RedDog Music sold me studio monitors that have CLEARLY been used!

HollowAxis

Brand new monitors are coming to me, the ones I have are being collected, and a further discount given on the stands I ordered with them.

Seems like a good solution to the mess up. 

Deadman

Good to hear they're dealing with it properly and promptly. Been musing some stuff on their site myself so just as well.

thomasross20

Good play on their part.

Gagaryn

I've used Reddog loads of times, both in store and online, and always found them to be really good. Prices are normally pretty competitive too!

Fretwired

I've bought a few things from them without an issue ..

Bogwhoppit

I've never bought a Red Dog, I prefer the mottled brown types. Red Setters are always on the go.

thomasross20

Still have to say the Martins in their store could have been better kept - strings were like 100 years old!

HollowAxis

thomasross20 said:

Still have to say the Martins in their store could have been better kept - strings were like 100 years old!

Vintage strings... for marketing purposes probably  

AlexMarten

Hi guys,

I'm the owner of Red Dog Music and feel I should get involved in the discussion. 

Firstly, the issue with HollowAxis's speakers I have to say is really shocking; I would personally be horrified if I spent that much on a shiny new pair of speakers and they weren't shiny and new. We certainly don't ever purposefully send customers non-new equipment (unless we advertise it and discount it as such). However, in this instance we have clearly done so in error and I'll make sure we do everything we can to rectify the situation. We would not have been in business for 6 years if we did this kind of thing on purpose.

Aside from genuinely wanting to make our customers happy, it does not make good business sense to rip people off - the UK musical equipment industry is pretty small and we need to treat all the customers who are kind enough to deal with us as well as we possibly can. Our stated aim is to be the "friendly music store" for a reason - when I started the company I felt strongly (and still feel!) that building genuine friendly relationships with our customers would set us aside from our competitors and mean that people keep coming back. On the whole this has worked and we've had very good feedback on most review sites and forums etc.

Aside from this issue, it's quite sobering to read some of the other negative feedback. However, I think it's fair to say we haven't always been perfect and I would agree that we're not always as well presented as our competitors (though we do try!). Having said that, we're a relatively small independent company (with big overheads) and it hasn't been easy to survive through the world's worst recession. 

In practise this means we haven't always been able to invest in the infrastructure and staff required to keep our shop tip-top at all times. That doesn't really excuse not spending £5 on a set of strings for a Martin guitar (!) but does hopefully explain the quite difficult environment in which we operate.

What we will always do is make sure that we resolve any problems as quickly as possible and to the complete satisfaction of our customers, preferably before they become bigger problems! In this instance, I had a meeting with the shop managers first thing this morning to discuss both the contact we'd had from HollowAxis and this forum post (I get an alert when the company is mentioned online). We then all jumped on working out how to not only resolve the specific problem in question but also listen to the other negative feedback and work out how we could avoid getting such feedback in future! 

TL;DR: Sorry everyone, we'll try harder next time!

Yours sincerely,

Alex Marten

Managing Director, 

Red Dog Music

ps. The strings on the Martin 00015M were changed today :-)

thomasross20

Fair do's, Alex! And good call on changing those strings - the Martin is a stunning guitar costing upward of £1k so deserves "respect". In the past (Sound Control days) I actually bought a lot of stuff from you guys - Martin LXM, an amp etc.

Ciao for now!

Deijavoo

@AlexMarten I do like that proper response.

thisisguitar

I'll second that, welcome @AlexMartin

jd0272

AlexMarten said:

Hi guys,

I'm the owner of Red Dog Music and feel I should get involved in the discussion. 

Firstly, the issue with HollowAxis's speakers I have to say is really shocking; I would personally be horrified if I spent that much on a shiny new pair of speakers and they weren't shiny and new. We certainly don't ever purposefully send customers non-new equipment (unless we advertise it and discount it as such). However, in this instance we have clearly done so in error and I'll make sure we do everything we can to rectify the situation. We would not have been in business for 6 years if we did this kind of thing on purpose.

Aside from genuinely wanting to make our customers happy, it does not make good business sense to rip people off - the UK musical equipment industry is pretty small and we need to treat all the customers who are kind enough to deal with us as well as we possibly can. Our stated aim is to be the "friendly music store" for a reason - when I started the company I felt strongly (and still feel!) that building genuine friendly relationships with our customers would set us aside from our competitors and mean that people keep coming back. On the whole this has worked and we've had very good feedback on most review sites and forums etc.

Aside from this issue, it's quite sobering to read some of the other negative feedback. However, I think it's fair to say we haven't always been perfect and I would agree that we're not always as well presented as our competitors (though we do try!). Having said that, we're a relatively small independent company (with big overheads) and it hasn't been easy to survive through the world's worst recession. 

In practise this means we haven't always been able to invest in the infrastructure and staff required to keep our shop tip-top at all times. That doesn't really excuse not spending £5 on a set of strings for a Martin guitar (!) but does hopefully explain the quite difficult environment in which we operate.

What we will always do is make sure that we resolve any problems as quickly as possible and to the complete satisfaction of our customers, preferably before they become bigger problems! In this instance, I had a meeting with the shop managers first thing this morning to discuss both the contact we'd had from HollowAxis and this forum post (I get an alert when the company is mentioned online). We then all jumped on working out how to not only resolve the specific problem in question but also listen to the other negative feedback and work out how we could avoid getting such feedback in future! 

TL;DR: Sorry everyone, we'll try harder next time!

Yours sincerely,

Alex Marten

Managing Director, 

Red Dog Music

ps. The strings on the Martin 00015M were changed today :-)

Good man.  

capo4th

Good work @AlexMarten

Antique_Guitars

Best response from a shop/owner that I have read to date. Well done @AlexMarten for your honesty and transparency in dealing with this situation.

thomasross20

Alex I can always pm you if you want my take on things (having lived in Edinburgh forever and played guitar for 15 years)... in any case, nice one! Website's looking good and decent PRS and Fenders you have in - apologies for being a bit harsh before!

Richardj

Welcome @AlexMarten, nice to have you here and thanks for the candid response.

littlegreenman

Always good to have a nice resolution, and nice to know that @theFB is noticed by retailers.

Welcome to the madhouse @AlexMarten...

boogieman

Antique_Guitars;360049" said:

Best response from a shop/owner that I have read to date. Well done @AlexMarten for your honesty and transparency in dealing with this situation.

This ^. Well done that man @AlexMarten.

johnnyurq

Glad to hear a good resolution to this, faith reinstated.

Kudos to @AlexMarten for rocking up and engaging as well as sorting it out for the OP.

If only all who have a blip were like this.