Hello Charlie,
I was the person you did not meet. Given the Professional tone of your e-mail I am sorry I did not get the chance to meet you.
I did not expect you to drop whatever you are doing, that is why you have other people to act as the face of your business. I cannot get around the fact that the woman you hired to be the face of your business was flat rude to me. I am not talking generally discourteous but actually gave off a vibe (in both tone and manner) of get lost. I personally do not care about "oreitation" or "preference" or whatever, a rude person is a rude person. I did not even ask for you until she was blatantly rude to me. Had your employee been "nicer" I would have left my card, and been happy at that.
I measure the shops I visit by how well they treat their walk-ins. I do it to shops where ever I travel. That is why I do not call ahead, nor do I talk about media affiliation. If you don't treat joe-everyman right then who cares if you treat someone in the "industry" (albeit on the fringe of the industry) right. the fact that you were too busy is only secondary to the fact that your employees drove (not let walk out but physically made it inhospitible) several hundred dollars worth of business out the door.
Regarding your policy, according to your employee this is an outright lie:
the gentleman asked if the tanks on our wall were for sale. The response given was that because of the rarity of these tanks (all vintage Honda) we only sell them to people who have the exact model they are looking for. That is our policy. I have no idea what is referred to as being outright lied about
I was told by your employee with the long black hair, that the particular tank on the shelf above the wall (not hanging) would only be sold to someone who had the particular bike AND THAT I HAD TO BRING THE BIKE INTO THE SHOP. This was after I informed her that I had the specific bike (a 1973 cb750k) and an original set of flake orange sidecovers (I even told her the honda factory name of the color so she would understand that I was somewhat savvy). When I told her that I was from NY and there was no way for me to bring the bike in I was told specifically then it was not for sale because it was "Too Rare" to just sell to anybody. I again stated that it really didn't matter then that I had the exact bike and a need, because I am NOT local it was too rare.
Charlie, I am not the person to tell you how to run your business, but your employees should know your policies. I am not calling you a liar specifically Charlie since we did not speak, but your employees are doing a great job of making it seem like your policies are selective to who ever walks in the door and not really policies at all. It also doesn;t help that your employees doen't really seem to know anything about motorcycles.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that there were a lot of misunderstandings going on that day, and I really don't want to belabor this anymore. I came to your shop looking for a positive expirence and got a bad one instead. If I am back in San Fran any time soon, maybe I will give you a second shot at this.
If you want to talk more about this you can reach me through this board privately. If not, that is fine but your employees have soured me enough that really this is about all the reaching out I am going to do.
Let me be clear as to why I posted this at all. Because I feel that someone has to. I have not made a personal attack on you. Nor have I called into question your mechanical abilities in any way. I have expressed severe disatisfaction with the customer service provided by your employees, in the hopes that you will see to this flaw in your business so as to not further fracture the hobby. Charlie, you have a lot of nice stuff, and a lot of cool things, and I am sure you do a lot of great things in the hobby, but your employees lack both knowledge of the business and customer service skills to keep this reputation intact. For whatever reason you have choosen to hire this particular individual, and based on her attitude I am sure your reasons had to be good - but you need to make sure she is contributing something and not driving sales out the door.
I look forward to hearing from you in the future, should you decide my opinion has any merit.
