The (road) cycling season is over north of the 49th, and as such there is a lot more time for a mechanic to sit around and contemplate life. Or at least that's what I ought be doing rather than shopping for parts I don't need and staring at the wall. However, of late I have been thinking about the nature of shops, of the job, of retail, of cycling, of racing and commuting, and how they all connect to form the cycling world out here on the west coast.
More specifically, I've been thinking about some of the problems that seem to come up pretty regularly, and how the way customers and shop staff conceive of and relate to each other shapes these problems.
Par Example:
This past week, we've had several customers balk at their bills when they come to pick up their bikes. Part of this is that some customers don't really know what parts cost, and unless they ask specifically, we tend to assume they have a general idea of what they are getting into, cost wise at least. But a more important factor, I think, is the way we assess repairs and the lack of real communication between the person who is working on the bike and the riders themselves.
As bike shop employees, we are constantly immersed in bicycles. They unavoidably take on a level of importance to us that is grossly disproportionate to how they function in most peoples lives. I'm not talking about the racers and club riders here, or even the enthusiast. I'm talking about the people who come in with bikes they ride three times a year, who have bikes that they leave at the cabin or on the boat for a quick spin every once and a while, or that simply use them as transportation without being invested in their flawless function. Too often our impulse is to hold these sorts of bikes to the same standards as we would our own, or as we would bikes that are pressed into different sorts of service. To do so is to focus only on the bike and not on the rider.
Talking to the rider, and ascertaining exactly what they want the bike to do can be the most important step in providing excellent service. It's easy to tell someone with a 15 year old department store bike that it will cost five times what the bike is worth to make it work well, but it isn't useful, nor is it likely true that the estimate is accurate given what the rider needs from the bike. I think it's time that we began to take in repairs by asking many of the same questions we do when we sell bicycles, all directed at why the rider has brought the bike for repairs. If someone brings in a bike with a brake rubbing and we tell them it will cost 300 dollars to replace the whole drive train plus 60 dollars labour, I think we're ignoring what the rider is telling us. The gears may be skipping, the tires low, the bb loose, but if the rider tells us the brake rubs and that's all, it's likely because they have a very different view of what their bike is supposed to do than we do. We discount this view because the customer lacks the expertise to identify these problems, and as such it is our place to inform them what needs to be done. This usually assumes too much. We may know exactly what is wrong with the bike according to our standards, but we don't know better than the rider what they need from the bike, what they can afford to or are willing to put into it, and if they even care that the wheels wobble and the bars are crooked.
I think it may be time we gave a little more credit to the rider's themselves, particularly the ones that are obviously not as invested in bikes or in cycling as we are. How they see their bikes is just as important as how we see them, and the two views are often perpendicular. To be willing to hear exactly what the rider is trying to tell us without correcting them according to our own cycling-immersion-skewed outlook can be as important as mechanical ability. The perfect service is one with which the rider is satisfied and can feel that they have been listened to and understood, and has participated in the decision making process when it comes to their repair. Sometimes a quick brake adjustment is all a bike really needs - even though to our eyes it may be falling apart - to satisfy the rider.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Safety First...
Some crappy bikes are crappy because they don't work like they are supposed to, or because they do work like they are supposed to but they are not made to work well (this actually happens: don't buy a bike from wal-mart). Some bikes are crappy because they have been modified by someone who has used parts in ways they were not intended to be used and has made the bike unsafe to ride. The first two types aren't fun to work on, because it seems that no matter how much work you put into the thing, it's not going to work well. This can be frustrating. The second type can be frustrating in a very different way.
This past week we dealt with a customer who had done some home modification to his bike, specifically intermixing some threaded and non-threaded headset and fork parts with a quill stem that was the wrong clamp size for the bar he was using. There were other problems with the bike too, and the specifics don't really matter to my point, but the bike was most certainly unsafe to ride even in the most generous judgment. The challenge, when confronted with a bike such as this in a shop, is how to deal with the bike and customer in a productive way.
There are usually three ways a confrontation (and they usually are confrontations) like this go. Either the tech refuses to even work on the bike (which leaves the customer angry and still riding an unsafe bike), or they quote a price to make the bike safe which is much higher than the customer wants to hear (which leaves the customer angry but hopefully riding a safe bike), or the tech does the work the customer asked for and the little extra to make it safe without consulting the customer (usually the case when the tech doesn't actually see the bike before it is taken in, and this tends to produce a large bill which surprises the customer and again we end up with a safe bike and angry customer). In our particular case, it was the last of these three, and our story ended with the customer refusing to pay for some of the work and parts that were done, despite the fact that the bike was unfit to ride without them.
