Could Halfords care any less about their customers?

supersonic

When I worked for them, I tried to point this out lol. Yeah, its good for the store to look nice, and have the right stock, but I was once told to limit my time with customers to concentrate elsewhere. Disgraceful. Put more staff on instead of one person for the first 3.5 hours then.

jaxurbody

Well it's good you tried even if they probably didn't listen.

BRUN

SkyBlueKangaroo wrote:

I Then, on my first ride, the left crank came off. OK, so I hadn't checked every single nut and bolt, but I was a newbie and followed the instruction manual. I didn't expect a brand new bike to be falling apart!

This crank has been a recurring problem, and I suspect it was damaged when it came off originally.

i used to work in a similar kind of shop mate, and cranks falling off on cheaper bikes is very, very common lol

once its come off more than one, the crank AND the bottom bracket should be replaced, that usually sorts it

glooptrooper

I think it's a simple case that they are not prepared to invest in staff - either in numbers of staff available or getting them properly trained. My own experience of a local Halfords was that there was one guy who was trying to do everything and whilst he was doing his best he could not be expected to cope with all customers at the same time and so people got hacked off,

Chaka Ping

Try a different branch?

Some of them are staffed by enthusastic and knowledgeable bike experts, believe it or not.

I've found they're always keen to help anyway, even if their produuct knowledge and commen sense can sometimes be questioned.

pirate_christoph

I don't think that problems with customer service is something that is isolated to Halfords. I have just recently got back into cycling and have been to a few local bikes stores. Some of them have been fantastic and some of them have been down right shocking.

At the end of the day it's the people that make the store. For example I had £500 to spend and wanted to try a few different bikes out for size. Some of the people I dealt with explained the pros and cons of different bikes and spent the time to talk to me where as others simply pointed a bikes and said "for that money you can get this."

I expect that Halfords is more prone to these problems due to the nature of the business but like others have said I have had some good experiences with the staff at Halfords.

BTW SkyBlueKangaroo my advice on buying a new bike is to try them out. I was unsure so I short listed a 3 bikes at different stores and then had a final test day where I went to each store in turn and rode the bikes. You would be surprised how much you can get from a quick blast around a car park:

I decided on a Genesis Core 1.0 in the for anyone that wants to know. It was the one that made me smile the most. I am absolutely loving my new bike. A proper little grin machine

wop

Have/do any of you work in retail and not in a small specialist shop?

Do you earn minimum wage or close to it?

Its like this - big chain retailers don't offer decent money, make you train in your own time and usually at your own expense.

They rely on a LOT of staff goodwill and more importantly staff who give a shit/have pride in their work.

Basically if you get bad service go somewhere else, or go to a specialist retailer.

Which incidentley you aint gonna find on a retail park or on a highstreet.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

moeleilio

I can put my penny worth in on this debate, from two different angles.

Firstly, with an national chain, its the staff in the local branch that make or break it.

This is the case for everything from bike shops to security chains, rentokil etc etc.

This weekend I went to three places.

LBS, reccomended on this forum;

Halfords, and;

Just to see how crap it might be, JJB (sorry)

LBS were excellent, really keen to fit the right bike, happy to order in for me to try out properly.

Halfords were also excellent, one member of staff (part time) did a good job, and also told me, that they guy on lunch was the man to speak to for detail. This is the definition of competence, he tokd me what he knew, and what he didnt know, and passed me on to a guy who was a full time guy, experienced rider.

Both guys pointed our pros and cons of all models, helped me out with local rides, equipment etc. Contrary to some posts, they let me take a bike out to a car park to try out.

JJB, was what I expected, loads of reeboks !! and no one around to ask, I was there for about a minute.

I have put a dpeosit on a carerra kraken (2007) at £269, plus £50 of free accesouries. Thats hard to beat.

Picking it up on pay day this Friday woohoo, try and stop me then!

