An endemic problem of ego tripping bike store staff?

[BrumJim]

My wife worked in retail for a short while, and her stories lead me to the following conclusion:

1. One bad customer generally ruins your day, if not week. Some are so patronising it is like they have had a 3 year training course on it.
2. As a customer is very easy to find yourself heading down the patronising route unintentionally, and extremely difficult to get out of it.
3. Management doesn't help where shops perform better in the short term if run by young, cheep and enthusiastic people with limited inter-personal skills, but a keeness to keep the brand directors happy.
4. Very little training (or none) is offered on how to stop a bad experience impacting on the next sale.
5. Everyone has an experience of shops, so have their own opinion on how to deal with either customers (on the staff side) or staff (from the customer side) to get the best outcomes.

 

[Binky]

I value customer service so much that if I don't get good service, I go elsewhere out of principle. I will not fight to get their attention when I want to hand over my money

This very much so. If I go into a shop(a rarity as 99% done these days online) and the assistant is unhelpful or rude etc I immediately leave and take my money elsewhere. I do sympathise with staff as I'm sure it's often a thankless job but to quote Roy Keane "it's their job".

 

[Dogtrousers]

Don't read online reviews. They aren't worth the paper they aren't written on.

 

[Dogtrousers]

How bizarre.
I've had two bikes from Spa built to my spec, most recently with a group set, bartape, saddle supplied by me. No complaints, both times I've gone up for test rides and they've given great help swapping saddles and stems etc for several hours.

Same here. Spa have always been great with me and I've done a fair bit of business with them - and been a completely idiotic customer more than once.

 

[Tenkaykev]

More like the service at the Bangkok Hilton 😄

Despite their rep, I've even had friendly service at Halfords when I've had occasion to use them

Long story short, my eldest daughter ( 50 last month ) had a brief stay of a few days in the " Bangkok Hilton ". A combination of youthful hubris, a " Full Moon " beach party and being caught smoking " wacky backy "
All pre internet, and getting a phone call asking you to " contact the Foreign Office " is certainly memorable...

 

[Moodyman]

Spa are a local-ish shop to me so I tend to buy in-person. On a recent visit, two staff were in the workshop dealing with some oily bits. The workshop has clear screens from waist height but they failed to notice me for a few mins.

I wasn’t in a hurry and was perusing their demo bikes. When one of the staff saw me and came out to the shop, he told me off for not ringing the bell on the counter to alert them of my presence. I think that was a defensive measure on their part in case I complained about the time they took to come out.

Anyhow, I told him I wasn’t in a hurry and was enjoying looking at their bikes.

After that, we had a very cordial chat and he gave me some good advice on rim and spoke combo for the wheel I was going to build.

There’s a sort of Yorkshire coarseness to them, but it’s all well intended if you speak the lingo.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Some are, especially the poor ones that they respond to. Gives you an idea of they might react.

I've left two reviews for accomodation recently, one of them I had some tips to make the stay better but I emailed them direct and didn't affect the review. Reviews should be an objective reflection of the goods or service received, but often people use them for the stupidest of things.

My worst one to read is "Not used this yet but it looks good, 10/10.". Pointless lol.


Honest and to the point quickly lol.

My reason for not trusting online reviews is that (a) people will typically only leave reviews if they are dissatisfied and will then probably lie extensively to exaggerate the problem in order to have a pop at the vendor and (b) we have no idea if they are real at all.

 

[Dogtrousers]

True. I do my own bit to leave honest reviews to counter that

If I see one of yours, I'll believe it But not the rest.

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

Wow...He Joined the group on Sunday and now wants to whinge about something he has never exprienced, but he has read about on the internet.

I just love the ignore button on this site. It makes the experience so much more pleasant.

There’s an “ignore” button! I must find this device, it sounds wonderful!

I’ll check with my wife… she obviously knows where it is and how to use it.

 

[All uphill]

I've bought lots from Spa and, once I adjusted, I've been very happy with their service.

SJS are on my doorstep and I've always been just OK with them.

Just bought a bike from Winstanleys and was satisfied.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Not had dealing with Spa

but I have had very good dealings with Halfords at time

and bad ones

when I first moved here there was one bloke that was great with bikes
if you asked him a question you got a good answer - and he was right
He mentioned at one point that he had been a bike mechanic in an LBS and this job was mostly the same plus some normal shop stuff about bikes
but paid more


My cousin was the same sort of thing for Kwik Fit
he was basically a "fix everything out half trained normal guys screw up" person
he got paid a LOT more than the normal Kwik Fit garage people and travelled all over

these places do have good people

it is just a case of finding them - some stores have them - some not

and they tend to get pulled off normal stuff to fix things less trained people mess up


in my opinion anyway