REQUIRED Field Under Booking details Note
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Ryan Schlehuber
Having a Bike type and Brand should be a required field for Book my Bike in.
Currently we are blind sided by what the customer may be bringing in to our store at the drop off time. The only way to get this information prior to them showing up is calling the customer. Which is a time sink and the same as when we would get calls from customers.
Having them also be required to fill out some sort of note on the bike would be useful as well.
Thanks
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Pascale
Its useful for the workshop to know roughly what's coming - so a brand and type (MTB/road/hybrid/electric) and optional model would be really helpful, as well as a rough description of what's wrong (we don't allow specific service booking as it usually doesn't match what ends up being required).
Neil McQuillan
When we built 'Book My Bike In' we talked to a mixture of bike shop customers, we wanted to create a site which didn't create barriers to booking bikes in.
A lot of the customers didn't know what model the bike was, we didn't want to ask questions which made the process look complex. That said this is a common request from our retailers, perhaps we could add these with 'Don't know' as an option? I own about 8 bikes and I can think of one I don't know the model for, its a Transition but for some reason the model name never sticks, and when I've booked my bike I'm often at work not near my bike store.
Just so we don't go down a blind alley, how would you use this information? The more our our customers who add comments on this question, the better our solution is likely to be.
The whole Workshop side is going to undergo and overhaul in 2025 and we'll be out and about and on the phones getting feedback prior to this, so there is resource coming up to address this kind of area.
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Ryan Schlehuber
Neil McQuillan
I think that knowing the Brand of bike is something the customer should be aware of if they are going to bring it into the shop. With E Bikes this is a must for us. If the customer brings in a bike of the brand we don't sell we often work on them but they have to pay a diagnostics fee.
Check boxes to force the customer to be aware of things like that could work just as well. "Hey is your bike this brand? If not be aware of this fee"
It's also not really obvious in the flow of using the platform. If I put that under the description text. The customer would have to go out of their way to find that we charge them in the current build.
The customer lacks true barriers at the moment. I would find helping guide the customer a bit more useful for both sides.
Neil McQuillan
Ryan Schlehuber Would the requirement to have more information apply mainly to e-bikes?
I think most people will know the brands, I'm wondering if we could make the required questions configurable per retailer, so people can tailor the flow to their typical customer. I own a Cube Ebike which I used as a commuter, but I don't know what model it is, but I could likely name every part on my 5010 :-)
We have a lot of shops who service those new to e-bikes and I think those customers are often not as aware of what they ride compared to the more 'traditional' enthusiast bike shop customer. At least that's my understanding talking to one of the local shops at lunchtime.
That said I'd be interested to know what other retailers think so we can develop this in a flexible manner, you'll all understand your customers better than we do.
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Nathan
Neil McQuillan I think this feature would be handy on multiple levels, first for customers who have multiple bikes such as yourself so we know which bike we will be working on and can add to the repair booking, also to check if we have the correct parts in stock for their requested service/work such as suspension seals or cassette ratios and have the ability to order to have available for their dropoff date. These are just a couple of ways I see this info being usefull outside of Ebike jobs.