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#1
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Advice to Bike shop owners
Yesterday, I went into a bike shop with problems mounting a new tube and
tire on my rear wheel. The salesman treated me like a normal person without talking down to me, but when he took me back to the shop area, the mechanic changed tack and started talking down to me with questions such as "do you know how to find a leak? You should fill a tub with water...." After I had already told him (and shown him) that this was a new tube, which, mounted on my wheel at 7 p.m. managed to be totally flat by the next morning. I brought in the wheel so that they could see there was nothing wrong with it which might be causing the tube to flat. And, since this is a Kysrium wheel, I would have thought they would have assumed I knew something about tires and tubes! But no. His next idea was to lecture me about the changes in barometric pressure which could cause the tube to lose psi. In my living room? Overnight? Totally flat because of "changes in barometric pressure"? Trying to hold my temper, I answered that I thought there was something wrong with the valve. He said, "Do you know the difference between a Presta and a Schraeder Valve?" Well, dammit, a Schraeder valve tube won't fit on a 700c Kysrium wheel, now will it? Finally, the shop manager or owner came up and said, "Put on a new tube, charge it to "shop use" and give an extra tube for free." And that was the end of that, except that the mechanic was clueless about putting the tire's decal in line with the valve stem. I would have thought they all knew about that. I told him I wanted the decal lined up with the stem and he said "Why would you want that?" So, I explained about how that made it easier to locate the area of the tire which might have a problem after the tube had been removed and examined. Anyway, I wanted to ask you shop owners to tell your workers to treat people as if they were normal adults, not children, when they first come in to the store. If you find out the customer is clueless after the initial conversation, you can easily shift gears to a more dumbed-down explanation. BUT, if you treat the customer like a dummy from the get-go, you most likely will have an irritated customer who won't come back. Rant over. Pat in TX |
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#2
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Advice to Bike shop owners
Pat wrote:
Yesterday, I went into a bike shop with problems mounting a new tube and tire on my rear wheel. The salesman treated me like a normal person without talking down to me, but when he took me back to the shop area, the mechanic changed tack and started talking down to me with questions such as "do you know how to find a leak? You should fill a tub with water...." After I had already told him (and shown him) that this was a new tube, which, mounted on my wheel at 7 p.m. managed to be totally flat by the next morning. I brought in the wheel so that they could see there was nothing wrong with it which might be causing the tube to flat. Wouldn't it have just been easier to find the leak and just go in and tell them it's a bad tube? And, since this is a Kysrium wheel, I would have thought they would have assumed I knew something about tires and tubes! Too easy, sorry. |
#3
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Advice to Bike shop owners
Peter Cole wrote:
Pat wrote: Yesterday, I went into a bike shop with problems mounting a new tube and tire on my rear wheel. The salesman treated me like a normal person without talking down to me, but when he took me back to the shop area, the mechanic changed tack and started talking down to me with questions such as "do you know how to find a leak? You should fill a tub with water...." After I had already told him (and shown him) that this was a new tube, which, mounted on my wheel at 7 p.m. managed to be totally flat by the next morning. I brought in the wheel so that they could see there was nothing wrong with it which might be causing the tube to flat. Wouldn't it have just been easier to find the leak and just go in and tell them it's a bad tube? And, since this is a Kysrium wheel, I would have thought they would have assumed I knew something about tires and tubes! Well, knowing how to pronounce "Kysrium" would be an achievement. Too easy, sorry. Does not owning Kysrium wheels show an awareness of European Heritage & Mystique®? -- Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia “Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken / She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.” |
#4
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Advice to Bike shop owners
Wouldn't it have just been easier to find the leak and just go in and tell them it's a bad tube? ---------------------- That's the problem---I mounted the tire 4 times and still couldn't find a leak anywhere. The only clue I had was that it started to lose psi after I put in more than 100 psi. I did the water test with NO results. Did you not read what I wrote earlier? And, since this is a Kysrium wheel, I would have thought they would have assumed I knew something about tires and tubes! ------------------- Too easy, sorry. ------------------ Meaning what? This wasn't a Wal-Mart bike wheel I was taking in. There was no need for them to treat me as if I had never changed a tire or tube in my life. I knew they might say, "There must be something wrong with the rim." and that is why I took the wheel in with me. Pat in TX |
#5
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Advice to Bike shop owners
On Aug 9, 12:56 pm, "Pat" wrote:
And, since this is a Kysrium wheel, I would have thought they would have assumed I knew something about tires and tubes! Except those cases where the Kysrium is attached to a Serotta. |
#6
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Advice to Bike shop owners
"Pat" wrote: (clip) I did the water test with NO results. Did you not read what I wrote earlier? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I have reread your original post a couple of times, and I do not find anything referring to a water test. How was Pat supposed to know that, even AFTER reading what you wrote earlier. With that as a clue, I wonder whether you were contributing to the poor communication as much as the mechanic. Obviously, the manager was smart enough to grasp what was going on, and leaned way over backwards to be fair. He obviously wants your future business, and I hope you give him a chance. I suspect he had a chat with the mechanic after you left. |
#7
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Advice to Bike shop owners
