Chain Reaction Cycles-Problems?

ads4

Not just me that finds it incredibly slow then

clarkson

i never usually have a problem with them, but the last few things ive ordered recently have taken 5 days or so to come. i think they may be a bit slow at the minute. either that or the postal service sucks, which is probably more like it seeing as the e-mailed me to say it had been dispatched but still didnt come for ages!

Wacky Racer

supersonic wrote:

Wish the CRC website would work!

I agree, it is shockingly slow, but I have learned a way to speed up loading of pages, by clicking on refresh when the screen goes blank and it is still loading. I have no idea why this works, but it seems to for me.

tobciocc

I have to say they've ALWAYS been way ahead of the competition from my point of view, I've ordered loads of stuff and have nothing but praise for them. Things will occasionaly go wrong but 99% of the time they've been brilliant.

Brduk

I dont understand how this can work any other way? How is a company to know that an item is incomplete/lost/damaged/fill this space until the customer informs them?

Ads4 wrote:

Quality...if we have lost your item it is down to you to chase....obviously not their fault at all. :shock:

thenorthernsoldieruk

Well good news...at last! Sort of.

As most people are saying CRC are pretty good I must just be the unlucky one And the bad luck strikes again, the items were sent on Friday and now it looks like good old Royal Mail have lost them...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Oh well as I broke my bike the other day too that's in the shop so the Afghan R&R bike trip has been delayed until fixed. It never rains it pours!

Dirtydog11

Northensoldier.............. I'd say you have just been unlucky!

I've placed 100 orders+ with them over the last 2 years and only once has an item not turned up. I phoned them to advise them of the fact and a replacement was sent out.

I reckon they're having a few server issues as their site has been quite slow recently.

Glad you got it sorted!

It never rains it pours!

Even in Afghanistan it seems.

RictusGrin

New to the forum and found this thread while searching for anyone else who has had issues with CRC.

This is my first purchase from CRC. Bought a Rockshok Reverb seat post for a new build bike from them on the Friday. Received a parcel on the following Wednesday but the seat post was the wrong size - their error, not mine. Returned the seat post that day having spoken to Customer Services and sent photos of the inaccurate labelling. I had explained to them that I had a weekend riding planned in Cumbria and Scotland all pre-arranged and would appreciate a rapid resolution to the problem. Mistakes happen, no big deal, but really needed the set post urgently. They said they would deal with it and I left it with them to resolve.

Received an e-mail the next day saying that a replacement would be sent out on an 24hr delivery - expected on the friday a week after ordered - waited in having taken a day's leave to get it fitted so that I could set off and meet the lads up in Cumbria.....better late than never. The delivery didn't come.

Contacted CRC Customer Services again to find out what had happened, and found out that their dispatch people had sent it out on 48hr delivery despite clear instructions from the Customer Service Team that it ended to be 24hr.

Manager of Customer Service Team spoke with me in a good natured conversation and assured me that a replacement would be sent out on a next day delivery to arrive Saturday AM - today.

No delivery has turned up, I have missed a day's riding, a night's accommodation and it now looks like I am not going to receive the kit I need in time to make it to Scotland for the remainder of the weekend's riding.

All comms have been amicable and friendly. No point in raging at people for these things. However I am most disappointed in the quality of service. Three despatched items, none of which have ben completed as promised.

Cannot contact them today (Saturday) as it appears they do not work on Saturdays.

Seems most people have had a reasonable experience with CRC so I hold out some hope that they will come through for me at some point, but overall my first experience with them has been very poor.

Chunkers1980

What's wrong with a normal post if you can ride?

RictusGrin

Chunkers1980 wrote:

What's wrong with a normal post if you can ride?

Nothing. I don't have a normal post that will fit my new build at the moment, though.

Placed order, wrong item sent, returned item and new item sent out supposedly 24hr delivery. Not received. Another item sent out supposedly next day AM delivery. Not received.

If I had known that CRC would fail at three attempts to get the correct item to me as promised, I would have tried to borrow or buy one for the weekend.

cooldad

Moral of the story is, if you are building to a deadline, go into a shop and buy what you need.

RictusGrin

cooldad wrote:

Moral of the story is, if you are building to a deadline, go into a shop and buy what you need.

Did that where I could.

Unfortunately I don't have a decent bike shop in an accessible location that is open outside of our long working hours. The one I do tend to frequent when I can get down there at the weekend didn't have the item I wanted in stock and wouldn't have had it in for another 2 weeks at least.

I'm not going off at the deep end here because my parcel is a few hours late. CRC had plenty of time and THREE attempts to get this right. I ordered the components with plenty of time to spare according to their delivery policy, checked they were in stock on the phone, got a delivery date and tracking number, and still allowed for sufficient time to return the item and get it replaced if it was faulty or there was some other issue.

