halfords and my boardman ht pro

stronginthesun

well just picked up my boardman ht pro from Halfords . bike is fantastic ! one brief ride but its a totally different world from the old hardrock I had . not taking it back to Halfords for any servicing thou , the staff were no help at all , and when I got home I found they hadn't stamped the pre delivery check , althought everything seems set up correct . the muppetts in there were only interested in trying to sell me the servicing deal , which I had great pleasure in declining . have to say that when chris boarman cuts his ties with Halfords cant come quick enough ! cant get over how great the bike is thou

atomic fox

welcome to the boardman club .halfords are hit and miss.when collecting the wife s boardman the staff were fine ,doing all pre checks and set up while we were there and handed us the bike when we/they were happy. on getting my boardman pro at different halfords ,it was fitted with crap pedals and not the carbon seatpost.to be fair they did change them when i said i wasn t happy but service not as good as the other store. great bikes though,enjoy.

steviecapt

bought mine back last year, and i echo the thoughts of the op, halfords staff are a complete waste of time, the sooner chris boardman starts selling his bikes either himself or through other outlets the better for everyone, i think he would sell more bikes through his own shops and cut out crapfords all together, or at least kick halfords arse, to get them to train their staff to a suitable level. his bikes are great value for money though, thats why i put up with dealing with halfords, would never take my bike to them though, touch wood i shouldnt have to deal with them.

97th choice

Conversely, my local halfords is awesome. The bikehut guys are friendly, technically competent and all keen (and in one case sponsored) mountain bikers.

Kowalski675

I like my Team FS, but Halfords are shite.

coulddobetter

I love my ht pro carbon .good service , efficient , knowledgeable young man ( a keen biker )
Set up spot on .

stronginthesun

think your lucky if you get a knowledgeable young man ( keen biker ) working in Halfords . guess he wont be there for long on minimum wage and targets to hit .

The Rookie

If Boardman pulls out of Halfords, volumes will drop and prices rise, if you think that's a good thing, continue to wish for it.....
Some Halfords are good, some very poor, the trouble is the bulk of the turnover is of £150 snotters and the majority of the staff are trained to the minium standard for that sale, in theory Boardmans should only be touched by those trained to work on them, but of course that person isn't always in/available and you end up with the general numpty.

97th choice

The Rookie wrote:

the trouble is the bulk of the turnover is of £150 snotters and the majority of the staff are trained to the minium standard for that sale.

^this.

You talk to any decent staff member and they hate selling the crap stuff, people walk in expecting to buy a decent bike for £100 AND to be able to ride it away after 10 minutes of set up.

Kowalski675

The Rookie wrote:

If Boardman pulls out of Halfords, volumes will drop and prices rise, if you think that's a good thing, continue to wish for it.....

Indeed. I'd rather have the cheap price and check the bike over myself.

steviecapt

id rather just buy the bike straight from boardmans and cut out halfords altogether, the sooner mr boardman does that the better, i cant see why he couldnt sell direct, decathlon seem to do ok

cooldad

Er Decathlon are a giant multi national chain.
Chris Boardman isn't.

oxocube1

Buying the bike boxed is always an option with any bike we sell. You don't have to listen to any sales advise we offer, you could just walk in, pay for a bike and take it home in a box. I really dislike selling any of the 'mainstream' bikes we sell as they are pure shite, but unfortunately the majority of customers we get coming into stores thinks that £200 is to much to spend on a bike so we have to adhere to that. Occasionally I will have somebody come in who is genuinely interested in biking and wants to go for a Boardman or similar, and those are the people I build good relationships with.

I've been at Halfords for two years now and am one of those 'knowledgeable young men' and a 'keen biker' who works minimum wage, and not even on a full time contract. If I didn't love working with bikes so much and wasn't good at it, I would have left a long time ago.

Unfortunately there is no training that is available for employees. The company heads won't spare the cash for proper training which I think is ridiculous but unfortunately we in the stores cannot do anything about it (believe me I've tried). It is literally a learn on the job situation, so if the mechanic teaching the new guys is no good, then any new employees are very likely to be just as bad. It creates the unfortunate situation of stores being very 'hit and miss' for knowledgeable employees. Again head office knows this, but still wont do anything about it...

Kowalski675

Same as it always is in retail - pay peanuts, get monkeys.

The Rookie

steviecapt wrote:

id rather just buy the bike straight from boardmans and cut out halfords altogether, the sooner mr boardman does that the better.

And you think that will keep volumes at the level they are now? Really? Not a hope, so again volumes drop and prices will rise offsetting the direct sales saving.

anj132

oxocube1 wrote:

...

I've been at Halfords for two years now and am one of those 'knowledgeable young men' and a 'keen biker' who works minimum wage, and not even on a full time contract. If I didn't love working with bikes so much and wasn't good at it, I would have left a long time ago.

Unfortunately there is no training that is available for employees. The company heads won't spare the cash for proper training which I think is ridiculous but unfortunately we in the stores cannot do anything about it (believe me I've tried). It is literally a learn on the job situation, so if the mechanic teaching the new guys is no good, then any new employees are very likely to be just as bad. It creates the unfortunate situation of stores being very 'hit and miss' for knowledgeable employees. Again head office knows this, but still wont do anything about it...

I assume the problem being trained demands a higher wage than NMW and Halford's mantra being stack them high and sell them cheap they don't want to have higher costs.

That said... their car batteries aren't that cheap!

You would think they could turn it into a marketing thing, become a big LBS with trained bike mechanics with some 'qualification' to add to the hype. Perhaps it's just too much investment to see the returns.

But to me it seems a little ridiculous to have no training and pay NMW, it's just asking for high staff turnover!

Meh, I'm rambling and I'm sure those fat cats know what they're doing :?:

Kowalski675

anj132 wrote:

I assume the problem being trained demands a higher wage than NMW and Halford's mantra being stack them high and sell them cheap they don't want to have higher costs.

That said... their car batteries aren't that cheap!

Their car batteries are bloody expensive. I needed a new one for my Nissan a few weeks ago and got one (with 3 year guarantee) for £40 from Euro Car Parts. Equivalent battery at Halfords was £80. I imagine that if they trained decent staff then they'd soon lose them to proper bike shops, if they still tried to pay them minimum wage (or exploit them on zero hour contracts).

Kowalski675

The Rookie wrote:

steviecapt wrote:

id rather just buy the bike straight from boardmans and cut out halfords altogether, the sooner mr boardman does that the better.

And you think that will keep volumes at the level they are now? Really? Not a hope, so again volumes drop and prices will rise offsetting the direct sales saving.

Not to mention that he'd have to pass on the costs of setting up to deal direct to joe public - new staff, web design, office premises etc, etc... Of course, it would be great if you could buy Boardmans at proper bike shops too, but I imagine that Halfords would have insisted on exclusivity as part of the distribution deal (plus your LBS may not be keen to stock a bike that retails at a grand, yet has the spec of other bikes that he's trying to sell on his shop floor for 50% more).

The Rookie

Their car batteries are very cheap - if you have a trade discount card, that means I know how much they are ripping off the poor saps paying full price, of course the 'we fit' comes at a price!