Raleigh unveils new-look Bike showroom
Raleigh unveils new-look Bike showroom
Posted on 20 Jan 2017
2017 is the beginning of a new chapter in the Raleigh history books as they celebrate with the opening of a new-look Bike Showroom, P&A Experience Centre and modifications to the existing Distribution Centre.
As a result of their on-going commitment towards customer centricity, which seeks to improve the overall customer-brand experience, Raleigh are delighted to celebrate the internal launch of the new during a one-day event involving all members of staff.
The new facilities, which represent considerable investment from the business, have been constructed with the customer experience firmly in mind. Featuring a state-of-the art Bike showroom showcasing electric and non-electric bike offerings from leading brands Raleigh, Diamondback, Haibike, Lapierre and Salsa, along with a fully interactive P&A experience centre, customers are welcomed to get-hands on and learn about the ever growing range of distribution products.
Significant investment is being made in areas other bike businesses are cutting back on such as the sales and marketing teams, both internally and externally. They are also acquiring new brands to their product portfolio from renowned bike brand Lapierre, to P+A brands such as Lepper Saddles, Fixit Sticks and Race One. The Experience Centre plays host to a fully formed bike café which will be the central meeting point for the hundreds of national bike dealers that are descending on the experience centre over the first two months of 2017. Whilst sipping on their freshly brewed coffee, they will be conducting their annual business reviews with their local Account Manager, enabling them to build a business plan that works, with the right product mix for their audience.
Aimed at getting dealers more engaged with the brands and products featured, the Experience Centre hosts an array of interactive elements such as a dark room, lock cutting, lock building, time trials and rides on the onsite Velopark.
All Raleigh's new brand acquisitions are on display so dealers can get a first look at what products they have to offer as well as new collections from Raleigh Electric and Kids performance bikes, Haibike carbon range and Diamondback EMTB's, MTB's & BMX.
Alongside the showroom, Raleigh has undertaken a full distribution centre re-organisation which was carried out from November 2016 to January 2017. The process began as a way to ensure the centre was running at a more effective level. A separate area has been created for national accounts, as well as increased safety measures in the form of loading bay bars to ensure bikes are not damaged during the loading process. Voice Picking has also been introduced to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of order picking.
A significant change has been a 250% increase in space for e-bikes. Raleigh is seeing a huge shift in both market and business trends towards e-bikes and envisage this number will only continue to increase.
A new state of the art wheel building machine has just been delivered which can now accommodate fat bike and carbon rimmed wheels. Wheel building is something Raleigh prides itself on still doing at their Nottingham site and as a result, they are the only manufacturer that guarantees 100% tru wheels on delivery. Approximately 100,000 wheels are built a year and the new wheel building machine is only set to increase this number.
Integrated into the Distribution Centre are multiple departments which are a vital in maintaining the quality associated with the Raleigh brand.
Within the new and improved Quality Compliance Department, prototypes are now built here and inspections are carried out against ISO bike safety standards. Stock inspections, troubleshooting, ebike functionality testing and additional quality checking is now being carried out, as well as sample checking on new line bikes and parts and accessory inspections and product liability inspections. There is now a brand new purpose built service centre which opened in January 2017 and houses five technicians employed full time, all with full Cytech training. Returns, warranties and competitin bikes are investigated, fixed and built within the service centre.
Other additional services have been added to ensure the best service for dealers including 6pm cut off for next day delivery, custom pallet service for those large orders and UPS and TNT as sole couriers for all orders.
"2017 is going to be a key year for us as a business. We're now putting months of planning into action and the links are finally connecting to ensure a best in class service for our dealers." Pippa Wibberley, Sales and Marketing Director.
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