Thorn in my foot

[Wardio]

Buying something other than ordinary, day-to-day stuff should be a pleasurable thing and the purchase of a quality, new bike ought to rank as one of the best possible experiences a keen cyclist could wish for. Not so with Thorn for me I'm afraid after placing an order with them on 28 August for a Sherpa.
Leaving aside the abyssmal "sales team" follow-up once my interest had been established, some seven days into "build" I was told that the standard rims were out of stock. I gladly accepted the alternatives but was less than chuffed at the loss of a week, particularly as this information would have been available when their "bike invoice" was raised. On 17 Sept (over three weeks into build) I sent an email asking for a progress report. This morning I get a call asking if anyone had contacted me! No apology when I said "no" of course. Then the unbelievable news that they DID'NT HAVE A BLACK FRAME IN STOCK!! I thought at first that I'd mis-heard the girl and that she was talking about some minor component. I just couldn't get my mind around the fact that after so long, Thorn were now saying that the main constituent part of the bike was out of stock. Robin Thorn himself later confirmed that supplies wouldn't be available until late October.
Reading between the lines, and from information I've received, I think it's possible that "my" frame was initially available, but that in order to comply with a later, more demanding - and possibly existing - customer, it's been "half-inched". Well, Thorn have lost my custom as a result, but how bitterly disappointing it is to support one of our own bike suppliers to the tune of almost £1.5k and be treated in this shoddy way.

[john28july]

OOPS!

[DavidH]

you meant "Side"

The saying is Thorn in my Side.

I guess this is not a particularly helpful comment, but then I am happy with my bike, despite being originally sent the wrong sized bike from what was ordered.

For me, good service is not so much about not making mistakes ever, but a willingness, nay commitment, to correct them when they do. I have no doubt they will look and see what they can do to prevent your experience from happening again. You meanwhile will be getting a 2nd choice bike, so no one is happy out of this.

[Wardio]

No, I didn't mean "Side" and I'm well aware of the saying....I used this in a different way for other reasons.  It won't be a case of 2nd choice as there wasn't one; simply a case of going back and starting afresh, and perhaps making more sure that this time I find an organisation which gives proper service for the money they are taking. In some ways I feel that I've been lucky in a way, as such attitudes can often trickle through to the shop floor...

[vik]

No, I didn't mean "Side" and I'm well aware of the saying....I used this in a different way for other reasons.  It won't be a case of 2nd choice as there wasn't one; simply a case of going back and starting afresh, and perhaps making more sure that this time I find an organisation which gives proper service for the money they are taking. In some ways I feel that I've been lucky in a way, as such attitudes can often trickle through to the shop floor...

I do feel bad for you that things didn't work out to your satisfaction, but your getting overly melodramatic about things.  It's not like you suddenly discovered Thorn was using recycled plumbing pipe in their bikes and you averted getting scammed. 

Since we don't have the full story it's hard to gauge what actually happened, but I'll grant you I can imagine a scenario where Thorn accidentally or intentionally sold that black Sherpa to someone else.  That's not exactly great for you, but it happens regularly in all bike shops so if you won't do business with a shop that would do such a thing I guess you are going to have to learn how to weld.

Clearly based on the reviews and customer feedback you read here and other bike sites Thorn products make people happy and their customer service is, normally, exceptional.

Given that you decided a Sherpa was the bike for you rather than look for another bike that didn't make the cut first time around I'd chat with Robin Thorn....tell him you are not pleased....tell him you'd like a black Sherpa and you'd like him to make their error right in some fashion that seems fair to you.  If it was an accidental or intentional error on Thorn's part I'd be shocked if he wouldn't sort you out.

safe riding,

Vik
www.thelazyrando.com

[jags]

wardio don't give up the ghost just yet,i personaly can't say anything bad about sjs i always had excellent service from them ,i cant for the life of me figure out that blunder somebody somewhere wasen't talking to one another .i hope you change your mind and buy the sherpa it's an excellent bike espesally with the top spec ,oh mine is gunbarrell (green)ish much nicer than black ;Dgloss finish comes up like new when washed and polished.
hope you change your mind buy the sherpa you wont be sorry.
jags..

[Robin Thorn]

Another customer pointed out this thread, so i felt compelled to reply.
I am truly sorry that this attempted purchase has gone so wrong, I've already emailed Wardio but for everyone else here's the explanation:
1) Poor "sales team" response to initial phone call.
Our bikes are priced according to our costs, we just can't afford to have spare bodies kicking around to cope with the rise and fall of calls and emails and the ebb and flow of staff holidays, sickness etc, a relevant person made contact as soon as possible.
2) Lack of wheels one week in.
This is a rod we've made for our own back, we've chosen rims that are what we believe the absolute best, we've been promised deliveries many times but without any rims arriving (incidentally NOW we have stock!!) . Most companies would have simply substituted another rim (we have 100's) or swapped to a different number of spokes but we're trying to deliver the best thing for the job. In the end we agreed to use a more substantial rim on this particular bike.
3) No frame!!
I can see that this appears incredible but it's just how it is, we'd relied on our computer stock control system to be correct which, 99% of the time, it is. with 2000 frames in stock we just can't pick the frames from stock to build until the build is due. This frame WAS supposed to be the last till the next delivery, it just turned out that it could not be found. There are several possible causes for this but none of them feature someone else being given the frame allocated to Wardio for any reason. Either an older invoice was lost in a system crash (so the frame came back as it were to stock), we'd written one off for some reason but failed to record this on the database or the frame has been put on a shelf in the wrong location and now cannot be found.
Our aim is to provide great bikes fit for the purpose, it's not easy and as others have said, mistakes do happen. I'm incredibly sad that it's come to this and hope that Wardio finds something from another manufacturer that meets his needs.

