"The rudest man I've seen behind a counter"

A review of The Bike Outlet by Sam written on Saturday 29th of May 2010

Now just to preface this. I've never, ever bothered to go out of my way to pass comment on service in a shop or anywhere else. I never bother with customer satisfaction feedback or anything like it.

I just went with my wife and my sons aged 2 1/2 and 5 to buy a bike for the five year old. It's his birthday this weekend. He was trying out various bikes and we were being helped by a very nice female assistant who was being enormously helpful. The two men in the shop appeared openly hostile as soon as we walked in. I got the distinct impression that children were far beneath their attention.

The younger of our sons was occupying himself on a small four wheeler. One of the "men" came from behind the counter and was ridiculously aggressive. He told us to, "get him off that" (no "please")and said that if we wanted to buy something that was fine, but it wasn't there to entertain our children. It wasn't so much what he was saying, but the incomprehensible anger which he made no attempt to hide. We were obviously in the market for a bike and you'd expect someone who wanted to sell something to think of some way of humouring a two year old. There were plenty of ways for him to keep us happy and get a sale, but he obviously couldn't think of any. The children certainly weren't being noisy or disruptive.

We were truly appalled and left. If he offered me the entire stock in the shop for a pound I wouldn't buy it.

Much against what would have been my judgment before, I ended up in Toys R Us. There the employee was friendly and helpful and we went away happy and with a bike. The Bike Outlet claims to be a family business, but an "impersonal" chain store beat them hands down.

I hope they rely on internet sales, because their "people skills" are likely to put quite a few people off..

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