Evans - credit where credit is due

t4tomo

I ordered some bib shorts and a lightweiht jacket in the Jubilee sale. gGot an automated email and a personal phone call over the bank H to say they'd been delivered to store.

Popped in again this morning as my seat post on the road bike was very sticky - took me an hour of twisting & teasing to gte it out last night so needed some carbon slip/stick stuff before i put it back in again - not sure what the chap I bought it off had been using but it wasnt very good. Told the chap what I needed, he said well a whole pot will las you a lifetime so he came back with a little bit in a sealed bag, gratis.

Cracking customer service all around.

Medders

Evans seem to get a fair amount of stick but my experience of the stores and online have been nothing but positive - in the main they give significantly better customer service and are cheaper than LBS. whats not to like. Special mention to the staff in the St Pauls, Kingston, Wimbledon and Bristol stores.

dhope

Medders wrote:

St Pauls

+1

spasypaddy

as with any big chain store (be it a supermarket/bike shop/computer shop/clothing store/anything else) it completely depends on who serves you, and to a lesser extent what time of day it is.

come into an evans on a sunday morning and the staff member will probably spend 2-3 hours with you if you want it. come into a store in the heart of the city between 12.30 and 2.30 and the staff member is unlikely to be able to spend more than 15mins with you before the other members of public are queuing out the door. If you are the other members of the public this is where you get aggravated and annoyed.

also depends on which staff member you get, some are there because its the only job they could get, others are there because they genuinely have a love for bikes and getting that passion across is something they do very well.

notsoblue

I think with the bigger bike shop it really just depends on who you speak to on the day. The St Paul's Evans is the one closest to my place of work, so I've been in there for emergency supplies and price-checks, etc. Some of the staff there are pretty disinterested and unknowledgeable, but there are a couple that are very helpful and friendly, interested in giving you a good experience in their shop. One thing I've noticed, could just be bad luck, is that if you need advice on anything particularly technical its much harder to get hold of a qualified person in a chain store than in a LBS. Also the waiting times for workshop bookings are pretty crazy.

Koncordski

Snapped my seat post clamp bolt last week, rode down to Evans in Kingston standing on the pedals. Got there 5 minutes before they locked the door and the guy couldn't have been more helpful, didn't have a replacement to hand but spent 10 mins in the spares bin in the workshop and rigged up a temporary bolt to clamp it until i could order another one. All for free and seemed happy to be able to help.

asprilla

I think Evans are really getting their act together. The one near my office and the one on site may not have massive stock but they will help where they can and order you anything in to try. I've only had them do minor stuff, like a re-cable when I snapped my front mech cable on the way to work, but they have done it same day and I can't complain about the quality.

roger_merriman

Medders wrote:

Evans seem to get a fair amount of stick but my experience of the stores and online have been nothing but positive - in the main they give significantly better customer service and are cheaper than LBS. whats not to like. Special mention to the staff in the St Pauls, Kingston, Wimbledon and Bristol stores.

Thought the kingston lot where fairly useless to be honest, I bought the bike because they where the only ones locally, that stock Fuji.

Rather a lot of arrogance in the air.

Yukirin

also not had great experience in kingston, but Chiswick was fantastically helpful.

veronese68

I find Kingston vary greatly in terms of service. Some of them are very good, more are dreadful. I popped in with the Mrs at the weekend just to get an idea of what frame size she'd want for ladies town bike. Spoke to the manager, Greg as I recall, and he was excellent. But then you'd expect the manager to be pretty good.

optimisticbiker

dhope wrote:

Medders wrote:

St Pauls

+1

+1 too, now my 'local' as a short walk from the office. All seem ok in there, especially the little girl with the red hair... she's cute