Canyon boss apologises for delivery delays

The following letter was sent by Canyon founder and CEO Roman Arnold to all Canyon customers who are expecting their Canyon bikes to be delivered in the coming weeks. This letter explains why deliveries at Canyon are currently taking so long, why customer service is difficult to reach and why no exact delivery dates are given.

Dear Canyon customer, as there are currently considerable delays in delivery for a large number of orders, I would like to apologise to you personally. At this time, we are far from the standard of service that I have personally set as my goal and that I expect from my company and the Canyon crew. I take full responsibility for this and hope for your understanding. We are all working around the clock these days to eliminate the causes and bring about a very rapid improvement. I now see it as my duty to provide you with a comprehensible explanation. In 2013, we decided to realise two major projects to meet the increasing global demand for Canyon bikes: the construction of the Canyon.Factory and the upgrade to a company-wide, unified IT infrastructure. The combination of these two projects will increase our flexibility, make us faster and significantly and sustainably improve the service we can offer you. Our goal is to continue to build the best bikes and set new standards in the bicycle industry and beyond. After two years of planning, construction and completion, the new Canyon.Factory is now up and running, production has begun and the new IT infrastructure is live. Unfortunately, a change in work processes on such a large scale is always associated with some difficulties and the transition to the new processes went less smoothly than I and everyone here expected. This has led to drastic errors and delays in many orders, and unfortunately your delivery has also been affected. I apologise for any inaccurate information you may have received to date in relation to your order. As I assured you at the outset, the Canyon crew is working day and night to resolve the issues that have arisen and alleviate the situation. As a result, I am confident that we will send you a correct delivery confirmation for your order within the next two weeks. The big plans to make ordering a Canyon bike better, faster and easier are currently having the exact opposite effect in some areas. This saddens me more than anyone else. Although the situation is improving significantly and noticeably by the hour, we expect it to take another four to six weeks before the entire system runs smoothly. As much as we would like to answer your queries satisfactorily, I ask for your understanding that neither our service centre nor I myself will be able to provide you with any further information during this period. We are doing everything we can to ease the situation and dispatch your bike as quickly as possible. On behalf of all Canyon employees, I would like to thank you for your understanding, trust and support. We would be nothing without the many enthusiastic Canyon riders and fans out there! Your Roman