Crowborough Workshop (Now Closed) Reviews 1,857

I visited the sax.co.uk store in London recently and the overall service was really bad. Disinterested staff, and it felt like no one could be bothered to help properly. What made the whole experience even weirder was the special attention given by the beard guy – he was like watching at me the whole time no matter where i went and he is super unprofessional.
One creepy interaction doesn’t fix terrible service. Won’t be going back. Avoid if you want a smooth, normal shopping experience.

The service is very expensive and I was told to wait 3 weeks for repair of my alto sax. I have appealed however and hopefully they'll reduce the price and time period for the repair. There's just nowhere else that services saxes any more. I could of bought a brand new sax for price I've been quoted. Let's hope the repairs are a success.

During our European tour with Blåsemafian and Alan Walker, I visited sax.co.uk with the goal of purchasing a Sakkusu Bass Saxophone on the spot. It turned out that there were no available practice rooms, so I was asked to wait a bit. I did.

After about 20 minutes, I asked if it was possible to make a practice room available. The rooms were mostly occupied by amateur musicians, which was very audible in the store. I was not given a room but was instead directed to the storage area, where the oldest employee retrieved a saxophone for me.

Before I even got the chance to try the saxophone, one of the younger employees (approximately 35-40 years old) became furious that I had been sent to the storage area. He angrily scolded both his colleague and me, using profanity, speaking loudly, and behaving extremely rudely. His lack of self-control was more suited to an anger management classroom than a customer store.

My desire and intention to buy a bass saxophone quickly turned into a decision to leave the store while the younger employee continued shouting at his colleague in the store.

I have visited this store before (in 2019) and received completely different service from a different staff. It is very disappointing that professional saxophonists, visiting the world’s largest saxophone store with a clear goal, experience such service.

For this reason, I am giving this experience 1 star and hope that the employee in question is made aware of this customer feedback.

Ordered a ex-hire sax and a few accessories, the order process was fine. Everything ‘in stock’, order confirmation received and ordered late morning so expected a fast delivery as advertised. Unfortunately by the end of the following day I had heard nothing about dispatch. I’m in no rush for this instrument but knowing when it’s being delivered would be ideal so I can make sure somebody is home. Made a quick call and spoken to somebody who had the average ‘can’t be bother to help’ attitude and said “the sax is no longer in stock, somebody will be in touch in the next day. Bye”.

Sure enough, a day later nobody has been in touch. Made a phone call, the staff member (a different one to prior) answers, i explain the situation and he speaks to somebody.

“We can send you a brand new one out when it comes in to stock or we can send an alternative. Both of them are more expensive so I can arrange that for you and you just pay the difference” like it’s a casual £20… no real apology, no sympathy, just “pay the difference”.

I chose to have a refund. Sure, i’ll probably pay more now but when a shop prides themselves on incredible service and you’re greeted with the worst attitude, zero care and having to do the leg work… well, i’d now sooner pay more elsewhere to a company that deserves my money.

Would not recommend.

Dropped my 37 year old beginner Selma’s Bundy II into Sax as I wanted to have it refurbished so I could play again. It is such a magnificent shop with all sorts of excellent stuff I did wonder what sort of reception I’d get as my instrument is so old and I’m just back to being a beginner as an old chap. But I need ent have worried Jamie was enthusiastic and helpful and when Mark looked at and checked out my Bundy he was positive and complementary about its condition. He was also pragmatic about what it needed and what was the right thing to do with it to get me playing without spending a fortune. It was reassuring as I could have easily been told it was not worth restoring and I had to buy an expensive new one from their excellent display. It was a good experience to be given a reasonable solution to get me started playing again and the cost seemed reasonable and advice to consider a better mouth piece was appreciated. Follow up by email has been helpful too . Looking forward to getting it back …..who knows I might even upgrade and or get a Tenor if my playing progresses a bit 🙂

I’ve been a repeat customer of sax.co.uk, purchasing saxophones and various related accessories, and the overall experience has consistently been positive. The pricing is competitive, but I do find the international (DHL) shipping costs to be on the high side. It feels like there’s a markup over the actual DHL rates, which detracts slightly from the otherwise great value.
One suggestion for improvement: when investing in a high-end saxophone, I would expect a complimentary gesture, such as a box of reeds or a cleaning kit. This is something that’s often offered in-store at similar shops but isn’t part of the online buying experience at sax.co.uk.
Additionally, my most recent purchase had a significant delay — the saxophone was only dispatched 2.5 months after placing the order. While I understand supply chain delays, the fact that my card was charged the full amount upfront felt a bit frustrating. Upon inquiry, customer service informed me that I could have arranged to only pay half the amount until the order was ready, but this option wasn’t clearly communicated at the time of purchase. A partial refund or clearer guidance on this process would have made the experience smoother.

