Article on Local Bike Shops (LBS)

[aggie]

Interesting reading. Hope the link works.  Headline from Bicycling “Hey, Bike Shops: Stop treating customers like garbage”


https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a27496999/bike-shops-need-change/

[Pat Lamb]

Maybe I'm just feeling cranky this afternoon.  But whatever happened to journalism standards?

Person who's not a typical customer goes to a [X] store, and the staff is somewhere between unhelpful and insulting.  Could be a bike shop (this story) or an Apple store (my story).  Dedicated wanna-be customer carries on, working through multiple stops until someone is helpful and makes the sale.  Years pass, same helpful store makes another sale to the same customer.  Is this surprising?  (Only the dedication of the would-be customer, I found another brand!)

The positive side is what should be published, in publications geared to shop owners rather than the general public.  Or perhaps in self-help books oriented to a "start and run your own business" audience.

Take my daughter, for instance.  When she went off to grad school, her bike had been shipped to a highly-regarded-by-the-internet bike shop in her new college town.  They put it back together for her, but she didn't like the vibe, so she tried other shops and mechanics until she found one she liked.  When she moved, a couple of shops put her off with their attitudes, so she found an LBS she liked - and that's where she bought her latest bike.

Customer service isn't dead, but neither is it automatic.  (And that's a shame, but not new; stories of taxi drivers going 5 miles out of their way to deliver a customer a block away, or mechanics rebuilding an engine that needed an oil change, have been around longer than I have!)  What's new is the misuse of statistics:  "93% of people surveyed said they have met a mean person.  If people don't clean up their act, many of us are going to become a hermit so we don't have to meet more mean people."

Whine and publish?  or HTFU and press on?  I know what Horatio Alger would have done.

[BikeliciousBabe]

Whine and publish?  or HTFU and press on?  I know what Horatio Alger would have done.

+1. Also, I feel as if I have read the same article in the past.

[BikePacker]

Glad to have read the article... voluminous ... thought prompting.
Caused me to reflect on a lot of bike shop encounters over the last thousand years.
Was enjoyable thinking back .... thanks for posting the link.
Don't recall feeling being 'put-off' by any of the shops,
nor do I recall observing the same (i.e., 7 specific shops come to mind).

[DaveB]

I haven't dealt with any LBS's in quite a while for two reasons:

1. At my age I now own all of the bikes I'm likely to buy and, in fact, may be selling a couple in a few years. 
2. I do all of my own maintenance and repairs and buy my parts and accessories via the internet.

That said, I have dealt with several bike shops in the past with mixed experiences.   Most were courteous and helpful but a couple were dismissive when they realized I wasn't going to buy a $3000 bike from them.  My wife has had a similar range of experiences with quilt shops.   

So, I'd never generalize about bike shops or any other type of shop for that matter.  Some are great to deal with and treat customers well and some seem to consider customers an unwelcome interruption of their plans.

[driftlessregion]

Presumably the LBS's already know this because the study was funded by them, i.e., the National Bicycle Dealers Association. The article is not all whining. In fact it highlights a couple of shops who are doing well because of their service. In Madison, WI I've had all the described experiences, good and bad. I do get great service at one in part because I buy from them NOT through the internet. If we want bike shops to be there when we need them then we need to patronized them, just not the ones with an attitude problem.

[David W Pratt]

Pretty much found bicycle shops to be welcoming and convivial.  Even when I was clearly not going to buy anything.