My opinion on Purchasing from EPPS

[Harrier .45]

I was in Epps twice on the 2012 Canada Day long weekend, initially to buy a Rem. 700 or a Savage 111. Ended up having a great experience and after sleeping on the decision went back and bought a M14/M305 on the holiday Monday.

Great customer service, knowledgeable people, and a willingness to say "what would be better for you?" got me pointed in the right direction. This is exactly what I wanted and more than I expected.

To Epps, Kudos guys! I'll be making the drive many more times, for more firearms and plenty of accessories, add ons, and upgrades.

Great news, DirtFoot! Don't forget, we do have an electronic order form on our website as well, so you can order many of those add-ons and accessories and upgrades from the comfort of your own home! Not that we don't want to see you in the store, but we are trying to make the purchase experience as convenient as possible.

Hope to see you soon!

[jcpal]

always a pleasure dealing with them

[canoetrpr]

They seem to be hit or miss.

I have had great visits to their store and phone calls with the staff. Getting lots of advice and good deals on items.

But I have also left the store in total disgust at the lousy service being offered.

There are some staff that are great to deal with but some of the others I won't waste my time with anymore.

I guess this can be said for most stores. Unfortunately most of my recent dealings with them have left me wondering why I drive 2.5 hours each way.

I've only been up there twice and I would say my experience matches this. First time up I went to purchase my first firearm. Came back with not one but two! A 12ga Benelli Nova and a CZ452. The gun room was rather empty. I had nothing short of FANTASTIC service from a gentleman named Paul. Very knowledgable. Set me up just right. Picked up all kinds of other needs - targets, cleaning stuff etc.

Second time I went up was to try to trade in the scope I got on the CZ - one week later, and purchase another scope with higher magnification to allow me to do 220 yards. I talked to them over the phone and the guy I spoke to was excellent. A few emails - also excellent.

Finally got there after a 1.5 hr drive - busy gun room got a young guy who did not know much of ANYTHING. Didn't even look at my scope and offerred me 50% of what I paid even though it was practically brand new and I was looking at spending 3x as much on a new scope.

I asked him to show me some scopes - at least I could purchase the new one while I was there. Really didn't know much about scopes. I asked for some specific ones - he found them. Asked for advice on how one compared to the other - no clue. He pulled out a fixed power 10x 40mm scope and claimed it was a variable power 10x-40x scope. I asked if I could talk to someone else who might know a bit more about these scopes. He said, everyone was busy (they were but I could have waited).

I decided to not make my purchase from him and went to Lebaron in Markham instead. Got great service from a guy down there.

I'd shop from Epps again. Their inventory is awesome. The first gentleman Paul I dealt with was nothing short of great.

My recommendation is get their early in the morning in the middle of the week. Take a day off work if you can. The second experience was on the Friday before the start of the long weekend - in the afternoon.

[Neoborn]

I have currently been working in Customer Service for the last ten years, the last five in a world class environment.

All talk aside, I am happy to put all biases aside and come in randomly (probably a two hour drive for me as well) and find out what the experience is like, lets see how this all pans out when the rubber hits the road, as we all know, talk is cheap. I'll report back here at a later date.

Jan, I, too, have been in customer service for more than 27 years. I have trained sales agents in several different fields for many years, and pride not only myself, but our staff here at Epps as well on our product knowledge and our willingness to assist ANY customer that passes through our doors. No, our customer service is not perfect. Yes, we do sometimes make mistakes. And yes sometimes personalities may be somewhat counter-active to other individuals. But contrary to several claims here on this string, the staff at Epps does not go out of its way to ignore or otherwise discriminate against new customers. On the contrary, we welcome new shooters and new customers as well as experienced or familiar ones.

Customer service is a two-way street. Too often on these message boards it seems that customer forget this. We on the business side of the counter are here to HELP you, not to make decisions for you. We can recommend or suggest products and alternatives, but in the end it is the responsibility of the customer to make an informed decision when they choose to finalize any purchase.