Shure Repair pricing

[pete10uk]

Ok, so here I go on a bit of a rant, I would be interested to know your opinions on wether Shure are being a tad unreasonable.

 

I inherited a faulty SM58 recently, on taking it to bits, found someone had already stripped it down and played, it was in a prittey bad way and certainly not a simple solder job.

Not wanting to be wasteful, I contacted Shure and asked if it was somthing that could be repaired and if this kind of mic was economical to repair. The anwser was yes! So I sent off the mic thinking I'd get a properly repaired mic to add to my stock for a reasonable price. I have just received a quote for the repair at £16 over what I would pay retail and delivered. The really annoying thing is that they have a £25 evaluation fee if I don't have the repair done :-(

I find this completely unsatisfactory and in all honisty quite offensive, they want to charge me £12 for the return postage, bearing in mind I have just sent the mic back to them for less than £3.

 

Is it just me who thinks this is not playing the game?

 

I would be interested to here your thoughts.

 

Cheers

[Dave C]

My thoughts are that it might have been a good idea to get a written quote for the repair before sending it off (as opposed to a 'yes of course we can repair it' on the phone), or to have gotten some pricing for the parts - even the price for a spare cartridge (capsule and mounting) from Shure UK makes the SM58 completely uneconomical to repair. This is a mic that is effectively throw away due to repair pricing.

 

Maybe you should just throw it away at this point?

 

Unfortunately many of our dissapointments in life come from our expectations of an interaction being different than the other party involved - here it seems you expected a mic to be repaired for less than the cost you can get one new and they seem to have thought that the repair should happen if it is less than their recommended retail price (which is not always the price one pays for new items anyway). This difference in expectations is down to a lack of effective communication - possibly both ways.

 

When I last has a 58 that needed repair I called them and asked for a price for a capsule/cartridge. The cost was higher than I thought was worth it - close enough to the price I could get a new one for, so I didn't repair it. However, at least I had the info to hand to make that choice - because I asked for it, and I had a solid number to compare with retail pricing.

 

Good Luck!

[peza2010]

Did they tell you about the evaluation fee before you sent it off to them? I'd forget the repair and try and get out of the evaluation fee.

 

"cheaper than a new one" is not my idea of a proper quote so perhaps, as mentioned above communication from both sides could have been better.

[Pete Alcock]

Pete,

 

I sympathise and actually reckon Shure has missed a trick here. In marketing terms, this has as much to do with a customer's perception of a company, goodwill, and loyalty as much as economics. You can't now get your mic mended and even though you might like the SM58 you're probably thinking perhaps I'll try a Sennheiser E835 or a Rode, or a Beyer or whatever. You get a new mic, you're pleased, and maybe subconsciously you've switched your allegiance away from Shure.

 

Had Shure been reasonable they could have covered the cost of repair, made a small margin and delighted a customer. Let's be honest, it doesn't need a detailed investigation to fix an SM58 - it's either a new capsule, a new grille or a new connector (unless it's been run over by a tank). £6 or £7 is easily enough to cover postage and I'm sure a capsule could be replaced for under £25. The point is that the convenience of having your Shure product repaird at a reasonable cost would make you loyal and depend on them - you would hold them in higher regard. Allen and Heath, Proel, Trantec and others do this and that's why they retain such goodwill from customers.

 

PA

[noiseman]

If you're lucky enought to live in the USA, Shure will do a flat fee repair for $56 <_<

Sadly, I don't think they will deal with European users and refer you to Shure distrubution UK.

 

Not really fair or good practice imho.

[pete10uk]

Just a quick update.

 

I spoke to Shure UK last week.

 

It turns out that they considered the mic to be scrap and the repair price they gave was actually for a new mic. The engineers report read something like, mic delivered in a jiffy bag, grill dented, capsule would not separate from body. End of report.

 

The fact that I stripped the mic down prior to it being returned, to me is proof he didn’t try very hard to look.

 

If the report to me was something along the lines of thank you for returning your faulty mic, unfortunately on this occasion we deem the mic uneconomical to repair, as a valued customer we would like you to still enjoy using our products so would like to offer you a trade in of you faulty mic and offer you a graded replacement for £70.

 

I would have thought never mind but bonus I have a working mic for less than the cost of a new one.

 

But no I got the offer to pay over the going rate for a mic, when this was pointed out I was told to it's not their job to be competitive, now that’s £25 please.

 

After a couple of words they have agreed to return my mic free of charge.

 

Surely it must be better to get a new Shure in my hand at any cost? I 'm now unhappy at the service I have a gap in my inventory and have the money in my pocket for a new mic, it doesn't take a genius to work out that I'm going and spend it else where.

 

I'm not saying I'm never going to buy a Shure again as that is just cutting off my nose, but on this occasion unlucky, you have failed to serve me to my satisfaction so I will try a different brand of microphone, you never know I might like it.

 

Any suggestions on a mic, rider friendly and respected? Same kind of budget would be appreciated.

 

Thought I would share.

[gibbothegreat]

Having worked for a company that does repairs, I will defend the evaluation fee. It's not clear from your post, but typically this is only charged if the repair doesn't proceed; I don't think it's unfair that a company should be recompensed for the time it takes to process this delivery/investigation/return. But in reality its true purpose is precisely to focus customer's minds on whether this repair is really worthwhile, and the outcome if you don't is that you get buried in obscure stuff that really has no hope of ever being reliable again (I speak from experience).

 

If anything, the criticism I'd have is that at £25 it's a bit too cheap, it's more typically around £40. And if you think that's excessive, consider this: would you have sent it in if their fee had been at that level (and you had known about it in advance - clearly they failed there)? I suspect not, and frankly even from your limited description here, it should never have gone to them - a realistic assessment would have seen it scrapped for spares and not wasted either your or their time on it.