I have reread your original post a couple of times, and I do not find anything referring to a water test. How was Pat supposed to know that, even AFTER reading what you wrote earlier. With that as a clue, I wonder whether you were contributing to the poor communication as much as the mechanic. Obviously, the manager was smart enough to grasp what was going on, and leaned way over backwards to be fair. He obviously wants your future business, and I hope you give him a chance. I suspect he had a chat with the mechanic after you left. Well, I told the guy I originally encountered when I came into the shop that I had done the water test--twice. And, the salesman told the mechanic it had already passed the water test. Sorry for leaving that info out, but the salesman tried to tell the mechanic who just brushed him off and didn't pay any attention to his explanations. Then, he turned on me and started over at the beginning. It was as if he was all knowing and didn't pay any attention to either of us. There was no leak as of the nature of a puncture. As for the manager, I suspect he quickly decided it wasn't worth everybody's time to be standing there going over the original explanation, only to have the mechanic try to start from the beginning even after the salesman told him the tube had passed two water tests. I'll go in there again because the salesman and the manager were acting normal to me and not talking to me as if I were a child. That's my purpose in writing my rant. Remember the "Golden Rule" and treat the customer as you would want to be treated yourself. I think even the salesman was embarassed as the mechanic treated him like a know-nothing idiot before turning to me and telling me that garbage about barometric pressure even though I told him that the tire went flat over night and in my living room. I hope the manager also had a chat with the salesman as there is obviously something going on between him and the mechanic. Pat in TX |
#8
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Advice to Bike shop owners
"Pat" wrote in message ... I have reread your original post a couple of times, and I do not find anything referring to a water test. How was Pat supposed to know that, even AFTER reading what you wrote earlier. With that as a clue, I wonder whether you were contributing to the poor communication as much as the mechanic. Obviously, the manager was smart enough to grasp what was going on, and leaned way over backwards to be fair. He obviously wants your future business, and I hope you give him a chance. I suspect he had a chat with the mechanic after you left. Well, I told the guy I originally encountered when I came into the shop that I had done the water test--twice. And, the salesman told the mechanic it had already passed the water test. Sorry for leaving that info out, but the salesman tried to tell the mechanic who just brushed him off and didn't pay any attention to his explanations. Then, he turned on me and started over at the beginning. It was as if he was all knowing and didn't pay any attention to either of us. There was no leak as of the nature of a puncture. As for the manager, I suspect he quickly decided it wasn't worth everybody's time to be standing there going over the original explanation, only to have the mechanic try to start from the beginning even after the salesman told him the tube had passed two water tests. I'll go in there again because the salesman and the manager were acting normal to me and not talking to me as if I were a child. That's my purpose in writing my rant. Remember the "Golden Rule" and treat the customer as you would want to be treated yourself. I think even the salesman was embarassed as the mechanic treated him like a know-nothing idiot before turning to me and telling me that garbage about barometric pressure even though I told him that the tire went flat over night and in my living room. I hope the manager also had a chat with the salesman as there is obviously something going on between him and the mechanic. Pat in TX This is why the wrenches should just stay in the back and fix stuff. |
#9
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Advice to Bike shop owners
As for the manager, I suspect he quickly decided it wasn't worth
everybody's time to be standing there going over the original explanation, only to have the mechanic try to start from the beginning even after the salesman told him the tube had passed two water tests. I'll go in there again because the salesman and the manager were acting normal to me and not talking to me as if I were a child. That's my purpose in writing my rant. Remember the "Golden Rule" and treat the customer as you would want to be treated yourself. I think even the salesman was embarassed as the mechanic treated him like a know-nothing idiot before turning to me and telling me that garbage about barometric pressure even though I told him that the tire went flat over night and in my living room. I hope the manager also had a chat with the salesman as there is obviously something going on between him and the mechanic. We're all human, at best, and make a lot of mistakes. What separates us is our ability to recognize those mistakes and own up to them, *or* realize that it's not a game where you score points for being right and the other guy loses. The trick is to not make the other person feel like they've lost, but maybe instead learned something useful. But you've also got to realize that, as a customer, the fact that you own all this fancy equipment doesn't mean squat in terms of presumed intelligence or common sense. It's often an inverse relationship. It would be, for example, exceedingly dangerous to make assumptions that somebody with Mavic Ksyrium wheels knows more about the mechanics of a bike than the person coming in with a $500 hybrid that they commute on. As is said, a fool and his money is quickly parted. Some people make intelligent decisions about their purchases, while others simply buy something because it's expensive and everybody else has it. Also, when shops look at people to hire, various skills are evaluated differently for mechanics vs salespeople. It's great to have a mechanic who communicates easily with customers, but it's not essential (while for a salesperson, it very much is). In general, we try to keep mechanics separated from the rest of the world, because they operate more efficiently when they're not constantly interrupted (and more safely as well, since they don't have to remember what they were last doing on a bike so you're less likely to get a bike on the floor with an untightened handlebar). Finally, everyone can have a bad day once in a while. Sometimes a bit more often than that. :) --Mike Jacoubowsky Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA |
#10
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Advice to Bike shop owners
Pat wrote:
snip yourself. I think even the salesman was embarassed as the mechanic treated him like a know-nothing idiot before turning to me and telling me that garbage about barometric pressure even though I told him that the tire went flat over night and in my living room. I hope the manager also had a chat with the salesman as there is obviously something going on between him and the mechanic. Just the fact that you keep your bike(s) in your living room overnight should have been enough to tell him that you're a true-believing, hard-core bicyclist. g Bill __o | The means are the ends in the making. _`\(,_ | (_)/ (_) | --Mohandas K. Ghandi |
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