Terrible place for Trek warranty service or custom...

Terrible place for Trek warranty service or customer good will.

We had a couple of kids Trek bikes that we found out were under a Trek safety recall. We called Trek customer support and they told us that they still honored the recall and to just stop by any local Trek dealer for a replacement bike. We found Cycle Loft on the Trek website and since they had good reviews, we went in with the bikes.

Well, they were not happy to see us. They first complained about having to do the work to process the exchange because they weren't getting paid by Trek. Well, that's a problem between them and their Trek dealer agreement, not us. They agreed but said it would take 2 weeks because there were "a hundred" people ahead of us. We said OK, no problem, we understand it would take time.

Two weeks later, we stopped by for an update and the manager complained again that they were not getting paid for taking care of the Trek recall/replacement and that we should simply be grateful for getting two free replacement Trek bikes. We offered to pay them to switch the accessories from the old bikes to the new bikes but they were still unhappy. They still did not know when the replacement would happen.

We called Trek customer support again. Trek customer support was extremely helpful and understanding. Trek ended up having to call Cycle Loft three separate times to get the process moving along. Trek told us that the replacement bikes would be at Cycle Loft within 2 days.

True to their word, in 2 days, we had our replacement Trek bikes, no thanks to Cycle Loft.

Do you think that if we had a great customer service experience that we would buy other accessories for the bikes? Or when the kids need to get bigger bikes, that we would remember the great experience and buy them from Cycle Loft? Or that we would tell all our friends what a great place Cycle Loft is?

I can only assume that they don't care.

Note that the bad attitude and service we got were from the manager, not the staff so it is obviously a company-wide policy that if you aren't spending a lot of money with them that day (or have previously), then you aren't worth the effort.

Now we tell everyone to go someplace else if you care about customer good will or service. If you are in the area, check out Bikeway Source in Bedford. They actually care about good customer service.

Kudos to Trek customer support. They are great and our kids love their Trek bikes.