It's the first warm Saturday in April. The workshop has six bikes on stands and a queue of people wheeling in more. The phone on the wall rings again: someone wants a service before a sportive next weekend. Your mechanic has oil on both hands. Meanwhile the shop floor has a parent with two children who need football boots, and a WhatsApp from the tennis club captain asking whether three rackets can be restrung by Thursday. An AI assistant for sports shops takes that call, books the service into a real slot, writes the restring job down with string and tension, and answers the boot size question from your stock list, so the workshop can keep working.
This page is for independent sports retailers: general sports shops, running specialists, racket sports shops, cycling shops with a workshop, outdoor and football shops, and the many shops that combine several of these. It covers the calls you get by season, what Klugon's assistant can book and answer, what it must hand to a mechanic or fitter, consumer law for worn shoes and workshop jobs, and the costs.
What an AI assistant for sports shops deals with
A sports shop's phone and inbox mix two kinds of business that don't fit together easily: retail questions (stock, sizes, prices, returns) and workshop or service bookings (bike servicing, racket stringing, boot fitting, gait analysis, ski servicing in some shops). Both peak at the same times.
Workshop bookings
For a shop with a bike workshop, booking calls are a steady stream from March to September and a flood in spring. "Can I book a service?" "What's the difference between your standard and full service?" "How long will you need it for?" "Can you look at my gears, they're jumping?" "Do you work on e-bikes?" "My brakes are squeaking, is that a big job?"
These calls take time because the caller wants to describe the problem, and the person who knows the answer is the mechanic, who is in the middle of a job.
Restring requests
Tennis, badminton and squash players want restrings, often against a deadline: a club match, a league fixture, a tournament. They ask about turnaround, string options and prices, whether they can bring their own string, what tension you recommend, and whether you can regrip at the same time. Club captains send several rackets at once.
Stock and size questions
Running shoes in half sizes and wide fittings. Football boots in junior sizes in August. Cricket pads in April. Tennis balls by the box. Club kit. "Have you got the Pegasus in a 9.5 wide?" "Do you have astro boots in a junior 3?" "Is the club's new away shirt in yet?"
Fittings and analysis
Gait analysis for running shoes, boot fitting for walking boots, bike fits. These are appointments with a person and a time.
Kit orders and printing
School PE kit, club kit with numbers and initials, team orders. These have lead times and personalisation, and parents and team managers want to know when they'll arrive.
The everyday
Opening hours, parking, whether you do Cycle to Work, whether you price-match, whether you sell second-hand bikes or take part-exchanges, and returns.
The sports shop calendar
The year has more peaks than most retail. January brings new-year running and gym kit. March and April bring the spring bike rush, the start of the cricket season and the first sunny weekends. Tennis demand jumps in June and July. Late August into September is the busiest football boot and school PE period. Autumn brings winter cycling kit, lights, and the end-of-season service. Running shops see questions build before big local races and marathons. Within the week, workshop booking calls cluster on Monday morning (after a weekend's riding) and Saturdays, and messages come in on weekday evenings.
Booking bike services and racket stringing
Klugon's assistant books into its own built-in calendar, on the phone, in chat, on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. You set your opening hours, the services you offer with how long each takes, which staff member does each one, the minimum notice, how far ahead people can book, the gap between bookings and your closed dates. The assistant only offers slots that are free, and it checks for clashes per staff member.
The trick for a workshop is to set the calendar up to match how your workshop actually runs.
Two ways to model a bike workshop
Drop-off slots. Most workshops don't work on a bike while the customer waits. They want bikes dropped off in the morning and collected later. In that case, create a short "Service drop-off" service for each tier (15 minutes, at the start of the day) and limit the number of drop-offs by assigning them to your mechanics. Two mechanics with one drop-off slot each per morning gives you a diary of two services a day, and the assistant won't overbook it. Write the collection times into the knowledge base ("bikes dropped off by 10am are usually ready by 5pm the next working day").
Bench time. If you'd rather the diary reflected real work, create each service with its bench time as the length, for example "Safety check, 30 minutes", "Standard service, 90 minutes", "Full service, 3 hours", and assign each mechanic as staff. The assistant fills each mechanic's day with real work, and it can't put a full service and two standard services in a morning that only has room for one.
Either way, set closed dates for bank holidays and the days your mechanic is off, and set a minimum notice so the assistant can't book a full service for this afternoon.
What the assistant needs to know about your services
Write each service tier down in plain words: what's included, the price, how long you usually need the bike, and what isn't included (parts, cables, tyres, bleeds). Customers ask "what's the difference?" more than anything else, and a clear answer cuts a lot of calls.
