Customer service in times of pandemic at United In Cycling

This year, the pandemic put us to the test and we were faced with many unforeseen challenges, which in turn led to further consequences. Due to the current difficulties in the international supply chains which are affecting the entire bicycle industry, there have been/are frequent delays. For example, several hundred children's bicycles that were initially expected before Easter did not arrive until a month later. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident and has resulted in several large shipments overlapping and arriving at the same time, resulting in long waiting times for assembly.

We always aim to communicate openly and honestly with our customers, but the long delays made it impossible to keep promises regarding the expected pick-up date. This is particularly annoying as we are aware that many children will be disappointed as a result.

In order to shorten the waiting time, we have decided to increase the assembly staff. We have also fundamentally revised our communication policy. From now on, our customers will no longer only be informed when the bike is ready for pickup, but they will also receive an e-mail regarding the estimated assembly time as soon as the delivery arrives.  Since we also include outstanding deliveries in the queue, it is now possible to more accurately predict when an ordered bike can be collected at the latest.

We hope that this transparent information system will help to avoid false expectations. After all, we are aware that young children in particular have little understanding for the fact that the bike they have been looking forward to for a long time is delayed due to international delivery problems.

The satisfaction of our customers is very important to us and we are always happy to receive further suggestions for improvement by e-mail at office@unitedincycling.com.