Saturday, May 17, 2008

On how NOT to run a business

The Husband put clipless pedals on my bike this weekend. I do not have bike shoes, so on our errands, we stopped at the local bike shop to get some. We found a nice pair of Shimanos and they were reasonably priced. The woman at the store asked if we needed help but we told her we were doing OK...she and The Husband chatted a bit about the shoes while I tried them on. They were good. We looked around to see if there was anything else we needed but there was not. SO...we went to check out. We stood at the register for a bit and waited. Finally, The Girl asked if she could ring the bell. I told her to go ahead. The shop owner was with a customer; his wife was in the back chatting; the other employee was playing on a computer. We waited a good 5 minutes more but NOT ONE employee so much as GLANCED our direction! I was pissed. We left the shoes and walked out. The Boy asked (as we were leaving) if we were leaving the shoes and I said (loudly enough to be heard) "Yes - no one here wants my money so I'll take my business elsewhere!" Again, not one employee even glanced up. WTF? What kind of customer service is that? This is the only bike shop in town. We have bought 3 bikes there in the last 4 or 5 months, not to mention all the other, smaller items. You can bet your ass we will not be returning to said bike shop!

We drove to another shop not too far away (about 30 mi or so) and I got these. They are better shoes and the store had WAY better customer service!

Gymnastics try-outs went well. We *should* hear something this week. Again, I have no idea if she was good enough to make the team.

2 comments:

  1. Hi! I saw a link to this post on BlogHer. OMG! I could not agree with you more! I have seriously walked out of stores and restaurants for poor customer service. At one baby boutique no one said hello when I walked in. Later I was clearly struggling to try shoes on my baby and the young girl a few feet away never helped me. I guess I wasn't dressed to the hills or looked like I had enough money to buy their stuff. I became a faithful customer to Origins make-up for a while, because the lady was so kind to me after a couple of places in the mall snubbed me.

    Sorry for the diatribe! This post really hit one of my buttons.

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  2. Good for you! I would have done the same thing (leave the shoes and announce you were leaving the store without buying). I have done similar things in the past myself. The sad thing is I bet the store does not care. Best to take your business elsewhere.

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