The Unique Challenges and Joys of Running a One-Person Bike Shop

On a sunny Thursday in July, we got the chance to visit Sam Bagnall (Store Manager) at BikeSource RiNo (River North Art District) to have a better understanding of exactly how he handles everything on his own as a one-person bike shop.

Between multitasking simple repairs, to sharing his bike knowledge with customers, Sam keeps a tidy store and runs a powerful ship. 

One-person bike shops are not a rarity in the industry, and they might become more common in the next few years.

Texting plays an important role in Sam’s daily routine, as a one-person bike shop he needs to make the most of all of the tools that are available to him. Text messaging is a tool that will help you as much as you are willing to embrace it – and Sam is the perfect example of just how far you can take it. 

As we navigate the interruptions and multitasking that are a given when it comes to running a store on your own, we cover all the ways text messaging plays a role in running a bike shop. 

Q: What does a day in the life of a one-person bike shop look like?

Brett: So, blows my mind is that you're here alone all the time, right? My first thought was: do you close if you have to go to the bathroom? 

Sam: Short answer is yes, long answer is: if I have to pee real quick, I'll just run, look out, and then if somebody walks in at that time, it's a short enough time frame that I will easily get to them.

Brett: So what happens if you get sick? 

Sam: So this one time when I woke up with a fever, I couldn’t come in, I'm a zombie, I'm not functional. 

But because the store must open one way or another, it makes handling emergencies pretty difficult.

Q: What was the state of communication at the store during COVID?

Sam: We actually didn’t have text messaging during the heat of the COVID rush. 

Brett: Were customers just blowing up your phone? 

Sam: Oh yeah. There were times when we just turned the phones off because we had lines out the door with only six of us at the shop. 

We would actually assign someone to the phones, and that’s all they did all day.

We had to deal with each customer one by one, so the first thing we’d say is ‘Hey, can I put you on hold? Great, cool.’

Finish with this customer, get to the next one. Grab this one, by the time this one starts, they're putting another person on hold. 

Having text messaging would have been way better in this situation for us. We could have dealt with so many more customers faster and at the same time.

As soon as we picked up Ikeono and started using it, it was like a massive breath of fresh air.

I've been working in the industry for 16 years now and we've only been using Ikeono for 3 and it was like… duh!!!!

After so long of doing this – and I’ve been thinking about this – there has to be a better way to communicate with people.

Because phone calls suck. I don't answer my phone when I see a random phone number calling me – my first instinct isn't ‘you should answer this.’

If I don't recognize the phone number, then I'm just gonna let it go to voicemail. 

And if somebody leaves a voicemail, well I don't check them regularly, and usually all they say is ‘call me back’ and chances of that happening are slim. 

But if somebody sends me a text and I don't see it for an hour or two, when I do see it, I respond right away.

With most customers, I ask everybody when we're doing transfers or when we're doing service stuff or anything really. I ask for their number, tell them I will contact them when it’s done and ask if text is ok, they say text is better every time. 

Sam: On our website, there's an option to chat with us and ask questions about service, sales, group rides or a fit.  

I get their inquiry via text and that just makes everything much easier. Most of the time, I can tend to all their needs but sometimes my bandwidth is limited. 

Brett: Yeah, like replacing the headset on the internal cable.

I get it, it’s sexy, but from a mechanic’s perspective, everything is getting more and more complex, and it's the same in the automotive industry, where it feels like the engineers just decided: you know what? Fuck the person that's gonna have to work on this in the future.

Q: How do you feel about online scheduling for service? 

Sam: I think for a shop that has a service department and a clear schedule of how their service department runs, then it's doable. 

However, I think there are a lot of pitfalls with it. 

We actually tried it with another platform at a bunch of our other stores and it was something that, in theory it should work, but it has to be super tightly maintained. 

There has to be somebody, a service manager and assistant service manager, basically a couple of people whose job is to keep an extremely watchful eye on that and work together to make sure that it's not getting overwhelmed. 

The parameters have to be tight and it's, sometimes a rider needs a flat repair so they schedule in a flat repair because there’s availability but then they show up and say they need a full overhaul of the bottom bracket, and so on.

And we can't do that in the time frame they booked.

But I think that the major pitfall is that it relies on the service department representatives maintaining that and making sure that the scheduling blocks are clear. 

But it also relies on honesty from the consumer and that's really difficult to do. 

I think the theory of online scheduling is great, but I think there are some major pitfalls that make it hard to make a realistic thing right now. 

Brett: Ikeono actually had scheduling back in the day, and there were just too many variables.

Every bike is a strip bolt away from becoming a three day process. 

Sam: Yeah, there are enough factors and enough different things to consider where it becomes really hard to control.

Most of the time we are going to need to do a run through of everything because somebody could think they need a brake pad adjustment or just a new set of brake pads when they actually need a whole new caliper or they need a whole overhaul on everything.

We need the person who is going to do the work to look at it and say: this is what I need, this is how much it's gonna take, this is my estimate for when it's gonna get done. 

Q: Have consumers gotten more comfortable with higher estimates for repairs?

You've been in the industry long enough and I was in it pre-complexity, and gone are the $3 days when your brakes need adjusting, now it's a $50 bleed and fluid.

Sam: I think it's a pretty mixed bag when it comes to that because people with higher end stuff generally get it, but others not always.

People ask me: how often should I get my bike serviced? 

What I usually say is that if you're riding it regularly, a tune-up at least once a year is worthwhile, do it while snow's on the ground because that's when mechanics will have time, they'll have resources, they'll have availability, and they are able to better focus. 

