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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