So, what are we to do with bikes that are unsafe to ride and customers that are unwilling to pay to make them safe? The easy answer is to refuse to work on them. This may be the least time consuming and most painless way to do it, but it often means more of the same type of modification that made the thing so unsafe in the first place is about to take place.
The second two ways this can go, as mentioned above, usually go sideways because of cost. Chances are that the reason sketchy kludges exist in the first place is to save money, and cost is generally the sticking point on these types of repairs. I think that the clash comes when, in discussing the desired outcome and cost of the repair, both parties assume too much. The tech usually assumes that the customer is at best being willfully ignorant and at worst challenging their expertise. The customer, I would think, assumes the tech is trying to gouge him or her on work he or she deems unnecessary. Both of us are probably wrong.
As techs, we need to remember that some peoples' bikes inhabit places of far lesser importance than ours in their lives, and as such it can be surprising for them to learn the costs of maintaining something they regard so trivial. These customers often don't know about changing technology and prices, and the patronizing tone this often prompts in even the most sensitive techs worsens the issue. Customers need to realize, though, that bike shops do not make their profit on labour. I once read a forum post in which a rider expressed his suspicion that a shop was intentionally giving his tires slow leaks to force him to come back and spend 10 bucks every week. Obviously he should fix his own flats, as should everyone who rides more than a walking distance from home, but more importantly if he thinks shops make money from fixing flats, he is dreaming. At best we break even, usually not.
So, where are we then. Bikes need to leave the shop safe, and customers need to leave happy; but sometimes, the two are opposites. I guess communication and mutual respect might solve these problems. It seems obvious, I suppose, but it's easier said than done. Usually by the time we realize the way we should have handled a situation, the ship has sailed. Constant vigilance then, constant vigilance...
This past week we dealt with a customer who had done some home modification to his bike, specifically intermixing some threaded and non-threaded headset and fork parts with a quill stem that was the wrong clamp size for the bar he was using. There were other problems with the bike too, and the specifics don't really matter to my point, but the bike was most certainly unsafe to ride even in the most generous judgment. The challenge, when confronted with a bike such as this in a shop, is how to deal with the bike and customer in a productive way.
There are usually three ways a confrontation (and they usually are confrontations) like this go. Either the tech refuses to even work on the bike (which leaves the customer angry and still riding an unsafe bike), or they quote a price to make the bike safe which is much higher than the customer wants to hear (which leaves the customer angry but hopefully riding a safe bike), or the tech does the work the customer asked for and the little extra to make it safe without consulting the customer (usually the case when the tech doesn't actually see the bike before it is taken in, and this tends to produce a large bill which surprises the customer and again we end up with a safe bike and angry customer). In our particular case, it was the last of these three, and our story ended with the customer refusing to pay for some of the work and parts that were done, despite the fact that the bike was unfit to ride without them.
So, what are we to do with bikes that are unsafe to ride and customers that are unwilling to pay to make them safe? The easy answer is to refuse to work on them. This may be the least time consuming and most painless way to do it, but it often means more of the same type of modification that made the thing so unsafe in the first place is about to take place.
The second two ways this can go, as mentioned above, usually go sideways because of cost. Chances are that the reason sketchy kludges exist in the first place is to save money, and cost is generally the sticking point on these types of repairs. I think that the clash comes when, in discussing the desired outcome and cost of the repair, both parties assume too much. The tech usually assumes that the customer is at best being willfully ignorant and at worst challenging their expertise. The customer, I would think, assumes the tech is trying to gouge him or her on work he or she deems unnecessary. Both of us are probably wrong.
As techs, we need to remember that some peoples' bikes inhabit places of far lesser importance than ours in their lives, and as such it can be surprising for them to learn the costs of maintaining something they regard so trivial. These customers often don't know about changing technology and prices, and the patronizing tone this often prompts in even the most sensitive techs worsens the issue. Customers need to realize, though, that bike shops do not make their profit on labour. I once read a forum post in which a rider expressed his suspicion that a shop was intentionally giving his tires slow leaks to force him to come back and spend 10 bucks every week. Obviously he should fix his own flats, as should everyone who rides more than a walking distance from home, but more importantly if he thinks shops make money from fixing flats, he is dreaming. At best we break even, usually not.
So, where are we then. Bikes need to leave the shop safe, and customers need to leave happy; but sometimes, the two are opposites. I guess communication and mutual respect might solve these problems. It seems obvious, I suppose, but it's easier said than done. Usually by the time we realize the way we should have handled a situation, the ship has sailed. Constant vigilance then, constant vigilance...
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