I don't think many shops are doing this, but I do think that there is a thing to consider in the summertime, when everyone is busy and stressed, you’re a mechanic and you have eight projects in front of you for the day, the three other mechanics are busy,  and all of a sudden attention to detail starts to be less important. 

I like to think that that doesn't happen, but it totally does.

In the wintertime, somebody comes in and wants to talk about a bike, I can talk to them for two hours about it and I can discuss every single detail they need.

Brett: Yea, happens to all of us, I forgot to tighten the bolts on a crank arm and it came off in a crit. 

It was that same thing, I was drinking from a firehose, like you’ve got eight people wanting you to fix their bikes right away, and you just try to triage but then you make those mistakes and then come winner and it's like every tune up gets a complete breakdown and overhaul.

Sam: Yea… I was just bored, and I really wanted to use the parts washer so I took care of it all. 

It's tough and it happens everywhere. 

I think especially now everyone has a bit of an Amazon mindset, where they expect something to be fixed right away as soon as an issue pops up.

Oh, you can't do a full suspension repair on my bike today? 

But of course, I can't, I have 90 other people this week that have asked me the same exact question and I'm booking them out for three weeks. 

Q: How big of a deal are reviews to you and your shop?

Sam: I would say it's a big deal. 

We track our Google reviews through Ikeono. After we process a sale in our point-of-sale Lightspeed, if we put them in our system, then they will get a text message asking them about their experience (referring to Net Promoter Scores) and then they will get a review request.

NPS is very important too because that's really more what gets tracked on our side of things. 

In my meetings with all the managers, that's something we talk about, that’s what we focus on.

Like, oh, you got a 95% rating, this store got a 100% rating, this store is only at a 60% rating – what’s up with that? 

And I like seeing reviews, even the bad ones.

I have a very high Google review rating here, not to flex or anything.

Brett: Have you been able to catch any customer interaction before it made its way to Google with that NPS text message?

Someone gives you a 6 when you reach out with that post-sale text message and when you follow-up, do they give you feedback instead of going ahead and just leaving a bad review?

Sam: Yes, we do see those things. 

So when we do get a low rating, I will try to reach out to them to ask what we can do better, and make it right, so that we can avoid having it appear on Google reviews.

With Google reviews, you either get someone that has a bone to pick or people that are being genuinely nice. It's either 1 star or 5 stars.

In this industry, it’s rarely ever 3 stars – experience was pretty good but could be better. 

Brett: Yeah, we like to say that NPS is exactly for those people, it’s for the person who might not have risen to the level of going online and leaving a bad review but because you asked they're willing to kind of give that honest feedback and have the opportunity to repair that relationship.

 Sam: Exactly. 

Yeah, it's somebody that's not passionate enough to leave a scathing review or a shining review. 

Somebody who's not gonna go out of their way to do it, but if they get a text, they think: Oh, I just got to click a button really quick, cool, I'll do that. 

Q: Do you get a lot of inquiries from the website through the webchat to text message option?

Sam: Yeah, quite a few of them. That's where a lot of my text interactions start. 

Brett: Interesting, is it mostly for service or sales?

Sam: Both actually, most people either have a service inquiry or they want to speak to a specialist for a purchase.

Brett: So we created those custom buttons to automate that first prompt when someone reaches out via webchat for either a sales question, service, fit or inquiries about group rides. 

Sam: Those buttons are a great way to start a conversation. I get a lot of inquiries that way. 

Q: How much automation has been implemented at this shop?

Sam: We use campaigns for follow-ups on bike purchases. We send a message a couple of days after the purchase just to check-in on how the bike is doing. 

We also use it for special orders. Once I see that an item has come in and it’s for a specific person, I press the button right in the purchase order that automatically tells them their item is here and ready to be picked up. 

Brett: Yeah, with the special orders we prioritized a hands-on approach because the bike needs to be built first. We have found that the best way to go about it is to give the bike shop the ability to notify that customer when they’re ready and not just right when the inventory comes in.

Q: How do you prioritize the tasks around the store as a one-person shop?

Sam: There's a guy that used to work here who doesn't anymore, and he had a list of priorities, I have that printed out on the wall, and it’s what I live by when it comes to time management.

Sometimes people tell me: your phone's ringing, are you sure you won't answer that? 

I say: you're here now, I'm by myself, you're physically in front of me right now, so you are my priority.

[Customer walks in, and Sam needs to step away to help.]

Brett: Sent them a text receipt?

Sam: Of course!

Brett: Does anybody balk at texting anymore? 

Sam: No, there are a few people that want us to call them but most of the time, like everyone prefers texting and it's so easy. 

When people don't want text messages, that's fine. We still have phones, we still have emails. But I always try to ask because text messaging is easier for me and it’s easier for them. 

Q: Do you feel like texting has cut down on other communication streams? 

Sam: Absolutely. 

It has absolutely reduced the number of phone calls.

Because a lot of the time in the past I would have to pick up the phone just to tell the customer I finished with their flat repair and now I just send him a text message instead. 

So in 2020 COVID times, we used another product for texting that just didn’t work for us. 

Honestly, I don't feel like it was ever as useful because it wasn't as integrated as Ikeono. With Ikeono we have everything synced to our point-of-sale (POS) which makes all the difference. 

The Reality of a One-Person Bike Shop

Running a bike shop is not easy to begin with – it’s an industry full of passionate riders that are navigating the complexities of running a business. 

In Sam’s case, he is running the ship solo as he juggles multiple roles and wears any hat he needs to depending on the day. 

We did this interview not only to highlight the impact text message can have in a bike shop but also to shed light on what it truly feels like to run a one-person bike shop. 

It’s truly a unique business experience that requires you to pay close attention to the strategies you choose to ensure your business thrives. 

Learn from the experiences of bike shops just like yours!