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Evans employees aren't a collective hive mind, so no need to apologise as no one will try to defend the company to their last breath.
Your story echoes one of the fundamental issues each store had. Staff retention. Shit, I think I went through 4 store managers in my time.
Staff not appreciated = Staff that don't have much to lose = staff that don't really give a shit about the customer.
This isn't an Evans thing only, it's endemic to most of the Retail/Service Industry.
Chak-
Staff not appreciated = Staff that don't have much to lose = staff that don't really give a shit about the customer.
Yup and in turn do the bare minimum/barely follow the guideline and procedures, even the law.
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It's true. At the Cycle Surgery, although it's also a big chain company too, I had better reaction by the staff and the girl who repaired my bike at the King's Cross store once did a good job. (I honestly doubt if they even touched my bike at the Evans at Chalk Farm when the story above happened..). You can feel it when a bike is greased and cleaned properly and rolling smooth like butter..
Anyway. Yes, ditto, local bike shops are the best option for bike services, they may take longer to get components as they don't have as much stock as the big corporate shops have, bit it's worth the wait. ;)
The plan is to eventually repair as much as I can on my own and send it over only for the hard bits (bottom bracket replacement, it's pressed, not threaded on my roadie, headset checks etc). Some of the rest I can do on my own and planning to book myself in for some classes at LBK (wheel truing and building, hub rearing, gear indexing, etc).
Hoping to not need to send my steeds out ever again eventually...
😉
edscoble
Anthi
My experience with Evans:
Took my bike for a service at Evans Chalk Farm, I tried to explain to them the problems my bike had and needed extra attention, I asked them to strip the bike fully to clean rusty parts (they didn't), I tried to explain to them that I could not figure out the strange noise that started coming out of the bike and to try to investigate to fix it (ongoing creaky noise for over 6 months) and they were looking at me as if I was crazy talking nonsense, instead of saying "yes we'll look at that" (ends up being the second hand shimano M53 pedal that needed repair which they never checked, I figured it out later on my own) and most annoyingly, when I picked up the bike and asked them to describe what was wrong with the bike and what was fixed/repaired (asking for a simple report on the service) their only response was repeatedly "it's all fine", as if women don't know how to talk mechanics (mind you, I'm an engineer).. I felt really horrible with the whole attitude.
Result: The London Bike Kitchen did a mint job for less and Tim was excellent in explaining to me of what to be mindful of on my next service and how much life is left on some critical parts. Sorry if you work at Evans...but I only buy heavily discounted things on sale online from there now...for what it's worth.