[Closed] Another day in the LBS

'Can you quote me for the free version of the software?'

Some idiot had made a brake mount out of a spoon...

To be fair in the first one some people just wouldn't know particularly if it's their first bike and know little about bike components.

As a computer geek I laugh at conversations in the likes of PC World, but not because of the cluelessness of the customers but the corresponding cluelessness of the staff that give them useless advice. Actually, I can say the same about Halfords 😉

1. He/she needs to ask as he/she doesnt know. Not their fault bike manufacturers have a million* types of disc brake pad.

2. Well it is irritating when things drop and some places do have a 30 day policy on price reductions.

3. "yes it's terrible isn't it, I will be sure to mention it to their rep next time I speak to them**. Next time if you need something come in and we'll sort you out with free/cheap fitting when you buy something"

*exaggeration for dramatic purposes
**blatant fabrication but make it believable

Pre-Xmas fork price £600 black/£650 white
Post Xmas fork price £550 black or white
New Year price £780 black or white 😯

Got charged £15 for a gear cable inner and 2 pieces of outer, the bloke knew he was taking the p and says to me it's 'special' cable. I needed it for a ride that night and couldn't be doing with going to another shop but I won't be shopping there again, shame coz I do like to support local busineses

The pad question's not unreasonable tbh, and it doesn't imply "I expect that it does"- asking "does this do X" is also prompting for "No, you need Y"

The pad question's not unreasonable tbh

Agreed. Particularly as rim brake pads fit any brake.

Got charged £15 for a gear cable inner and 2 pieces of outer

The newest Shimano PTFE coated inners do retail for £12, and ferrules are 50p each, so an inner, two bits of outer and 4 ferrules would very probably come to £15 at retail (as most bricks and mortar shops charge).

I don't miss it......well I don't miss the arsehole I worked for (and a few of the 'customers') but in time I will miss mucking about with pushbikes.

jam bo - Member

Some idiot had made a brake mount out of a spoon...

[b][u]And...IT WASNT A SPOON[/u][/b]

Northwind - Member

...asking "does this do X" is also prompting for "No, you need Y"

Wow, a few of you took it as a serious moan, should have added smilies!..or a "I know I'm not perfect in retail" caveat. In answer...the pads in question were right next to the non-sale display of 16+ different types of pad. Had he asked "will these fit X" I'd have said "No, you need pads X for brakes X" but he asked "will these fit ANY BRAKES".

andyl - Member

1. He/she needs to ask as he/she doesnt know

Indeed - but I try to engage/filter my brain before asking questions with obvious answers.

2. Well it is irritating when things drop and some places do have a 30 day policy on price reductions.

It is also...a FACT OF LIFE!

3. "yes it's terrible isn't it, I will be sure to mention it to their rep next time I speak to them**. Next time if you need something come in and we'll sort you out with free/cheap fitting when you buy something"

Reps don't come into our shop...he got a helpful answer anyway.

Got charged £15 for a gear cable inner and 2 pieces of outer

Anyone else remember cablegate? Who was it? Ayatollah of Niche/Explosion in a spaghetti factory (who is that now?)

I had a customer before Xmas who bought a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus and a saddle, which I fitted for him. A couple of days later he phoned to say he'd found the tyres far cheaper online and I'd ripped him off with old stock. When he started on the threats and abuse I put the phone down (after warning him I would if he continued). He called back and went through the same routine several times with me hanging up on him. Eventually he gave me the name of the online shop and surprise surprise, it was they who were selling the old pattern tyres. He did apologise.

A few years ago I asked a young customer if he could help me out by taking the £20 note he was paying with to the bank three doors up to swap for change. An hour later I had a phone call from his mother who ripped into me with a ferocity that could only be justified if I'd taken her son into the back room and Saviled him.

Got charged £15 for a gear cable inner and 2 pieces of outer, the bloke knew he was taking the p and says to me it's 'special' cable. I needed it for a ride that night and couldn't be doing with going to another shop but I won't be shopping there again, shame coz I do like to support local busineses

😯 Who doesn't keep stock of stuff like that???

My favourite was a customer who came in a couple of weeks before Christmas to buy a couple of BMX's. I asked him if he wanted us to build them, or take them in their boxes and he said "I'll build them myself as I wouldn't ride any bike any of you monkey's had built". I just let it go.

On Christmas Eve at 16.45 he comes back in with both bikes a complete mess - LH brake lever pulling the front brake which is cabled wrongly anyway, all the gyro cables twisted, front wheel on the wrong way round, LH pedal in the RH crank so the thread is screwed etc. He asks me to build them up for Christmas Day. I just told him "unfortunately us monkey's go home in 15 minutes so it's not possible".

He slunk out of the shop looking very sheepish. I was expecting him back on boxing day, but not so far...!

Guy who bought an entry level hybrid 2 months back, keeps coming in claiming gears don't work and wants a refund.

We check the bike on a work stand, its all as normal.we ride the bike on the street, its all as normal.

We show the guy its all working normally. We show him how the gears work. We tell him you need to keep pedalling when changing gear.

Still keeps coming back....

