Category: | Sporting Goods Store |
Address: | 14640 W Freeway Dr, Forest Lake, MN 55025, USA |
Phone: | +1 651-464-0707 |
Site: | gandermountain.com |
Rating: | 3.3 |
Working: | 9AM–9PM 9AM–9PM 9AM–9PM 9AM–9PM 9AM–9PM 9AM–9PM 10AM–6PM |
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Brian Hanson
Besides the random self-starter, the in-store customer service at Gander Mountain is nothing short of horrible. Its close to me, so Ive continued to go from time to time, but my most recent purchase will likely be my last. Time after time, I go in expecting a minimum level of service and time after time Im somehow surprised at the level I receive. Whether its a gun counter guy, acting as though Im pulling his teeth without novacain. Seriously, most of them act as if theyre on a death march when you ask them for anything. Or the >20 year old group of cashiers talking to each other and telling inside jokes while a line of 20 people wait to check out, 10% of them giving up and walking out. There was actually a time when one of them stated "Sorry for the way the line is set up, our stupid regional manager wants it that way." Ill be honest, I dont expect much in terms of service, but Im overwhelmed by the utter lack of it here. Ive probably completed 10 purchases with Gander Mountain. I can safely estimate that 8 of them involved some sort of crappy experience. So as I sit here "waiting for a call" to go pick up the gun I ordered a week ago, that has been at the store for over 24 hours, I am at my wits end. Think of the audacity. I order a used gun for like $30 off MSRP (my mistake). You charge me $25 extra dollars to ship it intercompany (really?) and then its sits at your store for days waiting to be "checked in." None of this would have prompted my review, but then I talk to another miserable human being at the firearms counter. Yesterday he tells me it will be ready right away in the morning because it was delivered late and the "check in gal" had already left. When I showed him the tracking saying it had been delivered early afternoon, he was unaffected. Alas, I call in today around lunch and get another angry-to-be-alive individual who says "we got a pile in today, shell call you when its ready" after which he promptly ended the phone call. Add this to the time it took 2 months and 3 hours of standing in the store waiting time to get a shotgun cleaned last year and I am well past done with this place. So do yourself a favor, keep focusing on the bottom line and neglect the fact that you are being devoured by Amazon. Keep perpetuating this culture of sub-Wal-Mart service level and see how many people keep coming back once the baby-boomers are the last ones frequenting brick and mortar stores. Its really too bad, you have a lot of things I like to buy. Guess Ill come back every once in a while to showroom some large items that Ill buy on Amazon.
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Conner Kuehn
I cant give a good review to this place and will recommend anyone against shopping here. Ive bought 3 guns from this place and I will not any longer due to their terrible customer service and shady selling practices. They downright lied in order to sell me additional products I didnt want. I was looking for a specific hunting rifle and was planning on going to Cabelas to purchase it. I stopped here first because it was close to my work. They happened to have the same gun I was looking for but for $100 more than what Cabelas was selling it for. I asked if they would price match, and they said sure, no problem. I was looking at ammo for the rifle, when the manager came over and told me that he called Cabelas and they were out of stock of the rifle so technically he didnt have to price match. He told me if I purchase $200 worth of ammo and accessories he could justify taking $100 off the rifle. The entire process felt as if I was a major inconvenience to them and the manager went on and on about how bad it was for him to take $100 off and how he had to explain to his management etc.. "even then the $200 was probably not going to be enough as he has customers that buy $1000 of merchandise and he doesnt give discounts to them" and so on. At every opportunity they were pressuring me to buy additional things (gun cases, other guns, safes, clothing, etc) to justify them price matching. I bought the rifle and $200 of ammo/accessories thinking that it was either I buy it from them or dont buy it at all. While checking out I felt that something was strange, the clerk was grinning and looking at the manager and talking on his headpiece as if he made an accomplishment. He assured it was a different topic they were joking about. I called Cabelas the next day and it turns out that they did have it in stock and the manager lied to up-sell me things I didnt need. The clerk must have received some sort of commission for selling me additional products hence why they were joking around. Very disappointing that this is an encouraged practice here. They might have swindled me out of a few hundred dollars but I will never be buying anything from them again and will make sure all of my friends/family will not either..
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Phyllon Xiong
Customer service here is horrible. Every single time I shop here I wait at least 15 mins before I am approached by anyone. Worst experience of all was a few months ago when I went in to purchase myself a handgun. I was standing at the gun counter for 20 mins only to be helped by an associate mins after he helped another customer who literally just walked over to the counter bedside me. Not only that, after I finally purchased my handgun, which I came into the store knowing what I was purchasing before hand, was told they did not have any on hand and was to wait until next shipment, which was the following wednesday. Granted I only lived down the road at the time, I was not too worried thinking I was going to get it before my weekend at the range. Boy did I regret that, not only did I not get my firearm with the next shipment, I was told to wait a few more days since it was not delivered yet (which I went into the store to follow-up twice). I waited about a week and half before I finally received a phone call about my firearm (which happened to be the same day I was going to cancel my order). What was to be a 3 day process turned out to be about 10 days. Wait until you hear why it was delayed. At this point I was already upset and just wanted to just get in and get out. After asking why my firearm was delayed, i was informed that my firearm was in the store this whole time (delivered Wednesday, day it originally was to be sent)...sitting on the "to be returned" shelf. Both time I went back in store to follow-up on my purchase, I was told there was nothing. That was my last straw with this store. I quickly signed for my package and never went back. If it wasnt so close by to where I was staying at the time, I wouldnt have gone back.
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Doc Holliday
I bought a Simmons spotting scope on August 12th from Forest lake store, about a week later it broke. On August 24th I brought it back to the Forest lake store for an exchange, and it was not the greatest of experiences. I was slightly harassed for my receipt, until they finally understood it was an exchange. They then informed me that they were out of stock, but they could either order one and have it sent to me, or I could go to the Blaine store. I chose the Blaine store, because I hate waiting for stuff I paid for. So the not so trained cashier calls Blaine and has them put one aside, he then returns mine to a gift card, and does a bopis (buy online pickup in store) order with it. So I head down there, after driving 25 miles I am told that the order hasnt been sent from "corporate" yet, and since he used a gift card there was nothing he could do. So I was sent home 25 miles again and told to wait for their call, that night instead of a call I got an email saying it was being shipped fedex to the store, even though the associate showed me the scope assuring me it was there waiting for the order to come from corporate... So far I have 91.00 tied up in a scope I dont have, and have driven a total of 50 miles... It will be 100 miles when all is said and done. I will not be returning to any Gander mountains after this fiasco... I have posted this to both Gander Mountain locations facebook pages... Oh and update still no word on when my scope will be ready for pickup.