Unhappy NGD: Custom order from EMG -- Revelation set with S2 (Sorted out)

[Spaced Out Ace]

I ordered a custom set from EMG with the Revelation bridge/neck set in black, with nickel pole pieces, and an S2 single coil for the middle position. Plus it comes with all the wiring (pickup wires are Strat length rather than the much longer Gibson length they usually come with), controls, and switch.

Can't wait to try them out.

 

[DrewJD82]

I didn’t even know you could order a custom set from them!

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

I didn’t even know you could order a custom set from them!

Yep!

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Also, I'm sure some are wondering why a custom set. How much would the Rev set plus an S2 cost separately? I don't believe they have the option on the site to get it with alternate screw pole piece colors. Also, I'd also still have to buy Strat appropriate pickup wires lengthwise. That was about $315. I paid $269.


In addition there is the option to buy white and ivory of pickups that aren't listed on the site. EMG knows about this issue, but has yet to change it. Either way, you might save money going for a "custom" set. Plus Alison is helpful and great to work with

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Copied from TheOtherPlace. Not happy with my order, and long story short, I'll be thinking over this weekend whether or not I'm going to demand a refund (100%) or the order made right when I email Alison this coming week, as she was out of office.

Anyways:

So, I ordered a custom set of Revelation (bridge/neck humbuckers) plus a passive S2 single coil foe the middle position on a Stratocaster. The only specifications I really made were that the cables for the pickups need to be the appropriate, short length for a Stratocaster. In addition, the screw pole pieces would be the same color as the pole pieces as the S2. Alison said this would be fine so I paid the invoice and waited two weeks.

I emailed on the 21st, as the tracking information had not been sent, and the Sales department sent me the information. No issue there.

However, I received the package on Friday, and no specification I made was actually adhered to. This isn't a complex, tricky order. F spaced set, S2, screw pole pieces match color wise, pickup cables that are appropriate for a Stratocaster.

Instead, I got a standard spaced Revelation set with black pole pieces, cable pole pieces that are far too long for a Stratocaster, and a B stock S2 (I know because I've ordered extensively from their B stock store on Reverb). When I emailed the sales department, they basically tried to get me to just accept it, then got me to just accept the bare minimum from them to move forward.

I have 25 EMGs in guitars alone, with several more not in guitars for when I want to experiment with setups. These will likely be the last EMGs I buy.

I'll probably be ordering DiMarzio's with quick connects going forward, for future guitars, if not to replace all of my EMGs in guitars at present. This is insulting, and their customer support efforts could be better. At the very least, I will be letting Alison know, who was out of office until Monday, I believe.

I know this'll get lost in the rest of the EMG discussion here, but whatever. I went from being as enthusiastic or more about EMGs as the OP to being very upset by their lack of attention to detail on a very minor set of requirements. I specifically requested they either correct the order as specified with Alison, or give 100% refund. What I got was an offer to get some screw pole pieces (I'll get back to this in a moment) and a couple shorter pickup cables.

The screw pole pieces would put me at risk for ruining a pickup on a new set, which I likely would not get them to replace since they want to do the bare minimum as is. I have a pickup (H2A) that I ****ed up after asking the same guy at EMG if a particular screw pole piece would work as a replacement for the black ones. On the first pickup of four I tried, one of the pole pieces got stuck part way and just spins. Won't go back in, won't come out, so that pickup now is a paper weight.

So essentially, the only thing they were willing to do to set me straight was to give two pickup cables. I'm going to think it over this weekend, and determine if I will be demanding a full refund after returning everything when I email Alison. If I do return it, I will not accept a restocking fee for opening anything, given that I had to open it to realize that they didn't bother to give me what I had specified.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Copied from TheOtherPlace. Not happy with my order, and long story short, I'll be thinking over this weekend whether or not I'm going to demand a refund (100%) or the order made right when I email Alison this coming week, as she was out of office.

Anyways:

So, I ordered a custom set of Revelation (bridge/neck humbuckers) plus a passive S2 single coil foe the middle position on a Stratocaster. The only specifications I really made were that the cables for the pickups need to be the appropriate, short length for a Stratocaster. In addition, the screw pole pieces would be the same color as the pole pieces as the S2. Alison said this would be fine so I paid the invoice and waited two weeks.

I emailed on the 21st, as the tracking information had not been sent, and the Sales department sent me the information. No issue there.

However, I received the package on Friday, and no specification I made was actually adhered to. This isn't a complex, tricky order. F spaced set, S2, screw pole pieces match color wise, pickup cables that are appropriate for a Stratocaster.

