The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Susie
Date: 2001-10-30 21:05
I was looking on the sneezy site where clarinets are dated, by serial number, and realized that there are no serial numbers for Buffet clarinets after 1997...why?
Susie
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Author: Fred
Date: 2001-10-31 02:06
Perhaps it's the artistic blood, Susie, but instrument manufacturers do not conduct business the way you might think they would. It would make good business sense to respond to inquiries and try to provide helpful information to consumers. I have sent numerous emails to Boosey & Hawkes looking for information on Buffet and B&H clarinets - most have gone unreturned. You might think that Leblanc would publish their serial numbers too. It really seems like there is a take-it-or-leave-it attitude among some manufacturers.
As for the more recent Buffet serial numbers . . .
I believe you'll get them when Boosey & Hawkes gets good and ready to publish them. Maybe Yamaha has better customer sense . . .
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Author: Joris
Date: 2001-10-31 07:31
Maybe it has something to do with stocks. Some shops have instruments laying for a year. If recent numbers were availlable a lot of people would wan't `the newest.' Not because it is any better, but because it's `newer' It could become difficult for the smaller shops to sell their earlier produced stock.
Greetings,
Joris
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-10-31 21:44
Or it is because they are French. In NA, we are used to the attitude that the customers is paramount and that excellent service is essential to long term survival.
It is not necessarily so in France where sustained courteous customer service is not a societal value. Add to that that Buffet is the "gorilla" in the market (with 60%+ market share, depending on how you count), and a certain "laissez-faire" (I use diplomatic term here, but I have a stronger one in mind) is almost inevitable.
Talk to the smaller boutique manufacturers (hungry for recognition and business) and experience the difference.
Or talk to Francois Kloc, based in the USA and well versed in the ways and means of doing business in the toughest market in the world for all products. It was a superb move to base in America a fabulous expert close to his customers.
What Buffet France needs is a solid kick in the...
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Author: Fred
Date: 2001-11-01 13:15
The USA office for Boosey & Hawkes is no better. My request for information on the 1010 and 926 (see my other topic) was never acknowledged or responded to. B&H can plead ignorance on older Buffets, but they have no excuse for ignoring B&H questions.
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Author: Peter
Date: 2001-11-05 04:44
This only happens when you don't contact Francois Kloc personally.
Boosey & Hawkes is legendary for their general lack of good customer service habits, all except M. Kloc, who will respond if he is in town and you address him directly.
Aside from that, I wouldn't give you the odds of a snowball surviving in hell of Buffet or any other B&H division answering any inquiry on your part.
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