Whipkey’s Music

Let me start by explaining that generally, people with a passion in the arts aren’t good sales people. Please invest in a sales person. Until then, we will not be back. To explain my statement I will share my experience with this store. We came in with my child’s school/​band supply list. The associate took the list and went back and forth getting the supplies, explaining what it was & how much it was until it got to the most expensive item; the mouth piece. She then began to ring it all up and when I saw the price I told her I wasn’t expecting to pay that much money on that one item ($ 90) and after discussing it I told her to put that back and we would come back to get it if need be. She then got an attitude and said «let’s just take back all the expensive items.» And took away a $ 20 item, I laughed at her incompetence and said «okay?» To which she then said «well, what do you want to buy?» It should be obvious that I had only said to take back the one piece, I went ahead and told her to give me the $ 20 item back and bought the rest of the items on the counter and went to Ken Stanton and found the $ 90 item for $ 60 from a guy who seemed like an angel compared to the service at Whipkeys.

Not very good. Staff is not friendly. Prices are high. Many better stores in town.

Wish there was a zero star option!!! This store is dirty, smelled terrible and had no instruments on display. The salesperson was rude and refused to show us any instruments without our daughter’s teacher present. She wouldn’t even tell us what brands they carried. We just got handed a flyer and she sent us on our way. Guess they are not smart enough to realize this type of unprofessionalism costed them the sale of a high end instrument.

We came to Whipkey’s in the beginning of this school year after my daughter decided to join band at school. We originally went in to rent a clarinet, but after speaking to them, decided to purchase a used Buffet clarinet. It was an older instrument, but very good quality. They were very helpful and assured us that they would provide all maintenance during the school year as well as offer a buy-​back policy if she decided not to continue playing. It was more than I wanted to spend at the time considering we had no idea if she’d even enjoy playing, but I figured it was a safe enough investment either way. Sure enough, this month my daughter informed us that she did not want to continue in band after all, and they did buy back at 50% of the purchase price, as promised (a great relief to us as, if we had purchased elsewhere, we would have either had an unused clarinet sitting at home or we would have had to try to sell it ourselves). We also did go in periodically for repairs (e.g., when pads came loose) and they were courteous and made the repairs with a quick turnaround time. With the buy-​back policy, we ended up paying less than we would have by renting. We are very pleased, and would not hesitate to recommend to others.

I would actually give this no stars. Rude and no customer service!