/engage rant mode
This is a bugbear of mine that also covers multitudes of different product and companies and I wonder if any of you agree with me.
This purchase of my Kalkhoff Agattu C8 Impulse HS was a great joy, until...
I come to remove my wheel
Adjust my brakes
Adjust the mudguard clearance
Learn how best to charge my battery
I get a CD with manuals for all of their bikes with instructions for care that are outdated. Due to design changes.
The CD does not cover all subjects like instructions for adjusting brakes that are fitted to my model.
The descriptions are good in places but woefully poor in others, an example:
To remove the wheel, you have to remove the gear changing cable first. They word it thus
"pull the outer casing out from the outer casing holder of the cassette joint, and then remove the inner cable from the slit in the inner bracket"
Ok, doing this is impossible on my model, the cable is running through the frame and only pops out with 3 inches of outer cable showing I can barely grip the cable let alone slide it out of the joint. It then goes on to describe a way to release pressure if you find this difficult and let me tell you that if you have three arms this maybe, just maybe, possible!
The section on adjusting the brakes only covers basic operation and not even the type of brakes my bike has. I am left to go to the Internet to try and find answers.
The charger pictures show a model that does not look the same as the one I am supplied with. It goes on to describe the lights on the charger and as mine only has one green light I am left to only guess. The battery lights and what they mean also do not match entirely with what happens when I place the battery in the cradle. So I can only guess that I am doing everything correctly?
When I place my battery in its cradle no lights appear at all. I wait for one min, nothing. I lift it out and put it back I press the button on the battery and the five lights light up in sequence and then go out and the first light then starts to flash. The same thing has happened each of the three times I have come to charge it. Not as is described in the manual. Very frustrating.
These are only three examples that I have so far come across. I have little faith that I will not find any more.
I know that companies do this catch-all type of thing for their products for economic reasons but when it leaves consumers frustrated and annoyed with your company because of such simple support issues how economic is that in the long term? What about common decency of wanting to do the best for your customers and do a good job for the sake of "doing a good job".
With modern processes how hard is it, truly, to make a manual for each model and ship it with the bike or have it available online? I do not think it is that hard, even if some of the basic information is repeated across models.
We can all, probably, remember examples of "google translator" instruction manuals that used to come from the far east, but this is a European company that trades, for the most part, on its good reputation for customer service. If it cannot get its manuals in good order I worry for the service I am now obliged to look forward to.
What do you think?
/rant off
This is a bugbear of mine that also covers multitudes of different product and companies and I wonder if any of you agree with me.
This purchase of my Kalkhoff Agattu C8 Impulse HS was a great joy, until...
I come to remove my wheel
Adjust my brakes
Adjust the mudguard clearance
Learn how best to charge my battery
I get a CD with manuals for all of their bikes with instructions for care that are outdated. Due to design changes.
The CD does not cover all subjects like instructions for adjusting brakes that are fitted to my model.
The descriptions are good in places but woefully poor in others, an example:
To remove the wheel, you have to remove the gear changing cable first. They word it thus
"pull the outer casing out from the outer casing holder of the cassette joint, and then remove the inner cable from the slit in the inner bracket"
Ok, doing this is impossible on my model, the cable is running through the frame and only pops out with 3 inches of outer cable showing I can barely grip the cable let alone slide it out of the joint. It then goes on to describe a way to release pressure if you find this difficult and let me tell you that if you have three arms this maybe, just maybe, possible!
The section on adjusting the brakes only covers basic operation and not even the type of brakes my bike has. I am left to go to the Internet to try and find answers.
The charger pictures show a model that does not look the same as the one I am supplied with. It goes on to describe the lights on the charger and as mine only has one green light I am left to only guess. The battery lights and what they mean also do not match entirely with what happens when I place the battery in the cradle. So I can only guess that I am doing everything correctly?
When I place my battery in its cradle no lights appear at all. I wait for one min, nothing. I lift it out and put it back I press the button on the battery and the five lights light up in sequence and then go out and the first light then starts to flash. The same thing has happened each of the three times I have come to charge it. Not as is described in the manual. Very frustrating.
These are only three examples that I have so far come across. I have little faith that I will not find any more.
I know that companies do this catch-all type of thing for their products for economic reasons but when it leaves consumers frustrated and annoyed with your company because of such simple support issues how economic is that in the long term? What about common decency of wanting to do the best for your customers and do a good job for the sake of "doing a good job".
With modern processes how hard is it, truly, to make a manual for each model and ship it with the bike or have it available online? I do not think it is that hard, even if some of the basic information is repeated across models.
We can all, probably, remember examples of "google translator" instruction manuals that used to come from the far east, but this is a European company that trades, for the most part, on its good reputation for customer service. If it cannot get its manuals in good order I worry for the service I am now obliged to look forward to.
What do you think?
/rant off
