BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Trek has opened its School of Certified Service in Waterloo, Wisconsin, at Trek’s manufacturing and R&D facility.
Announced in August last year, the school is now fully operational and accepting students for a full schedule of classes. The Service Centre covers 2,200 sq ft of dedicated educational space and can accommodate up to 20 students per course.
Will Trek’s School be replicated here in the UK? It’s not uncommon for the brand to launch new intiatives in its North American homeland before bringing them across the Atlantic. UPDATE: Trek has confirmed to BikeBiz that a European equivalent is in the offing and could be located in the UK. Full story here.
The five courses being offered range from Service Operations Manager and Service Advisor to three levels of Technician training. Trek’s curriculum is designed to develop each student’s skills beyond the wrench, with an emphasis placed on maximising employee retention, offering a career path, the importance and benefits of professionalism, and the customer experience—all while increasing the efficiency and critical thinking skills of Trek retailers’ staff.
In-person courses are a multi-day "immersive educational experience" where students have one-on-one access to industry educators. For certain advanced courses, representatives from development partners Fox, Shimano, SRAM, RockShox, and Bosch attend as guest lecturers to offer first-hand knowledge of their brands’ key technologies and how they are intended to be serviced. Subject matter and lesson plans are designed in partnership with the same teams that developed the very products the students will be servicing.
