Yamaha continues to reinforce us with their EMX660, six channel powered mixer with built in effects. This is a great sounding little mixer that’s easy to use. It includes two 300 watt amps, a 7-band EQ, and two ultra high impedance acoustic guitar inputs.
For the past few years many of you have been watching Sweetwater grow about as rapidly as a company can grow and still function. We thank you all for our success. It has been and will continue to be a great ride. With growth comes growing pains, and we’ve certainly had our share in the past five or six years. There have been times when we simply had more business than we could handle. It comes in spurts and there often isn’t an easy way to predict it so the best one can do is make the best of it. It is a good problem to have, but it’s frustrating when customers get frustrated. Those days are now history. In the last two years we’ve taken dramatic steps to improve our responsiveness to you, our valued customers. We’ve put in a new, high-tech phone system that helps us answer calls much more efficiently, new e-mail systems, new Web site, new shipping systems, and just hired a ton of expert people to help us do everything better and faster. Our service department is completely on top of all repairs (remember, most music retailers don’t even have a service department). Most items arriving for service are looked at the same day we get them (unprecedented in our industry). Our Technical Support staff (most retailers don’t even have real Technical Support) is taking most calls in real time, and returning calls within hours instead of the next day (most manufacturers take at least two days to return calls). Virtually every order ships out to you the same day you place the order. Our whole focus is about doing it NOW and doing it well. Systems are in place all over our facility to double and triple check things and keep us in a position to respond quickly. Most of you report that we are the only major retailer to even respond to your e-mails and inquiries. Feel free to check out lots of other recent comments we’ve received from you in our Comments Section. Everywhere we can think of doing something to help keep you on top and making music we are trying to do it.
We’re pretty sure we are doing it better than anyone else. Not without the occasional glitch (nobody is perfect), but we’re responding to all challenges. So our challenge to you is to “bring it on.” Push us. We will respond. If you have equipment that needs repair we may be able to help, and quickly. Send your ADAT in for a tune up. In most cases we can ship them back to you the same day we receive them. If you tried us a few years ago and were discouraged with our response time we’re asking for another chance. We feel we are ready for just about anything anyone can throw at us now. And more importantly, in the long run you are better off building a relationship with a company that is as committed as we are to service over the long haul. Sure, lots of people sell stuff, but they simply don’t offer the overall value we bring to the table (see paragraph above). Our sales guys are all pros and know their stuff. They are not just order takers. Even when you order something on our Web site we hand it off to one of our Sales Engineers to handle so they can be sure you get properly taken care of it. It’s not the cold mechanized service it looks like from the outside. If you have friends who need a good, reliable source for equipment send them our way. We’ll make you look like a hero to them. We promise.
And finally, if there are any problems that you need to elevate to a “management” level rest assured we will respond quickly and dramatically. Just call or send us an e-mail to any of our major addresses and we WILL respond. You can use sales@sweetwater.com, inSync@sweetwater.com (yes, your inSync editor WILL jump in on your behalf), service@sweetwater.com, or techsupport@sweetwater.com. Don’t worry about sending the right message to the right place. We just want you to communicate with us. We’ll take care of the rest.