 

And re postage: I imagine that the 'less than three pounds' you quoted doesn't include packaging or your time in preparing it, but even so it might seem like quite a difference. But their job is to make money by selling goods and providing services. Carriage is a service they provide: they should be making money out of it. It's what companies exist to do.

 

Having said all that, I do think that Shure played this one badly by not being clearer on first communication, and like you I would be pissed off it I found all that out after I was already unknowingly committed to it!

[paulears]

I'm no surprised. Sorry Pete, but I think you just didn't think this one through. The big companies have always had this kind of problem. How much does a plumber or TV repair person charge you to fix things? Easily the price of a new mic. The local TV repair people have a £50 minimum workshop charge, which covers an hour. Postage wise, To send an SM58 in the post requires special delivery if you use the Royal Mail because the value is over £40. The £25 if you don't have it done seems quite reasonable. I've got a power supply here that I'm reluctantly repairing, even though I tried to suggest they just buy a new one on the net - but he WANTS it fixed. It is going to cost him twice what a new one costs for something fairly old and beaten up.

 

Anything people intensive is expensive nowadays, the production cost of an SM58 falling off the end of the production line is much lower than getting people to fix them.

 

This is all very common stuff, and I don't feel Shure are profiteering in some way. You are just paying the commercial price for a repair. I'd never dream of sending a mic to anyone for repair. Mics up to maybe £200 are probably best written off as the repair cost is just too great a percentage.

[Doug Siddons]

Just a little anecdote to add to this discussion, I recently had the head of an SM57 decapitated by an exuberant drummer , I called Shure repairs department who told me the cost of a new head and grill compared to buying a new one and so I decided it wasn't worth repairing.

[pete10uk]

Having worked for a company that does repairs...

 

 

Completely agree with you. I don't expect anyone to work for free. The evaluation fee was disclosed to me and I fully accept the reason it must be in place. I would have sent it in of it were £60 as I don't like waste and my genuin aim was to have the repair done. What I take exception to is the fact that I called them and specifically said is it economical to have a repair done on a mic at this level.

There anwser was yes. Not sometimes or depends on what's wrong, I knew it was in a bad way or I would have fixed it myself. The anwser was yes, I took this to mean that no mater what was wrong, I could get mine repaired, a reconditioned or a new mic cheaper than it would cost to buy a new one. I deal with many global brands in regards repairs, the fee is never an issue as I trust that the repair will be economical and not 15-20% more than a new unit.

 

The reason it went to Shure was if I have a repair done I want it to work properly and contain genuin parts. My expectations were not to high here. If they said thank you very much, nothing can be done but here's a new mic at the same price you could have purchased it to start off with, I would think haho noting lost, at least I tried not to just throw it away.

 

As it is they have upset me as a customer, portrayed no value in actually using their repair service and no value for loyalty. This from a big company where this particular model is now money for old rope and needs no advertising, keeping their mic in my hands should have been worth more to them.

 

I always have items repaired, this philophy has done me well, my world isn't throw away I have and do have things repaired which cost almost as much as new, I have had things uneconomical to repair in the past and been offered b grade stock as a replacement.

 

The fact that it appears that the tech didn't even bother to check the mic just adds insult.

[abnexo]

Shure - well....I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with Shure UK many times over the past 5 years, due to artists and companies I work for holding endorsements deals with them, or (like a lot people) having a bizarre loyalty with them for the ability to make a microphone that continues to deliver some sort of signal after being dropped in a pint of beer, thrown into the audience, scraped along a fretboard and swung around on the end of a cable for 2 hours (of course I am referring to the SM58).

 

Anyway, I found Shure UK's service and repairs department to be completely detached from reality in terms of the live audio industry. I can recall a time when I visited their home at Waltham Abbey, with a number of UR1s and UR2s that had faults, now ALL and I mean ALL Shure UR1's I have encountered (50% of them being brand new out of the box) are microphonic. If you are sitting next to a UR1 and a receiver, or you have one at work, please go and check for yourself. With nothing plugged into the belt pack, tap the outer casing, whilst soloing the receiver, you will hear a clear audible sound. I have even known it to meter on the receivers' audio meter. Anyway, several of these UR1's and UR2s I took for repair were microphonic, but to the extreme point of clip, almost as if something was arking inside when the units were knocked or placed under pressure...

 

The service engineer, and the receptionist, looked at me with a completely straight arrogance face and said "well that seems to be a minor fault really sir".

 

Maybe sitting behind a computer screen in a purpose built office block in the london suburbs it is a minor fault... but in an arena full of 10,000 people, a microphone producing very loud and unpleasant bangs and crackles part way thru a performance, its a major issue...

 

This was not just "catching them on a bad day" either, I have many many more stories of rude and arrogant views and responses from Shure UK that I now try my upmost to deal with them.

 

I can however, say very nice things about Shure Germany, after my dealings with them, and do not hold it against the entire company.

 

 

 

 

[Rob_Beech]

I guess the fact they don't do over 30feet without losing rf completely is a minor fault too.

[KevinE]

I have to say that a couple of years ago I spoke to Shure UK repairs dept about an SLX24 transmitter that had failed just out of warranty. They said they'd take a look but if they'd found any sign of it being tampered with, beware and be warned, I'd be hit with the full bill and no mistake Sir. The language and grammar they used was condescending, belittling and threatening! I said I'd be happy to pay the bill and they didn't need to be like that! As it happened they decided to do a free repair as it was only a month out of warranty, and it was returned within 2 days...fault report said it had had a new board.

 

I've had SM57 heads from shure many a time (yes, a drummer's favourite target) and yes, they are only just cheaper than a new mic..but you do essentially get a new mic..at least the bits that matter.

 

 

 

So it's hit and miss!