Sweetwater: Chuck Surack. How a Customer Service Strategy Built a Billion Dollar Online Pro Audio and Music Company.

I've always believed everyone in our company, whether it's a sales engineer or the receptionist, is either adding credibility. taking credibility away from our company and I gotta have people always adding credibility. We empower everyone in our company to make the right decision, to do the right stuff. If someone would come to our store or or phone in to the receptionist and say, my keyboard you know, quit working or they're empowered to replace it. Every employee that ever I hired, I would tell them, You'll never get chastised for doing the wrong thing. You'll get chastised for not doing the right thing quick enough.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today. How Chuck Surak went from mixing music in the back of his mom's VW van to building the billion dollar music and audio equipment giant.

Sweet water. There are a lot of ways to build a retail business. You can compete on price, you can compete on selection, you can promise faster shipping, bigger discounts, or endless convenience. But Chuck Surak took a completely different approach. He believed that before anyone bought a guitar or a microphone or a keyboard or a recording interface, They should have a conversation.

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