Halfords Poor Customer Sevice

[Jimbo Xiii]

See, my experience with Halfords has been the opposite, whilst my LBS have been completely useless.
I got my LoC the other week. Called around a few Halfords near by, none had the bike in stock, however the man in the Shirley store said I should come down and they'll size me up to make sure I get the right frame. Got my bike two days later. It's been well put together and a dream to ride.

On the other hand, my previous bike which I got from my LBS (A Dawes Mojave) wasn't set up correctly at all. I'd been having massive problems with the gears and kept returning it to the shop to sort out. They'd take it out back, have a tinker and I'd cycle off. Within a day or two, the gears are slipping all over the place again. Eventually, I started looking how to set them myself and never had a problem since, that was about 6 months ago.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

My local Halfords is good at the minute, the bike team leader is spot on, clued up and happy to chat. My C2W (long established independent) LBS failed to spot a faulty tyre bead and tried to stop the tyre blowing off the rim with a 2nd layer of rim tape & the explanation that sometimes the tyres weren't the size they should be and could be "a bit loose" never been back, not even to point out their incompetence to them.

Good and bad all over.

 

[Sandra6]

Please don't tar all Halfords with the same brush, some of the staff (admittedly not many sadly) do know what they're doing, honest.
The bike shop where I bought my bike have been fairly useless in comparison, while the LBS my husband uses is fantastic.

 

[SquareDaff]

The problem with Halfords is that its "hit and miss" as to the quality of the staff you get and, if taking your bike in for maintenance, the speed of the repair. I've had a bad issue with one of the Halfords near me and just never went there again. The 2nd nearest one is superb and I've never had any problems. Also the one in my parents home town also seems to be quite good with the guys behind the counter actually being cyclists (at least on Saturdays anyway).