Golf Industry's Customer Service

[Evil R1]

When shopping around and talking about clubs that we are interested in or are looking to buy, we normally research the performance aspects of the club to death but most people I know never take the company behind the clubs into consideration.

 

I personally have had nothing but unbelievable customer service from Callaway Golf. Every time I contact them they bend over backwards to do whatever they can to make the customer happy. This has ranged from “Oops, I purchased X-Tours with TTDG S300 shafts and it doesn’t work for me” and they replaced them with TTDG SL R300’s for free to legitimate claims like my drivers shaft seems to be coming out of the club head and they overnight a new club to me.

 

It’s customer service like this that makes me go back to Callaway Products over and over again and is normally the tiebreaker when trying to decide on which products to buy that I like equally. An example of this is the fact that I just picked up a new set of irons b/c my X-Tours were just too harsh with the feedback in the cold we are having in the northeast. After trying a bunch of clubs I was undecided between the Callaway Fusions and the Cleveland CG4’s. I ended up getting the Fusions based on the fact that if I have a problem down the road, I know Callaway will do whatever to help me.

 

I believe I have sung these praises before, but I had a silly issue with the Fusions and one of the Iron’s that they resolved with typical Callaway Style making me a happy Golfer.

 

The only other customer service that I had dealt with was Nike and it was less than stellar. They didn’t want to deal directly with me and wanted me to go thru an authorized retailer, but since I didn’t purchase the product from him, he was less than diligent with resolving the issue. That was the last purchase I made from Nike and also the last time I went into that store.

 

I was wondering what other people have experienced with Customer Service in the Golf Industry?

[dansrixon]

I like Srixon's Customer Service (cool)

[pistolpete]

Seeing that I am in the retail sector, we unfortunately are the go betweens for the companies. Ping and Callaway have definitely been the two best to deal with. Ping called this past season explaining they had a quality control issue with there tfc iron shafts. A customer of ours purchased a set of I5's with these in them 1 month prior and was shocked but very happy to learn that there was a brand new set waiting for him at our store. Even though he had no problems with his clubs he appreciated Ping being proactive instead of reactive, and so did we!!

[Evil R1]

Pistolpete that's great to hear. When I was looking into the Fusion/CG4's the Ping Rapture Iron was on the list too, but they didn't make it to the short list due to my lack of expirience with their customer server vs. the price. It's great to hear that Ping is another company that stands behind their products and works to make a happy customer.

 

Thanks,

[samm980]

The golf industry is no different than most, you will always hear good and bad stories. Though Callaway has always been fantastic with me I have heard of people having bad expierience with them.

[MCDavis]

Maybe I'm different, but if I bought a set of clubs from manuf. X and I had to return a driver and an iron due to poor construction (silly or otherwise), I would probably find another manuf. to buy from the next time.

 

You figure 14 clubs in a bag with all 14 coming from 1 manufacturer (A rarity these days). 2 clubs with quality issues is 14%...a little high to me. Once you figure that possibly 10 clubs are 1 manufacturer (3-P, couple of woods for example), you're pushing 20%.

 

I know the numbers are skewed from the manufacturer's view, but from the view of how many clubs the customer owns they're not.

 

For what we pay for clubs new, they should be right the first time.

 

Not slamming anyone here, just my point of view. Please take no offense.

 

I am glad to hear that Callaway's customer service is that good. I knew that Ping's was. And, it does make me think higher of Callaway that you've been treated that way.

[vokey design]

I work in a pro-shop so I am always on the phone to various manufacturers. In our shop we carry wilson, ping, titleist/cobra, taylormade, callaway and yes.

 

Ping and Callaway have awesome customer service.

Wilson has very good customer service

Acushnet (titleist/cobra/cameron/footjoy/pinnicle) have good service

Yes service was ok

TM sucked - wont be in our line next season

Cleveland was absolutely terrible

[cornbred19]

been fortunate when my tm driver snapped at the hosel...i knew i could send it back but didn't know where/how...so on my way back home from the round where i broke my driver, i stopped at the local retailer to get info and they just took care of it for me at no cost to me, even giving me a demo until the new driver came in and i didn't even buy the driver from there...needless to say, they earned my business...

[idrive400yards]

I too have nothing but praise for Callaway, bought the X-18's with the stock shafts(uniflex), couldn't hit them if my life depended on it, called up Callaway, went to an authorized Callaway fitting center, and was properly fitted, they changed the shafts to DGSLX-100, went .5in over standard and bent 3* upright, with no charge to me. I have only owned Callaway,(until I went with Cobra Drivers) and if I ever broke a shaft or finish coming off the heads, and even losing a head off a shaft(head went into lake) they with no problem sent replacement clubs to me overnight even without sending them my broken/damaged clubs first.

[Tomba29]

I'm a big fan of TM UK.

 

I just changed from Ping i5s to R7TPs. I wanted Rifle 5.5 soft stepped and multi compound cord grips. TM never asked for a single penny over the asking price and delivered in 8 days. Ping on the other hand wanted over £100 UK for the standard Rifles and cord grips and a 6-8 week wait.

 

Ping also messed up with the lie angle and while they were going back I asked about making the swing weight heavier than the D0. They charged me £55 and that was the cost price.

 

On my recent purchase of the R7TP's. TM sent them out with the round instead of ribbed grips. No big deal, one phone call and it was sorted.

 

However, when I took the round grips off I noticed the standard Rifles werent soft stepped. A few phone calls later and TM UK stepped in and upgraded the shafts to Project X 5.5 (properly soft stepped).

 

In total thats about a £200UK up charge and TM UK never asked for a penny, unlike Ping (should be ching-ching).

[spro]

My experience with Callaway is unmatched! Everything from sales, to customer service, to accounting issues couldn't be handled in a more efficient and helpful way. They are always thinking about the customer and the retailer.

 

The other side of the spectrum is Titleist. They are by far the worst -- even to their staff professionals. We've drastically reduced the amount of Titliest we carry for this reason.

[sergizmo]

PING has always been good to me. I have had Ping irons dating back to the ISIs in college to the i3 now to the i5. I trust Ping and cannot see a reason to look at other iron manufacturers. Pings customization and color code system is awesome.

 

You can also register your clubs online and they will tell you everything about them. Ping also has a forum where you can ask questions and look at answers from previous ones. They are very, very thorough and informative. Service beyond the sale.

[alex_3underpar]

I own 2 all Callaway sets and 2 all PING sets because my experience is that they have the best customer service in the industry!

[ryanpgm]

Callaway is the best, followed by Ping and I would say TaylorMade other than an unfortunate incident I hade last week with them. Titleist's CS is no good, unless you order online, that seems the best way to deal with them, at least from this side of the counter.