The thing about Evan's is that if they had staff who knew what they were talking about, and had a bit of customer focus about them, I would have bought a bike from them today. As it happens, they don't and I haven't.
Not yet anyway. I'm looking for a new bike and have tried all the bike places - Halfords, Gear, Alpine Bikes. But given that I'm after a middle of the range bike, Evans seems to have the best range of stock. Well on their website anyway. In their actual shop, they have ONE bike that matches my requirements.
We first went in at the weekend, and identified the bike that might be suitable. And this is when I first noticed their utter lack of customer focus. We spent AGES looking at this one bike, kept going back to it, and were standing discussing it for AGES. Hey there, supposed bike sales people, these are what's known as 'buying signals'! Not once did either of the 2 staff, who weren't serving other customers, and who weren't doing anything else actually, other than talking to each other, even throw us a glance, never mind approach to ask if we needed help. So we went up to the counter to ask, and one of them relucantly came over to the bike. Well, she knew nothing about bikes, seriously, she should go and work in a bakery or grocery or something where features of products are perhaps a little bit more obvious. So she went and got the other guy. He was a bit better, but still a bit meh - he wasn't fully answering our questions. We left, as we felt we weren't really getting anywhere.
So, home to the internet, and got a bit more detail on the bike. I phoned up to arrange a test ride, and the guy I spoke to was really good. He gave me lots of information, so I felt a bit more positive about buying a bike from Evans. I set off to the shop fully expecting that I might come home with a shiny new bike.
And then I arrived for my rest ride.
Well, the guy I got this time was something else. When I said I was there for a test ride, he looked at me completely blankly. Like I'd walked into a whole other shop that doesn't sell bikes. He asked me where the bike was and I said that it had been upstairs but I was assuming that, given I'd booked a test ride, that perhaps it may have been brought downstairs. But no, he headed up the stairs anyway, until a faceless voice from the back shouted him back down.
The bike wasn't even ready for me, and needed the pedals put onto it. He then put it on a stand while taking my details. I thought it was a bit shoogly, and was trying to prop it up a bit, but he adjusted it then left it. Two minutes later, the bike crashed to the floor. Yup, the bike I'm considering buying, and am about to ride about the town. They didn't even PRETEND to check it was OK.
I took it out for a test ride and I actually really quite liked the bike. Apart from the fact that the gears on the left kept sticking. You know that way when your legs are going round and round super quickly and the gears just aren't getting in gear? Yup, that. Not ideal when you're going up a steep hill in the city centre, surrounded by traffic. When I told the guy about it later he gave me some flim flam about how the cables loosen when you start to use it. Yeah I know that, but not when you've used it for all of 5 seconds. I think they just hadn't bothered to check it before they handed it over to me.
The other thing they didn't bother to do was open the doors for me. This is a small point but completely demonstrates their lack of customer focus. Here's a quick test for you. If a customer is walking to the door with a bike to take outside, what do you do? Open the door perhaps? Nah, you don't even walk the customer to the door. On my return, there were 4 staff at the counter, and my guy putting some stuff on a display, and not one of them moved to open the door. Really? I have your bike and I'm trying to avoid hitting it with the door and you won't even help. Hopeless.
The guy then completely failed to reassure me with the questions I had. Same questions that still haven't been answered. All I want is to be reassured that I can get mudguards and a pannier rack fitted to it. That cannot be difficult, surely. If that guy (or any of the people I'd previously asked) could have reassured me today that I could have mudguards and a pannier rack, I would have bought the bike.
As it is, they didn't, and I didn't.
I have found my Evans experience really unusual and surprising. Normally when you go into a bike shop, you get a person who is really into bikes, and can tell you everything you would ever want to know about that bike, how it compares to other bikes, and whether this is the bike for you. These guys can't even tell me if I can put mudguards onto it!
So, still on a quest for a bike. And I actually quite like that bike. But I'm not going to buy THAT bike, that they knocked to the ground and gave to me with crunchy gears. And I'm not going to buy it from THAT Evan's. I'll keep looking. read more