in my 25 years as a GC customer. In effect, GC now has the Sam Ash marketing program. I never shopped at Sam Ash, and now only stop into GC as a force of habit. I find that the Mom 'n Pop stores are willing to treat me like a valued customer just like GC USED to do. Ingram's Music in Merced beats GC prices on Every sticker. more

I just wanted to add my 2 cents here. While I respect and understand the other comments, I am thinking that they may have unreasonable expectations or a little too much venom due to a bad experience. GC is just what it is, a band store with the most products in house. Yes, I have gotten less than stellar service there at times, but I have also worked with some of the most helpful salespeople there too. Personally, I appreciate the Emo guy's honest character more than the polished, blah blah blah - put you to sleep, salesmanship I have found at other stores. I do my own research before shopping and if I still have a question, I sift through employees until I find the one that I feel has the experience and knowledge to answer my question. I have not found pulling a guitar down off the wall, plugging it in and playing it nearly as convenient or even allowed at other stores in Fresno and when I bought my new Strat, I wanted to try out many before choosing the one I wanted. This is also why I don't do the online thing anymore with guitars. One bad experience and I decided I want to try before I buy from now on. That online purchase was through a major online retailer and they were excellent at addressing my concern and replacing the product, but it was inconvenient to say the least. Unless you are buying custom made equipment, all a store is to me is a place with products to buy. That is how I use Guitar Center and it is very good at that. As for our Emo's and such compared to the ones at places like Sunset Blvd or especially Union Square's Guitar Center, they have a much larger pool of underpayed musicians to choose from. Most of the best musicians I know in Fresno have a decent day job or are full time musicians. Pros: Lot's of equipment, easy to try out Cons: Hard to find the quiet times to check stuff out more

I came into the store just needing to but one string for the guitar i inherited from my father. I knew almost nothing about said guitar when walking in. I walk over to accessories to pick up a string and while talking to one employee another walks up and picks up my guitar, looks at the strings and the bottom part he call a "Floyd Rose".\r Then he say wow this thing needs some work done, while I am still kinda new to it i though there was something wrong with it. The second employee was the manager of the department and he goes on saying "Im going to fix this for you, buy you new strings, fix the "Floyde Rose", retension the bridge and lower the string making it easier to play. around half an hour hoes by while hes maticulously repairing my guitar. The first employee take me aside and reveals to me that others stores would charge atleast $75.00 on a worse job if they would do it at all. So I take out my wallet and offer payment for his amazing services, he declines and I try for a tip, more

Lot of improvements have been made since my last review. The selection isn't what it used to be but the attitude of the sales people and their knowledge of products have improved . The new manager, Dan, has turned the store around to the point of four stars. I hate to knock the other stores but, Guitar Center, stands above them all. Just go around to the other instrument retail stores in Fresno and you'll see it for yourself : Guitar Center has better music instructors, better selection in instruments, a more knowledgeable staff than all the other music store in Fresno. \r The Staff that was there a few years back have matured into their jobs by giving more dignity to their customers, improving their products knowledge and making the shopping experience more pleasurable Good to see, the management gave their sales staff time to mature in their jobs because before the staff was horrible , now these guys have improved as to where I had to give them a better rating. I highly recommend Fres more