Instead, I got a standard spaced Revelation set with black pole pieces, cable pole pieces that are far too long for a Stratocaster, and a B stock S2 (I know because I've ordered extensively from their B stock store on Reverb). When I emailed the sales department, they basically tried to get me to just accept it, then got me to just accept the bare minimum from them to move forward.

I have 25 EMGs in guitars alone, with several more not in guitars for when I want to experiment with setups. These will likely be the last EMGs I buy.

I'll probably be ordering DiMarzio's with quick connects going forward, for future guitars, if not to replace all of my EMGs in guitars at present. This is insulting, and their customer support efforts could be better. At the very least, I will be letting Alison know, who was out of office until Monday, I believe.

I know this'll get lost in the rest of the EMG discussion here, but whatever. I went from being as enthusiastic or more about EMGs as the OP to being very upset by their lack of attention to detail on a very minor set of requirements. I specifically requested they either correct the order as specified with Alison, or give 100% refund. What I got was an offer to get some screw pole pieces (I'll get back to this in a moment) and a couple shorter pickup cables.

The screw pole pieces would put me at risk for ruining a pickup on a new set, which I likely would not get them to replace since they want to do the bare minimum as is. I have a pickup (H2A) that I ****ed up after asking the same guy at EMG if a particular screw pole piece would work as a replacement for the black ones. On the first pickup of four I tried, one of the pole pieces got stuck part way and just spins. Won't go back in, won't come out, so that pickup now is a paper weight.

So essentially, the only thing they were willing to do to set me straight was to give two pickup cables. I'm going to think it over this weekend, and determine if I will be demanding a full refund after returning everything when I email Alison. If I do return it, I will not accept a restocking fee for opening anything, given that I had to open it to realize that they didn't bother to give me what I had specified.

Should be a fairly simple fix if you have your original invoice with stated options, etc. If they didn't meet that agreement then send it back. They should send the correct replacements or you should get a full refund and the shipping fee covered.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Should be a fairly simple fix if you have your original invoice with stated options, etc. If they didn't meet that agreement then send it back. They should send the correct replacements or you should get a full refund and the shipping fee covered.

Considering the sales guy is trying to get me to basically agree to just it as is, then agreed to send out two additional pickup cables, I'm not thinking they'll cover the shipping fees back to them. I've bought probably close to 35 or so of their pickups, as well as EXG and SPC controls for all of my guitars. I get it, their OEM market share at this point sucks compared to 10 years ago, they are dealing with general inflation and California being what it is (extremely expensive), so they likely want to cut costs, but this is a crappy experience for someone who has used their stuff exclusively for ten years or so.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Considering the sales guy is trying to get me to basically agree to just it as is, then agreed to send out two additional pickup cables, I'm not thinking they'll cover the shipping fees back to them. I've bought probably close to 35 or so of their pickups, as well as EXG and SPC controls for all of my guitars. I get it, their OEM market share at this point sucks compared to 10 years ago, they are dealing with general inflation and California being what it is (extremely expensive), so they likely want to cut costs, but this is a crappy experience for someone who has used their stuff exclusively for ten years or so.

It's a shame you had a bad experience but you should have insisted on getting the right order and sent it back. It's not what you ordered, right? The cable thing is not a huge deal, but the pickup F spacing, pole piece coloring is. It should be an easy fix for them. Talk to someone else there, it's not that big of an issue to resolve.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

It's a shame you had a bad experience but you should have insisted on getting the right order and sent it back. It's not what you ordered, right? The cable thing is not a huge deal, but the pickup F spacing, pole piece coloring is. It should be an easy fix for them. Talk to someone else there, it's not that big of an issue to resolve.

I'm likely going to insist upon that when I talk to Alison. That or I can be petty and replace all 25 EMGs I have installed currently with DiMarzios with quick connects.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I'm likely going to insist upon that when I talk to Alison. That or I can be petty and replace all 25 EMGs I have installed currently with DiMarzios with quick connects.

I'd say your track record is pretty good if you have 25 of 26 products of their's you're happy with. I have/had pickups from both companies, at least 15 from EMG and at least 25 from Dimarzio. Both solid companies, great products. I have a hard time believing EMG can't resolve this. If they can't make them to your specs then they should say so and give you a refund.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

I'd say your track record is pretty good if you have 25 of 26 products of their's you're happy with. I have/had pickups from both companies, at least 15 from EMG and at least 25 from Dimarzio. Both solid companies, great products. I have a hard time believing EMG can't resolve this. If they can't make them to your specs then they should say so and give you a refund.

I could've bought a used set on Reverb for a bill had I not hesitated with the specs I wanted, bought the same B stock S2 from their reverb store for 45 bucks, and spent 40 or so to buy the pickup cables at the right length. That is what I should've done and I wish I hadn't hesitated on buying that set on Reverb. It would've been a MUCH better experience than expecting them to actually get an order right. Oh well; coulda woulda shoulda, I guess.