Everywhere else who I ordered components from managed to deliver the correct item on time and without issue.

The moral of the story based on my experience is never use CRC again. As a first experience of their service, this does not inspire confidence. However, before I set about spreading the word too far I will contact them on Monday to see what has happened and find out what they can suggest to remedy this situation.

I am encouraged to see the positive comments made in this thread about CRC and I will post back with the results of what happens on Monday. Fingers crossed they will come though and resolve the matter to my satisfaction and we can chalk this one up to an unfortunate series of mishaps at their end.

Antm81

Ordered of CRC plenty of times, always had the right item very quickly, even dispatched items to me on Saturdays and bank holidays.

There's always going to be mistakes made, people do that, just sounds like you've been unlucky.

Chunkers1980

I'm sure you can.. They didn't do it on purpose as they know people like to whine the internet.

You don't need a decent bike shop to get a seat post. Any post would get you through you could even have shimmed. Still it's nice to whinge

RictusGrin

Chunkers1980 wrote:

I'm sure you can.. They didn't do it on purpose as they know people like to whine the internet.

You don't need a decent bike shop to get a seat post. Any post would get you through you could even have shimmed. Still it's nice to whinge

Or perhaps I could have ordered the seat post I wanted for my £3000 build with plenty of time to spare and reasonably expected the right item to be delivered on time on the THIRD attempt by the supplier, without having to rush out of work in an attempt to buy an item I will never use again at cost to myself because the supplier had failed to meet their own stated objectives.

Had they said, "Sorry, but we cannot get a replacement to you in time" then I would have made alternative arrangements and borrowed or bought a seat post to use for the trip.

Still, thanks for your un-necessarily sarcastic input. :roll:

RictusGrin

Antm81 wrote:

Ordered of CRC plenty of times, always had the right item very quickly, even dispatched items to me on Saturdays and bank holidays.

There's always going to be mistakes made, people do that, just sounds like you've been unlucky.

I suspect you are right. Just one of those things.

The first issue was down to mislabeled goods at their end, the second was down to a despatch failure at their end, and I have no idea why this third attempt has failed yet. I will hopefully find out on Monday.

Mistakes do happen and I have no real problem with that as long as they put it right in a timely manner. However they have had two attempts at putting it right and both have yet to come to fruition.

Bit of a bugger really.

Will update, hopefully with some good news and a bit of positive feedback for CRC after I have had chance to resolve the issue in Monday.

cooldad

I blame Wiggle.
Obviously. And for the trillionth time.

cooldad

ps I think what garners little sympathy is people joining the forum just to moan about something.
Most then disappear again.

peter413

cooldad wrote:

Moral of the story is, if you are building to a deadline, go into a shop and buy what you need.

I see where you're coming from however a lot of shops don't just have a Reverb or whatever sitting around, never mind in the right size so they have to order it from the supplier so it's just as likely to go wrong. In fact you could argue that it's more likely to go wrong because there's another person involved to get something wrong.

mattham

Antm81 wrote:

Ordered of CRC plenty of times, always had the right item very quickly, even dispatched items to me on Saturdays and bank holidays.

There's always going to be mistakes made, people do that, just sounds like you've been unlucky.

Agree with this. I ordered at 11pm last night, it was dispatched by 9am this morning. Mistakes do get made, I was missing some chain links from an order from them earlier in the week that is being resolved without any fuss.

I work in an business that has more picking errors and delivery failures than you would believe possible so I know how easy these sorts of things happen. Often its down to the vast amount of email communication outside of the processes and systems used to load orders onto that generate the picking lists and delivery schedules. Then couriers turn up early and later instructions miss the cut off, stock is labelled incorrectly so you haven't got the items and qty that the stock system tells you etc, etc. Its really hard to run a business with hundreds of orders and thousands of incoming and outgoing item transactions going through each day.

No one does it on purpose and it is a shame you have had this experience, my own experiences with CRC have always been positive and I hope they are able to resolve this for you to your satisfaction.

cooldad wrote:

I blame Wiggle.
Obviously. And for the trillionth time.

Though this is true! Except the trillion estimate, it must be way more than that by now!

RictusGrin

cooldad wrote:

ps I think what garners little sympathy is people joining the forum just to moan about something.
Most then disappear again.

That's not why I joined the forum to be honest. It's about sharing experience and seeing if anybody else has had any similar issues. It could be problem with the courier, the supplier or maybe just down to an unfortunate series of cock ups.

I had an issue and wanted to know if anybody had had a similar problem. CRC so far have been very helpful on the phone and it seems that there has been a series of problems at their end.

