Ribble Cycles hit by delayed deliveries again as customers complain of poor service

I have a similar story with severe delays, and poor customer service:

I originally ordered a bike in January '23, on a promotional offer, with a cycle scheme voucher.

There was months of severe delays from Ribble, with minimal and slow communications. Getting a response from their customer services was usually met with silence... 

During this time I needed to change jobs, and as a result I had to cancel my original cyclescheme voucher, and have a new one re-issued. The Ribble customer service representative gave me the option to “hold or cancel” the order until a new voucher was in place, and I requested to hold it.

Subsequently, Ribble customer service representative decided to cancel the order (not hold it, as I requested), leading to further delays in communications, and ultimately Ribble refusing to honour the promotional offer made 5 months beforehand!

The pre-sales experience was amazing, but they don't seem to be able to follow through and deliver.

Bought my CGR AL back in September 2019 before it all went to shit. My experience with their customer service was pretty good, after the derailleur hanger screws came loose (a common problem). I wanted to replace them and couldn't find any, messaged Ribble and they sent a new hanger out with the screws. I had seem some bad experiences on their facebook group, but they were helpful and responsive there. Although admittedly a lot of the staff who were active seem to have left.

Still experiencing delays which is frustrating. I'm a bit more concerned about their future as they've just closed their Nottingham store as well, so i don't know if i'll get my bike.

Word is that Ribble are in the shit. There appears to be a new owner, they appear to be trying to cover up their huge losses and they have let go some of their bike mechanics.

4 months and no end in sight on my build. It seems very patchy. Some bikes are straight through where others are delayed week after week. The worse thing is the week by week creep which just feel so infurating. How can anyone plan a race season with such poor leadtime planning.

I ordered a CGR Ti on c2w back in October and recived in December. I was kept up to date along the way and didn't really feel like I had bad service at any point. The bike is awesome and aftersales have also been good - lost a fork bung and sent one foc after an email. I'll definitely look at Ribble for my next purchase. Maybe I've been fortunate but I can only go on that so far.

My mate ordered a ribble cgr al on my recommendation through c2w in early April. Thankfully it arrived a week early (3 week total) so maybe he got lucky with the spec. 

I got a new Ribble bike back in 2021 and have told my story on here before.  Compared with some, the delay wasn't massive, but it felt like I had to complain publicly (a poor review on Trustpilot) to get decent service.  The fact that some people get their bikes early, whilst others get delayed over and over does suggest something majorly wrong with their systems.

Having said all that, I love the bike (Endurance Ti) and have done more than 15,000km on it in less than 22 months.

It won't be long until Ribble goes under. The numbers aren't looking good, and all that investment they received is going to catch up with them. Sad, really as back in the day they were a great affordable and accesible brand for many.

two years ago ordered one with a 6 month delivery , however it came after 3 months ,yesterday did 41 miles and 4000ft of climbing also arround the River Ribble area with three others who had had various lenghty delivery times , all had great fun. Just  after Black Friday ordered another that came within a week. So i've had great service from Ribble hopefully once the waiting is over everyone can have great fun on their bikes , just to set the record straight i dont work for Ribble

Poor customer service from Ribble...... not exactly a shock.

Excellent products at a decent price, let down by non-existent customer service. This is not a recent development, Ribble have been shockingly bad whenever anything goes wrong for years.

I learned my lesson years ago and vowed never to bother buying from them again.

15 months ago, Ribble were blaming suppliers changing their delivery dates at the last minute. I could understand that to some extent - if Ribble have planned based on the delivery dates they've been told, and then those dates change without warning, Ribble were stuck in a difficult position.

But over a year later, and with many of the supply chain issues (as far as I can tell) becoming less significant, I would have hoped Ribble would have improved their approach and built in more resilience. They would have had numerous options - simply building in more contingency to timelines; increasing stockpiles of parts to hand; better and earlier communication about "estimated" dispatch dates. Whilst I appreciate each option comes with business costs, I would certainly think those costs are insignificant compared to the reputational cost Ribble are facing from having failed to address these issues. 

I still think they have an unfit for purpose software planning system fighting over parts, or they simply don't know how to use it. At some point you have to lock down parts to planned builds. The late cancellations point to a failure to allocate parts to a build in a reasonable window. With free supply of parts you can get away with unallocated parts, but not in an environment of continuous shortages. When I ordered my Ribble 10 or so years ago, I think it was based on all parts in stock and the lead time was constrained only by build capacity.

I did think that the pandemic might have been an excuse for pushing a system over the edge, but now it's be having a serious look at their IT system and management.

Ended up cancelling my order. Due two months after order, delayed for another two months with 3 days notice. The reason for the delay?? No frames!  The only thing they have direct control over. 
Shame really as bikes are great, pre sale experience is good, but if they can't deliver, what's the point ?  Customer service 'chat' lines are a joke, and they don't answer emails. Strange thing is, after cancelling an 'account manager' was in contact within hours, so there are people there.