Also write down what the assistant should ask before booking. For bikes, that might be: the type of bike (road, mountain, hybrid, e-bike, cargo), the make if they know it, and a one-line description of any problem. The assistant puts that in the booking, so your mechanic has it when the bike arrives.
Racket stringing
Set up stringing as a service with the stringer as staff. A 30-minute service with a 24-hour minimum notice works for many shops; a 48-hour notice protects you in July. Put your string options and prices in the catalogue or the knowledge base, along with the tensions you usually recommend for each string type and level, and an instruction to take the customer's preferred tension if they have one.
For club captains with several rackets, the assistant can book several slots, or take the request as a lead for your stringer to plan.
Rescheduling and cancelling
In chat and messaging, the assistant can move and cancel bookings. On the phone, it can book and cancel, but it can't move a booking; a caller who wants to change a day is offered a cancel and rebook, or you can move it in the dashboard, where clashes are checked. Customers get a booking reference in the conversation. Klugon doesn't send confirmation emails, texts or reminders, and it can't take a deposit, so if no-shows are a problem in your workshop, that stays in your own process.
"Your bike is ready"
Klugon doesn't send messages to customers on its own. It can't text "your bike is ready for collection". If a customer booked on WhatsApp, a member of staff can reply from the Klugon inbox within Meta's 24-hour window. For most workshop jobs that window will have closed, so the collection call is still yours.
Stock and size answers
The assistant can search your product catalogue on the phone and in chat. Each product has a name, description, category, price, a stock count and a photo. Products are entered by hand. There's no import and no sync with your EPOS, your online store or any supplier's stock feed, which shapes how you use it.
Sizes and fittings
There's no size field. A product has one stock number. So if you want the assistant to answer "is it in a 9.5 wide?", each size and width you care about needs to be its own product: "Running shoe X, men's, UK 9.5, wide". For a running specialist with a wall of shoes in half sizes and two widths, listing everything isn't practical. Most shops list:
- The top few running shoes in the sizes that sell, kept up to date weekly.
- Football boots in junior sizes during the August and September rush.
- Club kit lines by size if you're the club's supplier.
- Rackets and bikes, which are fewer and higher value, with stock counts.
Everything else goes in the knowledge base as text ("we stock men's road running shoes from UK 6 to 13 including half sizes, and wide fittings in most models") with an instruction to offer a stock check by the team for specific sizes. Size advice belongs in the knowledge base too, in your own words: "this boot comes up small, go half a size up", "this model is narrow in the toe box".
Keep stock counts honest. If a pair of 9.5s sells in the shop, the assistant won't know unless someone updates the number. The products page has quick plus and minus buttons and low-stock filters.
Click-and-collect and holds
If you sell online, the assistant can explain your click-and-collect process and timings, but it can't see your online orders, so "is my order ready?" is handed to staff. For in-shop holds, the assistant takes the customer's name, the item, size and when they'll come in, and records it as a lead. That posts to Slack or Zapier if you've connected them, and a member of staff pulls the item. A conversation doesn't change stock.
For gait analysis and boot fitting, set them up as bookable services with the fitter as staff. A customer who books a 30-minute gait analysis slot is much more likely to buy than one who drops in when the fitter's busy.
Kit orders and printing lead times
Put your printing lead times in the knowledge base as a table (club kit with initials, 10 working days; numbers and names, 15 working days) and the dates for school uniform orders before September. The assistant answers "will it be ready for the first match?" from those dates, and takes kit orders as leads for your team to confirm.
What it should leave to your mechanics and fitters
When the assistant hands a conversation over, Klugon marks it as needing a person, shows a "Needs a person" banner in your inbox and posts a notification to Slack or Zapier. It doesn't transfer calls and it keeps replying until someone steps in, so the handover message should say what will happen.
Hand these over:
- Crash damage and insurance quotes. Especially carbon frames and forks. A mechanic needs to see the bike.
- E-bike battery and motor faults. Damaged or swollen lithium batteries are a fire risk. The assistant should tell the customer not to charge a damaged battery and pass it to the team straight away.
- Diagnosing problems. "Is it the chain or the cassette?" The assistant can book a safety check, not diagnose.
- Warranty claims on bikes, frames, shoes or rackets.
- Injury and pain. Bike fit questions that mention knee pain, running shoe questions after an injury. The assistant books the fitting and hands over; it doesn't give medical advice.
