>> And, of course, over 26 years you're going to get a few people bringing
>> bikes into the store, claiming their fork is defective because the
>> dropout is bent outward at a 45 degree angle, and it just happened
>> riding along. Somehow. It doesn't take too long to explain to them what
>> happened; of course, you have to do so in a non-incriminating fashion,
>> somehow convincing them that you believe it's possible they might not
>> have noticed it happening. The thing we have to do sometimes to maintain
>> a customer's dignity... :>)
>
> At first glance, I would think these cases are few enough that companies
> like Trek could afford to replace forks for these people, at least within
> the initial warranty period, whether they "should hafta" or not.
>
> Matt O.
Matt: You may have misunderstood the nature of the incident described. The
fork dropouts get bent when the customer has the bike balanced precariously,
manages to secure just one side of the fork in the clamp without realizing
it, the bike then tips towards them and ****** you've got a
possibly-destroyed dropout.
If this was a situation where the damage could even remotely be caused by a
product being defective, there might be times when you'd give someone the
benefit of the doubt, even though it's highly unlikely to have been the
product's fault. But it's not. And experience over the years has taught me
one sad thing- it is, indeed, possible to be too nice, too accomodating for
a customer. We had a few times way, way, WAY back in the day, when we
thought it best to eat certain things in the name of building customer
loyalty. And you know what happened? People then believed that ANYTHING that
happened to their bike was the bike's fault, because, after all, we took
care of that bent rim for them.
There's nothing wrong with acting reasonably, and expecting others to do so
as well. We have exceptionally-few issues, because we go to the trouble of
not just telling somebody "That's what happens when you do something stupid"
but rather why it's not designed to handle that, why that's not in the
category of normal use, and perhaps a lesson in physics about how much
impact there actually was.
In nearly all cases, the customers are impressed that someone actually takes
the time to figure out what really happened and explain it to them.
--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA
"Matt O'Toole" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news
[email protected]...
> On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:26:34 +0000, Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
>
>> And, of course, over 26 years you're going to get a few people bringing
>> bikes into the store, claiming their fork is defective because the
>> dropout is bent outward at a 45 degree angle, and it just happened
>> riding along. Somehow. It doesn't take too long to explain to them what
>> happened; of course, you have to do so in a non-incriminating fashion,
>> somehow convincing them that you believe it's possible they might not
>> have noticed it happening. The thing we have to do sometimes to maintain
>> a customer's dignity... :>)
>
> At first glance, I would think these cases are few enough that companies
> like Trek could afford to replace forks for these people, at least within
> the initial warranty period, whether they "should hafta" or not.
>
> Matt O.