Most people join forums for a reason to begin with and then it goes from there. There have been some positive comments which have inspired a little more confidence than I originally had in CRC, so that is a good thing. As I said previously I hope to update with some positive news in the next couple of days.

RictusGrin

MattHam wrote:

Antm81 wrote:

Ordered of CRC plenty of times, always had the right item very quickly, even dispatched items to me on Saturdays and bank holidays.

There's always going to be mistakes made, people do that, just sounds like you've been unlucky.

Agree with this. I ordered at 11pm last night, it was dispatched by 9am this morning. Mistakes do get made, I was missing some chain links from an order from them earlier in the week that is being resolved without any fuss.

I work in an business that has more picking errors and delivery failures than you would believe possible so I know how easy these sorts of things happen. Often its down to the vast amount of email communication outside of the processes and systems used to load orders onto that generate the picking lists and delivery schedules. Then couriers turn up early and later instructions miss the cut off, stock is labelled incorrectly so you haven't got the items and qty that the stock system tells you etc, etc. Its really hard to run a business with hundreds of orders and thousands of incoming and outgoing item transactions going through each day.

No one does it on purpose and it is a shame you have had this experience, my own experiences with CRC have always been positive and I hope they are able to resolve this for you to your satisfaction.

cooldad wrote:

I blame Wiggle.
Obviously. And for the trillionth time.

Though this is true! Except the trillion estimate, it must be way more than that by now!

Thanks. I don't think for one second that they have done this deliberately. I'm just rather perplexed as to how they can get it wrong Three times. Once is unfortunate, twice is a bit of cock-up, three times is taking it a bit far, IMO.

cooldad

I did say most disappear, some don't.
These days CRC are a huge, automated warehouse, so 99% of the time they are really efficient (never pay for fast postage - it all seems to take the same amount of time), but when something does go wrong they do seem to get a bit confused.
Personally I've never had a problem, and returns have always been sorted out really quickly, but people obviously have had issues.
CRC are huge though, so I would think problems are only a small percentage of sales, and most of the time their prices make up for it.
I hope your news is good.

RictusGrin

cooldad wrote:

I did say most disappear, some don't.
These days CRC are a huge, automated warehouse, so 99% of the time they are really efficient (never pay for fast postage - it all seems to take the same amount of time), but when something does go wrong they do seem to get a bit confused.
Personally I've never had a problem, and returns have always been sorted out really quickly, but people obviously have had issues.
CRC are huge though, so I would think problems are only a small percentage of sales, and most of the time their prices make up for it.
I hope your news is good.

Thanks Cooldad. Been a rather frustrating weekend so far. Itching to get out for a ride.

I have a bit more confidence in CRC having read this thread, and received some positive feedback from people like yourself so hopefully it will come good.

I suppose I should look on the bright side, I have been able to mow the lawns and take my little lad out for a bike riding lesson on his new MTB. So it;s not all bad news.

veronese68

So, the OP had a problem in 2009 and another problem in 2014. I wish our record was that good. I sympathise with the likes of CRC with a lot of these problems as they do not control the couriers. We send several hundred parcels out every day, not surprisingly some go wrong. Unfortunately, once an order has started to go wrong it seems to go from bad to worse. So instead of 3 orders having minor problems 1 order will get 3 problems in succession. Sods Law seems to apply more once something has started to go wrong.
As Cooldad says if there are time issues go to a shop if possible. Don't order stuff mail order at the last minute if you need it.
Saturday deliveries from courier companies are desperately unreliable and very expensive. If you need a Saturday delivery plan something else to do with your time.
If possible phone and talk to someone when there is a problem. Get their name in case you need to follow up. Don't lose your rag and shout at them. It's not the fault of the person on the end of the phone and if you want them to help you be nice to them.
Generally I think service from most of these companies is very good. Remember the phrase "allow 28 days for delivery" and think how lucky we are.
I'm off to the warehouse to see if my order from CRC has turned up.

Angus Young

My experience of CRC is that they're an incredibly sorted outfit. Every time I've ordered from them it's been efficient beyond expectation and the returns (wrong size shoes) is equally sorted. Couldn't expect more.

RictusGrin

Update:

Got 2 seat posts on Monday Morning and have fitted one without any problems. Need to return the other as an unwanted item.

CRC have fallen over themselves to be helpful and have apologised profusely. The conversations we had yesterday were good natured and their customer service team took ownership of the issue and have been quite pro-active in addressing my concerns.

CRC contacted me this afternoon with another apology and explanation of what they think has happened and have sent me some vouchers as a good will gesture.

I'm encouraged by the outcome.