In my experience, which may be more limited than most, I don't like the big shops with multiple bike techs, where one guy writes up a work tag and then wheels the bike into the back for another guy or guys to work on whenever it's my turn.

The shop I prefer is near my office and has three employees total, I think. There, one guy does everything for a customer's bike, including ringing up the sale at the cash register when the work is done. That last part doesn't matter as much, but the point is there's one person who takes responsibility for the work he has done.

The other place with a bunch of techs is like big corporations in America these days - no one is personally accountable for anything, and you can never get the same person on the phone again if you have a problem.

A strange analogy, perhaps, but that's the vibe I got the larger place, where they didn't even test-ride the bike afterwards, or they would have clearly seen the problem wasn't fixed. Then, the second time they fixed it (and did it right), no one ever called to tell me the bike was ready. They won't keep me as a customer that way.

I'll stick with the small LBS where I can trust the employees to stand by their work.

Hopefully as I continue to acquire tools and knowledge, I will need LBS service less and less. I haven't used them much, but I had a MTB with a bent RD hanger and a gift of an old road bike that needed a complete overhaul. I didn't have the tool for the RD hanger and I knew I wasn't about to start learning about bike mechanics by doing an entire overhaul. Looking back, that might have been smart, but at the time it was worth it to pay a pro to do it right. That was the smaller shop, of course, and two years later, it still shifts, brakes, and rides flawlessly.