[Wardio]

rather than look for another bike that didn't make the cut first time around I'd chat with Robin Thorn....tell him you are not pleased....tell him you'd like a black Sherpa and you'd like him to make their error right in some fashion that seems fair to you.  If it was an accidental or intentional error on Thorn's part I'd be shocked if he wouldn't sort you out.

Thanks Vic, but no thanks. They made it quite clear, very soon after the event (and before I'd even considered it) that there would no reduction in price, should I be so keen to hang around longer. And can you imagine how I felt when at 11:02 this morning I get an email from Thorn to say my bike order has been despatched, but later find out that this was in fact, only how they confirmed the return of my deposit? Sadly, this experience has left a very bad taste in my mouth and nothing would now convince me to buy anything from Thorn.

[vik]

Thanks Vic, but no thanks. They made it quite clear, very soon after the event (and before I'd even considered it) that there would no reduction in price, should I be so keen to hang around longer. And can you imagine how I felt when at 11:02 this morning I get an email from Thorn to say my bike order has been despatched, but later find out that this was in fact, only how they confirmed the return of my deposit? Sadly, this experience has left a very bad taste in my mouth and nothing would now convince me to buy anything from Thorn.

I hear ya and it's certainly well within your rights as a consumer.  I must tell you I'm not a Thorn customer all the way over here in Canada because there were so many great touring bikes to choose from here, but I especially wanted to deal with a company in the UK.  Whatever happens I hope you get a bike you enjoy and have many safe miles on it...

Thanks for taking the time to provide an explanation Robin.  My LBS here is quite large with a big inventory of parts. At least once a year something I want is in the computer so I make the trek down there only to have it be impossible to find.  I'm a good customer and they treat me very well 99.9% of the time, but a computer database is never perfect.  What can you do?

safe riding,

Vik
www.thelazyrando.com

[Wardio]

My LBS here is quite large with a big inventory of parts. At least once a year something I want is in the computer so I make the trek down there only to have it be impossible to find.  I'm a good customer and they treat me very well 99.9% of the time, but a computer database is never perfect.

As I recall Vic, the only time (in my experience with the very large picking list for the mobile crane company) when something wasn't physically on the shelf was when someone had removed it without updating the computer system.........

[danfoto]

I really do both empathise and sympathise with Wardio, but feel that at the end of the day he's just been very unlucky.  Shit happens, and it happened to him.  It could equally have happened to me, and if it did, I'd have been every bit as disappointed and vexed as he is.  However ...

I speak as someone who after two years of procrastination finally coughed up £1500 for a bicycle in July, to whit a Sherpa with which I was and remain delighted.  No sooner had I done that than the lady wife decided that she wanted one too, and hers was apparently being built at the same time that Wardio's should have been.

I also speak as somebody who's spent the last 31 years running various small businesses of my own, the current one being a million miles away from bicycle manufacture but more dependent upon exemplary customer service.  And there's the rub, as they say.

In my opinion, based only on the purchase of £3000 worth of Thorn bikes within the last four months, the product is excellent and the price is right.  What is not right is the customer service.  When it works it's very good indeed: in particular, we found it easy to trust Lisa Parsons to get the size exactly right for both bikes, even given measurements taken from bikes which were the wrong sizes for both of us, and she sorted out a problem with the lady wife's lighting most obligingly.

Having said that though, I also at one point had a conversation with Robin Thorn along the lines of how many bloody hoops do I have to jump through to spend another £1500 with your firm?  Why does nobody have the courtesy to answer my emails or return my calls?  My point is that although the CS is very good when it works, whether it works or not seems to depend upon the day of the week, time of day, phase of the moon, time of high tide at Bristol and for all I know whether or not there's a "r" in the month.  And when it doesn't work, it's really very annoying - particularly in view of this blurb on the home contact page of the Thorn website ...

Let us pay the phone bill!
If you want to know more about one of our products let us make the call - If you're in the UK, USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia or Norway just click the link below and email us your land line number and preferred time of call and we will do our best to phone you at that time, as long as it is during our normal working hours. We are also proud of our speedy service in answering your questions by email. thorn@sjscycles.com

I can perfectly understand Robin's difficulty in balancing staffing levels against profit and similar problems which beset any small business, and far be it from me to suggest how any of those difficulties might be ameliorated, but I have one suggestion to make - rewrite that text so that it honestly reflects the true picture.  If it said something along the lines of "we're a small firm with not a huge amount of staff so it may sometimes take a while for us to get back to you, but we really do care about your enquiry and we'll return your call or reply to your email just as soon as we can", punters would be less inclined to get so miffed when the CS is having an off day.

The advantage would be that the reality would not then be so glaringly at odds with the premise.

[Wardio]

Well I hope your "lady wife" (is that to differentiate between a "bloke wife"?!) enjoys her Sherpa. I made email enquiries to another two British bike builders, but clearly they are so snowed under with business that they didn't have time to respond. So instead of supporting the "home team", much as I would have liked to (why should I do all the hard work?), I'm treating myself to a Santos Travel Master. As the Cycling Plus review said "...a benchmark tourer".  What a professional organisation! And what superb, immediate response from two of their UK dealers. No dithering about with dimensions and being asked "what's that in feet & inches" and being told "that should be ok" by a bloke who sounds as if he's just woken up; you get a proper fitting service, before and after purchase. Two other family members who were waiting to see how I got on with my new bike will probably go this route as well. Happy cycling!