SkyBlueKangaroo

Nothing wrong with any of the points made moeleilio - but my local Halfords were fantastic when it came to selling me the bike (also a Kraken, and a lot of bike for the money) and separating me from my hard-earned.

My issues only started after the sale. My point is that when it came to resolving a problem for a customer, and making him happy again, they failed miserably.

Now I can appreciate that individual local branches, and even individuals within a branch, will vary in their attitudes, but remember, I ALSO escalated my concerns to Head Office level.

Now if there was anyone in the organisation whose mission statement should be "we want to retain your custom" it should be Halfords Corporate Customer Services - but alas no.

First of all, they didn't document my call, nor call me back as promised - lessons #1 and #2 on your first day at Customer Services School !!

Then when I pressed them again to investigate, they just agreed with the feedback from their local branch - pointless.

That Halfords Head Office couldn't recognise a p*ssed off customer is for me the organisations biggest single failure.

moeleilio

Hi SkyBlueKangaroo,

I agree with what you are saying, it seems clear that you have had p p performance from them, I had a similar deal with Blacks, terrible until I phoned citizens advice, and then quoted them to Blacks head office, head office had a pig ignorant attitude, in contrast to the law, but after free legal advice, they did a U'turn.

Persist with your rights!

punkypossum

Our local halfords managed to break my bike during its 6 week service, and had also assembled it with a faulty headset (hidden by the reflector, so as a complete newbie I didn't know why it kept coming loose). My friends identical bike was assembled without any bearings (admittedly a manufacturing fault, but they should have picked up on it). The service we received when we complained was appaling, it took threats of trading standards for them to offer me an exchange. My friend gave up and paid the lbs to sort out the bearings...

I would not touch Halfords with a barge pole to buy a bike!

moeleilio

Oops, pressed the wrong button.

Took my new Kraken out today, and got an intermittent grinding noise, depednign on the gears and loading on the pedals.

Suspected the bottom bracket or cranks, and after reading through my haynes manual checked the crank arms.

Both were loose!

Then checked everything else.

Going to check tommorrow to see how it rides now,

Message to all of us newbies, check the bike over yourself, get a book/manual.

Even if you ask the shop to check it over, and watch them do it (which I did) you should still take your time at home to double check.

supersonic

Best to check the bike over before each ride - nuts and bolts. If it starts making funny noises on the trail STOP. Get off, inspect.

A book like Zinn and a few basic tools will be the best 30-40 quid you will ever spend!

Markwe

My experience is the other way around, I bought my first bike (about 10 years ago) from a LBS in my home town. On my FIRST ride (the one taking it home from the bike shop) I tried the rear break on a down hill and it fell apart.

I took it back and explained the situation and he explained that I obviously was too rough with it. He offered to give the bike a free service - obviously out of the goodness of his heart :shock: and found nothing mechanically wrong with the bike, just something that required tightening.

Fast forward to this year and a sudden urge to get back into this MTB thing

I get a Carerra Vulcan from Halfords from a sales person who obviously knew what he was talking about, and he spent a great deal of time explaining the different models of bikes in my price range.

I recently took it back for a six-week check and mentioned that I was having trouble shifting into the lowest gear on the front and when I got the bike back the problem was gone and the gears were shifting better then ever.

I also got a cheap hydration pack (Halford's unbrand) and that failed on me twice and they replaced the bladder f.o.c. for a Camelbak bladder of the same size no questions asked (the first time they gave me a straight replacement).

gouldie

moeleilio wrote:

JJB, was what I expected, loads of reeboks !! and no one around to ask, I was there for about a minute.

bit late, but can i ask what jjb store this was? i myself work as a bike tech at jjb (i know, i know but it was the only job i could get as i bike tech around here, no word of a lie!) and i like to think that i offer genuine help. so just to say that not all jjb's are like that. admittedly the bikes are poor, but we can still order in parts from makes such as kenda, onza, fsa etc as they have the same importers as reebok bikes. so come on guys give us some credit?