On a side note, I'm curious how EMG feels about Prashant's new signature pickup and Kirk saying he prefers PAFs.

 

[FuzzyAce]

 

[BahamaDada]

That was about $315. I paid $269.

This is quite a stellar price. Some Seymour Duncans alone cost 150+ for 1 humbucker without wiring/pots PLUS all the hassle with soldering (or the cost of someone professional to do it).

Nice. Did not even know they do this kind of stuff.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

This is quite a stellar price. Some Seymour Duncans alone cost 150+ for 1 humbucker without wiring/pots PLUS all the hassle with soldering (or the cost of someone professional to do it).

Nice. Did not even know they do this kind of stuff.

Hope your order goes better than mine did. Their sales department guy doesn't seem to want to do more than the bare minimum for customers, though, so beware if something isn't as it was specified. You also may or may not get B stock stuff.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Alison should be back in office today, so I've emailed her to provide an update regarding the issues with the order. I'm not really expecting much will be resolved, but whatever.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

The email response I received is promising, more so than the one with sales department, but she's gotta get back with me when she's had a chance to catch up.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

So to avoid having to ship the Revelations back and forth (I'd rather not spend $17+ bucks twice for shipping), or risk borking one of them on my end (I have a screwed up H2A I tried swapping screws on), I'm going to call it good after I get the shorter pickup wires.

To clear things up: Apparently they weren't supposed to go out yet until Alison could swap the screws, and the S2 is not from the B stock pile, but rather they did not have the packaging for it. They went out rather than go on Alison's desk while she was out of office. Now that I am privy to the background a bit more, I'm fine with moving forward.

 

[State of Epicicity]

You shouldn't have to pay for any more shipping at all for their screw up; that's bad customer service. They should be sending you a shipping label to fix the problem or giving you a partial refund just for the inconvenience and initial bad customer service.

So to recap:

No shipping notification

No tracking number until you ask

Wrong specs on order, meaning no one even bothered to QC it before packing

Attitude with no effort to make it right when you receive it

No offer to pay for return shipping for their mistake

No offer to discount the order for your trouble

No offer to make it right in any way

This is a great warning to anyone who wants to deal with them with their current staff. I've actually ordered from their website once before years ago, I talked to people there over the phone at that time, and everything was great all the way around. But the test for a company is when something goes wrong. Mistakes happen, but you as a company always need to make it right with the customer if you screw. A genuine apology and a real effort correct an error with minimal effort on the part of the customer goes a long way. This just sounds like incompetent surly kids with no accountability.

I love the innovation behind EMG, but I cannot stand bad customer service. For a company that goes out of their way to make every part of their design more advanced than other companies, they should have customer service to match.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

You shouldn't have to pay for any more shipping at all for their screw up; that's bad customer service. They should be sending you a shipping label to fix the problem or giving you a partial refund just for the inconvenience and initial bad customer service.

So to recap:

No shipping notification

No tracking number until you ask

Wrong specs on order, meaning no one even bothered to QC it before packing

Attitude with no effort to make it right when you receive it

No offer to pay for return shipping for their mistake

No offer to discount the order for your trouble

No offer to make it right in any way

This is a great warning to anyone who wants to deal with them with their current staff. I've actually ordered from their website once before years ago, I talked to people there over the phone at that time, and everything was great all the way around. But the test for a company is when something goes wrong. Mistakes happen, but you as a company always need to make it right with the customer if you screw. A genuine apology and a real effort correct an error with minimal effort on the part of the customer goes a long way. This just sounds like incompetent surly kids with no accountability.

I love the innovation behind EMG, but I cannot stand bad customer service. For a company that goes out of their way to make every part of their design more advanced than other companies, they should have customer service to match.

I went back through my emails, and missed that Alison had offered to send a shipping label when I got ahold of her yesterday. I apparently skimmed over that part. It was supposed to go to Alison before it went out, but got shipped while she was out of office. So Alison is fine to deal with, but the sales department person I dealt with could've done better. At the very least, they could've said, "please get ahold of Alison when she returns as she can get it addressed fully for you."

 

[State of Epicicity]

I went back through my emails, and missed that Alison had offered to send a shipping label when I got ahold of her yesterday. I apparently skimmed over that part. It was supposed to go to Alison before it went out, but got shipped while she was out of office. So Alison is fine to deal with, but the sales department person I dealt with could've done better. At the very least, they could've said, "please get ahold of Alison when she returns as she can get it addressed fully for you."

That makes it a ton better.