After seeing a YouTube video on the yamaha synth saxophone I looked into it a bit more and found sax.co.uk YouTube reviews of all available synth saxophone and they said the Emeo is the best practice saxophone on the market. Looking at the prices I was tempted by the Yamaha as its keys are similar to an actual sax at half the price of the Emeo. But looking at all reviews of the Emeo I made my mind up and bought one from Sax.co.uk. Best buy I ever made. I picked it up plugged it into my Mac Pro and was blasting out tunes immediately but silently. Finally, I can play as loud and as long as I like without annoying my partner, kids and neighbours. Sax helped me to pay with two different credit cards online and the sax arrived next day. Great customer service and advice. Will only buy sax related items from Sax from now on. Cheers.

Everyone in the shop was extremely professional, knowledgeable and friendly. It was a wonderful experience and beneficial to me.

Staff are friendly, polite and give you great advice on whatever you are there for.

I will always go back.

Thanks to Amy and team at the repair workshop for their continued excellent work in servicing my alto sax, for making it sound and perform the best it possibly can and for giving really helpful advice.

Excellent service and support for my alto by Lewis in the sax clinic! We just love Sax London.

Great! Pick up my machine today! What a day! The machine was in prefect conditions! It was stopped pre-COVID... I had a stroke. But know.... what a job! Well done; great job 👏👏👏
🫡

Where ever I am in the world I always send my collection of sax's to Lewis for servicing as he treats each one as his own. Nuff said

Updated:- The team were very responsive to the issue and having spoken to others, it's clear that this was an isolated incident. So, whilst I can't call it a 5-star review as there were issues, I'm happy to revise the review accordingly to a 4-star review. After all, its how a company handles an issue that highlights its true colours.

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I expected so much after seeing the Youtube channel, the company's history, the reviews on here, and the people associated with the company. And...it was a disappointment.

I was allowed to order an out-of-stock item but I get that occasionally, it happens. They did ship what items they did have in stock but the item I really wanted was not here. But it carried on.

I had paid for express shipping but when the missing item was in, it was sent via Royal Mail using snail-mail during a postal strike. That might arrive before XMas. Hmm.

But, I'm not there yet.

I then got a call to say that actually, the missing item that they'd sent me was the wrong item and they'd have to send the right one this time using the courier that I'd paid for. As for the wrong item, I was asked, when it eventually arrives with me that I needed to take it to the post office and pay for the return and they'd refund the shipping when it arrives back to them.

Today I'm still missing an item that I'd paid for next-day delivery for (last week) and at some point, I need to take care of their incorrect shipment at my time, inconvenience, and expense.

I was going to order a new Sax from them this week but I'm afraid once bitten...

Can't help feel dissapointed by our visit. My son had been looking forward to visiting the London store to try out some new mouth pieces,  and to look at upgrading his current saxophone. We had made a special trip to the store.
On entry we were greated by a member of staff, where I explained what we were after and how it would be great to get the advice and guidance from them, as our knowledge is very limited.
We were taken to a booth to try a couple of mouth pieces and left to it. Meanwhile not knowing the member of staff who was assisting us had gone to lunch leaving us no further forward.  I then had to explain it all over again to another member of staff, where  we were given more to try, and  left us feeling we were more of an inconvenience and wanting to leave the shop.   Maybe what we expected from the visit was not actually possible and we are wrong.  But when you are potentially looking at spending in excess of 3k I personally would like some kind of customer care. With expertise advise and guidance in purchasing the right equipment , as the choices are far greater than my knowledge. We won't be rushing back in a hurry.

Recently bought my Selmer axos tenor when visiting the sax shop, the customer service was very good, I knew what sax I wanted after researching, I was shown to a booth to try it. No pressure to buy or hard sell. When it came home to me I was having a few issues with the sax, it was sounding not right, might have been transit damage. I contacted The sax shop, they sent a courier very quickly to get it, repaired it and couriered it back to me very fast, no quibble or questions asked. Highly recommended, I am saving up for a new Alto sax and will be visiting again.

We took a clarinet here for mending and were impressed by their efficiency, good communication and fair pricing.

This is my second purchase from Sax.co.uk. This time I had the pleasure of visiting their store in London whilst on a visit from Northern Ireland. The store is brilliant. Plenty of stock to view and demo if needed. The best thing though is the customer service. The two members of staff were extremely friendly and helpful and were quite happy for me to spend over an hour in the store chatting and finding something I was really happy with. Definitely go and check the place out if you get the chance to visit. If you can't make it to the store buying from the website is great too.