Had a customer come in looking to replace his spds, he said they were constantly unclipping as he pedalled and after two weeks he'd had enough. I had a look, checked his cleats. Upside down and back to front, to be fair he wasn't pissed off or owt, did leave a bit embarassed though.

Had a pretty good run recently loads of really nice customers old and new. But a few weeks ago someone did something which I haven't quite figured out yet.

Comes in and tries on an item of clothing, asks if we price match to which I say "I will try my best" then he left the shop.

Comes back later the same day and shows me said item of clothing at half the price we are selling it for (already £15 below rrp) on a large online retailers website on his phone. So I do the usual thing and check on our PC to make sure it is the same item and in stock on the other website.

When I searched it came up at the exact same price as we are selling it on the website he showed me. He then wouldn't show me his phone. When I said can I see it again and just paid for it and left. So I'm not sire but think he might have edited a screen shot or something to try and get me to price match a made up price... Which would not have happens as would have been about a 20% loss on the item anyway.

Customer picks up reduced disc brake pads, asks "will these fit any disc brakes?"

It'd be a good idea wouldn't it? Seems like a smart guy to me.

It's bso time at work this last few days.
All build by the owners with some scary results.

One poor lady had her front wheel fall out - she had used her hand to do one front nut up and rather than another nut on the other side there were just rubber tap washers pushed on.

Oh and it is possible for a cable and some casing to cost £15
The new shimano cables are silly exspencive

Dura ace cables are even worse!

Sadly numerous non-Shimano 4mm outers are sheeeeite.

5mm all the way, Di2 routing is for gayers too!

Jagwire road pro all the way!

I work for Halfords and could write a book on this shit. 🙄

bikeshop monkeys like you (AL), are the reason us proper cyclists use the internet......... 😀

Comes back later the same day and shows me said item of clothing at half the price we are selling it for (already £15 below rrp) on a large online retailers website on his phone. So I do the usual thing and check on our PC to make sure it is the same item and in stock on the other website.

When I searched it came up at the exact same price as we are selling it on the website he showed me. He then wouldn't show me his phone. When I said can I see it again and just paid for it and left. So I'm not sire but think he might have edited a screen shot or something to try and get me to price match a made up price... Which would not have happens as would have been about a 20% loss on the item anyway.

I've heard of stuff like this before. Last summer I went onto Lancaster services and Moto, who own the station, have a App that gives different discounts each day.

This Day it was 20% off Costa or simular. The Lad in Costa double checked the offer as they had previously had customers taking screenshots of offers from previous Days and trying to get the discounts.

M5 bolt snapped on my seatclamp, during long ride home, spotted a bike shop. 😀

"sorry, we don't have anything like that"

😐

returned high markup impulse purchase to display while [s]salesman[/s] numpty staff member mumbles something about new saddle and waves randomly at wall display.

i miss the days of Ernies Used Ball Bearing Emporium..

bikeshop monkeys like you (AL), are the reason us proper cyclists use the internet.........

I agree. Should alway try to help out customers not get all smart arse about them.

[quote=Drac

]bikeshop monkeys like you (AL), are the reason us proper cyclists use the internet.........

TBF, at no point does he say he didn't help them out.

yeah but i bet Al was proper stroppy with em.....you can just imagine it, 1st day back after the new year, got rained on commuting, someone in a car nearly killed him.....oh yes proper stroppy bike spanner monkey....... 😆

i am gonna go into Al's bike shop one day, with some choccy hobnobs, to cheer him up. 😀

The best one is the customer who popped in asking to have there brake set up (or adjusted is how they put it), O,K I said but I will first change the front tyre as the inner tube was trying to escape through the side wall. It does amaze me sometimes what some people don't notice.

I guess I thought by posting this in a light hearted way, folk might see what it's like to work in an lbs...the prize for no-sense-of-humour holier-than-thou goes to...

Drac - Moderator

bikeshop monkeys like you (AL), are the reason us proper cyclists use the internet.........

I agree. Should alway try to help out customers not get all smart arse about them.

Who says I didn't? There comes a time when you have to draw a line though:

customer 1 got a simple explanation

customer 2 was advised to complain to the retail he purchased the good from (who he hadn't yet called) and encouraged to come in if he wanted the parts checked over FOC.

customer 3 will get 50% of the difference in voucher as a 1-off goodwill gesture.

neilsonwheels - Member
I work for Halfords and could write a book on this shit

As a customer I could write a book on the shit that comes out of the mouths of the kids working in Halfords sometimes 😛

Di2 [s]routing[/s]] is for gayers too!

Fixed!

As a customer I could write a book on the shit that comes out of the mouths of the kids working in Halfords sometimes

As one of the elders in our shop I could happily contribute to your book.

Today will not have been the first day back at work for many of us
But it was a rather crazy commute with far to many moments

Yep the standard of driving had certainty took a turn for the worst this morning with the kids back at school.

Fixed a rear puncture on a customers bike.
Guy returns about a month later says, "you fixed a puncture on the rear of my bike, now the front tire is flat, is that some sort of warranty"...

