This afternoon I received some very crappy customer service at one bike shop. Then 30 minutes later, I received excellent customer service at a different bike shop.
I brought my daughter’s bike into bike shop A to have them fix the chain. The minute I walked in, I knew something wasn’t right (besides them not having any customers in the store) three guys behind the counter doing nothing; one came out to greet me.
“Hi, can I help you?”
“Yeah, I need to have this chain put on my daughter’s bike along with the wheel.”
The guy looked at the bike, then looked at the wheel I was holding in my hand. Now mind you, I’m not the most mechanically inclined person. I had fixed the flat on the back tire and needed to dissemble the chain and gears in the back. After trying for over 30 minutes to put it back on, I failed. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all, right?

Let me take it to a bike shop! What a great idea.
I drove 20 minutes to the shop. As I followed the guy to the back, I saw a few workers in the repair section…doing NOTHING! One guy was sitting up on a desk, two were looking down reading something, two were eating food and another came out to greet me.
“Hi, I was wondering if you can help me with this, I can’t seem to get it on.”
The guy, sporting a long gray beard looked at it, then looked at me. “It’ll cost ya $12 and we can have it ready on the 26th. (By the way, today is the 20th!)
“No thanks pal.” I said to him as I turned and began my journey out of the store.
I noticed a female worker from the place walking behind me on my way out, “That’s not good when it’s in pieces.” she said to me.
“Yeah, no shit sister!” I said to myself. “And a lot of help you people were.” (Wonder if the owner knows he has employees sitting on their asses doing absolutely nothing?)
Outside in the parking lot I was thinking out loud, “screw it, I’m going to take it home and try it again.”
That’s when my wife suggested I take it to Dick’s. Long story short, we took it to Dick’s Sporting Goods store across town where they have people on site to do bike repairs and a bike tech Travis, fixed it in 5 minutes!
To top it off, they didn’t even charge me!
Should I go back to bike shop A and complain to the owner on Monday or let it go? Mind you, my wife and I went in there last year and purchased two bikes at one time.
What’s the deal with the lack of customer service? Is it a lost art?
To conclude, the name of bike shop A is Denny’s Central Park Bicycles and is located in Okemos, Michigan and I will never patronize their store again. It’s funny because we were actually thinking of buying a new bike for Taylor…
-Steve
Hoops135@hotmail.com