I just had an exceptional customer service experience and I need to talk about it. Last week I bought a bag of 5/16” screwmount nuts for the upgraded X-Carve CNC/table-saw out-feed table I am currently building. I needed them to install the leveling feet. I THOUGHT that the feet I had were 5/16”-18 and was stoked the McMaster-Carr had exactly what I needed. I ordered late one night on-line and waiting two days for them to arrive.
Last night, I went into the shop to install them and quickly found that the feet were 3/8”-16. Damn. I recovered, changed my plans for the evening and moved on to another part of the project.
This morning I called McMaster-Carr (MM-C) and spoke to a sales rep named Brian, explaining the issue, what parts I needed to swap out, and that this error was completely my fault. He was great: Offered to take the 5/16” parts back without a restock fee, credit the original price, charged the original card for the difference in parts, and said that they would be shipped out today. No fuss or BS, just a smooth transaction.
I am not a huge customer for them. I am a tiny percent of a negative fraction of their sales – I doubt that your calculator has enough places to calculate my percentage of contribution. Regardless of this, today I felt like I was an important customer, that they valued my business, and got off the phone and was actually happy. Made my morning.
MM-C has saved my butt and saved me cash for years! They are my go-to for hardware and parts. I have a copy of their paper catalog in the shop and will use it to quickly find a needed part before I go on-line. Additionally, I use Fusion360 as one of my 3D CAD tools and the MMC online catalog is linked to that tool. You can get part drawing .stp files and import them directly into your drawing. They are automatically added to your BOM, and you can roll up costing as you design. It is a super slick interface and I use it all the time (the MM-C Toolbox for Solidworks functions similarly).
For this and so many other reasons, I will continue to use McMaster-Carr for everything that I can.