Customer comes in, you fixed a puncture a year ago and its just happened again, is that covered under some sort of guarantee?

Bloke came in today, "rear disc brake is making a metallic sound under braking", look at brake and it appears that one of the pads is worn to the backing plate. Upon replacing pads they're actually fine, just that one is installed the wrong way around with the braking surface against the piston and been ridden like this for some time!!!!

I could on and on and on and on.........

Don't get me started on tube replacements. I have had folks come back in demanding a refund with thorns sticking out of the tyre three months after the tube was fitted.

I had a guy with a slit in his back tyre refuse to get a new tyre, just tube.

I told him it would definitely puncture in time.

He later came back complaining that it had punctured.

This is going back 9 months or so but then I had a customer arrive with his bike saying that he had had new cables and front mech fitted elsewhere (a large national chain that devotes 25% or so of it's floor space to bikes) but still couldn't get the chain on to the big ring. It turned out that one of the screws holding the shifter top cover on had been dropped into the shifter. The rest of the work was so apalling that I had to take some photos:

It beggars belief both that anyone employed to work on bikes could think that they'd done an acceptable job and that the customer could accept and pay for such work.

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I don't envy anyone working in retail anymore - current generation of shoppers seem to be more entitled than ever before.

B2B should be better, but it isn't always - we sell IT solutions, we only sell to client who we manage their IT for so they're all known to us, and us to them, but it's a nightmare sometimes.

Client - I need to be able to do this*

*this could be anything from accessing their network from home to a hugely complicated over-haul of their entire network for some business critical reason or other.

Me - Okay, can I have 3 days to work out the best solution for you.

Client - ahhh, I was hoping to speak to the board about it this afternoon, see we've been planning this for months now - could I have the broad strokes in an hour...

So I don't bring up that fact that this massive job they need is 3 months old. but only know 2 hours before they're working out the budget for it do they ask us how it's all going to work from an IT point of view.

So I spent an hour frantically pulling together all the requirements for their new software, working out how it can be done, liaising with the tech guys about how we can do it, and trying to find a gap in the diary to fit it in - oh and breaking it to them it has to be done after hours and give them the basics.

Several days, even weeks pass before I'm told it needs to be done next week - can they have some figures - quote sent, a quote based on a plan that's taken about 20 work hours to get to.

And what do I get? I tyrannical rant that this PC is £4 cheaper on eBuyer or this server we want £5k for is only £400 on Amazon (missing of course, any memory, storage, power supply, OS, someone to build it, oh and instead of the 6 core Xeon they need it runs an i3 - but other than that it's EXACTLY the same) - why should they pay for CAT5e they've already got that and anyway isn't CAT6 the current one? - can we reuse some of the existing hardware - do we really need to buy a licence for each machine, can't we buy one and just install it 30 times - what do you mean illegal, how I own the disc!

Oh and the best one - if I buy all the hardware myself, will you install it? For free?

Sounds like you need a BOFH...

I don't envy anyone working in retail anymore - current generation of shoppers seem to be more entitled than ever before.

B2B should be better, but it isn't always - we sell IT solutions, we only sell to client who we manage their IT for so they're all known to us, and us to them, but it's a nightmare sometimes.

Client - I need to be able to do this*

*this could be anything from accessing their network from home to a hugely complicated over-haul of their entire network for some business critical reason or other.

Me - Okay, can I have 3 days to work out the best solution for you.

Client - ahhh, I was hoping to speak to the board about it this afternoon, see we've been planning this for months now - could I have the broad strokes in an hour...

So I don't bring up that fact that this massive job they need is 3 months old. but only know 2 hours before they're working out the budget for it do they ask us how it's all going to work from an IT point of view.

So I spent an hour frantically pulling together all the requirements for their new software, working out how it can be done, liaising with the tech guys about how we can do it, and trying to find a gap in the diary to fit it in - oh and breaking it to them it has to be done after hours and give them the basics.

Several days, even weeks pass before I'm told it needs to be done next week - can they have some figures - quote sent, a quote based on a plan that's taken about 20 work hours to get to.

And what do I get? I tyrannical rant that this PC is £4 cheaper on eBuyer or this server we want £5k for is only £400 on Amazon (missing of course, any memory, storage, power supply, OS, someone to build it, oh and instead of the 6 core Xeon they need it runs an i3 - but other than that it's EXACTLY the same) - why should they pay for CAT5e they've already got that and anyway isn't CAT6 the current one? - can we reuse some of the existing hardware - do we really need to buy a licence for each machine, can't we buy one and just install it 30 times - what do you mean illegal, how I own the disc!

Oh and the best one - if I buy all the hardware myself, will you install it? For free?

Reminds me of

@BoardinBob - Member

Ha ha, yeah I recognise myself in some of that - I'm certainly the one who always says anything is possible and my mate in work is completely the other way, he's the one who can only seemingly agree something is possible if the client knows the exact way it's meant to be done - I do realise my only value here is the ability to say yes to everything and then browbeat him into working out how to do it.

I like fixing bikes.I'm quite good at it (after 11 years).
Unfortunately they are owned by people.....which is an issue because
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