Various other people have commented, this is in the way of being a +1.
Originally Posted by
makeinu
It's not the particular salespeople I have a problem with. It's the whole arrangement. I'm not comfortable talking on the phone for several reasons:
1. I'd rather find out about their products at my leisure and I don't think their sales associates want to talk to me at 3 am.
I just plain hate to talk to strange people on the phone. Up until the final, "okay I'm ready to buy" call, I handled all of my transactions with Bike Friday via e-mail. That included quite a few go rounds over the component selections.
Originally Posted by
makeinu
2. I want all the prices options etc in writing so I can lay everything out and compare side by side with the products of other manufacturers. Without me asking the right questions, I find it unlikely that their sales associates would give me the relevant information to compare their bikes to bikes from other manufacturers. This puts a lot of pressure on me to have my **** together before I call, which makes the whole experience even less leisurely.
ALL the options would be more than you would want. After each pass over my bike they would e-mail me a bike design proposal which had the detailed description and the price differentials of the mods I'd made.
Originally Posted by
makeinu
3. Conversations are two way. There is a certain amount of vulnerability in revealing your intentions to a sales person. The more I reveal to a sales person the more they can oversell to me by telling me what I want to hear. Although, I doubt that a company with a reputation like BF would perpetrate an egregious rip off (nor would I fall for one), it's very important to me to get the best deal and becoming more vulnerable to overselling undermines my ability to do so.
Conversations
are two way, the idea is that you tell them what you want so that they can help you achieve it. I was pretty decided on what I wanted to begin with. The salesman made some suggestions, some I took, others I didn't.
I don't think anyone (except maybe Alex
) is out to sell you a Bike Friday. But they are pretty flexible about dealing with customers.
Speedo