- Cycle to Work vouchers. The scheme runs through the employer and scheme provider, and the details vary. Explain that you accept them if you do, and hand specific voucher questions to staff.
- Club, school and team accounts. Bulk pricing, invoices and sponsorship.
- Part-exchange and second-hand valuations.
- Complaints, workshop disputes and anything mentioning chargebacks or reviews.
Sample conversations
These are samples written for this page. The shop, the staff and the customers are made up, and nothing here comes from a real recording.
Sample: booking a bike service by phone in April
A sample phone call. The shop, Hartfield Sports & Cycles, is invented. The assistant's voice is AI-generated.
Assistant: Hello, you've reached Hartfield Sports & Cycles. I'm the shop's AI assistant. How can I help?
Caller: Hi, I need my road bike serviced before a sportive on the 26th. What do you have?
Assistant: We have three service levels. The safety check is £35 and covers brakes, gears and a bolt check. The standard service is £75 and adds cleaning, gear and brake adjustment and wheel truing. The full service is £140, which includes a strip-down and rebuild of the bearings. Parts are extra. For a bike that's been ridden all winter, most people go for the standard service. Which would you like?
Caller: Standard, I think. The gears are a bit jumpy.
Assistant: The standard service includes gear adjustment, so the mechanic will look at that. If a part like the chain needs replacing, they'll call you before doing it. Bikes are dropped off before 10am and are ready by 5pm the next working day. The first free drop-off is Tuesday the 15th, or Thursday the 17th.
Caller: Tuesday's good.
Assistant: Can I take your name, a phone number, and the make of the bike?
Caller: Rob Ahmed, 07700 900987. It's an aluminium road bike, about five years old.
Assistant: Thanks, Rob. You're booked in for a standard service, dropping off by 10am on Tuesday the 15th, ready by 5pm on Wednesday the 16th. That's well before the 26th. Your reference is H-4471. I've noted the jumpy gears for the mechanic. Is there anything else?
Caller: Can I move it if something comes up?
Assistant: Yes. You can cancel by calling, and rebook, or message us on WhatsApp or the website chat to move it. We just ask for a day's notice.
Caller: Great, thanks.
The booking took one of Tuesday's two drop-off slots, with the bike type and the note about gears attached. On the phone, the assistant could book and cancel but not move the booking, so it told Rob honestly how to change it.
Sample: racket restrings on WhatsApp before a match
A sample WhatsApp conversation. The shop and customer are made up.
Customer: Hi, can you restring 3 tennis rackets by Thursday? Club match Thursday evening.
Assistant: Hi! Yes, we restring within 24 hours of drop-off. If you drop them in by 4pm on Wednesday, they'll be ready by 12pm Thursday. What string would you like? We offer a multifilament for comfort (£24 including labour), a polyester for spin and control (£26), or you can bring your own string (£15 labour).
Customer: Same as last time, I think it was the poly. Not sure of tension.
Assistant: I can't see your last restring from here, but the stringer can check our workshop records when you drop them off. For club players on polyester, we usually string around 50 to 55 lbs. Would you like the stringer to use the same tension as last time if it's on record, or 52 lbs otherwise?
Customer: Yes that's fine. Can you regrip as well?
Assistant: Yes, a replacement grip is £8 per racket, fitted while restringing. So that's three rackets, polyester string, previous tension or 52 lbs, plus three regrips. Total £102. I've booked three stringing slots on Wednesday afternoon for your drop-off. Can I take your name?
Customer: Claire Dunn
Assistant: Thanks, Claire. Your references are H-4502, H-4503 and H-4504. Drop the rackets off by 4pm on Wednesday, and they'll be ready by 12pm on Thursday. Good luck in the match.
The prices, tension guidance and turnaround were in the knowledge base. The assistant couldn't see the shop's own stringing records, because they aren't in Klugon, so it handed that detail to the stringer.
Sample: shoe sizes in website chat
A sample website chat. The shop and customer are made up.
Customer: do you have the Glide 5 in a UK 9.5 wide?
Assistant: Yes, we have one pair of the Glide 5 in UK 9.5 wide, in black and orange, £130. A note on fit: this model runs slightly short, so some runners go up half a size. We also have one pair in a 10 wide.
Customer: could I try both? I can come Saturday
Assistant: Of course. I can ask the team to keep both pairs aside until Saturday at 5pm. If you'd like, you can also book a free gait analysis with our running specialist on Saturday. It takes 30 minutes on the treadmill, and they can help you choose between the two sizes. There are slots at 10am and 1:30pm.
Customer: 1:30 please. Priya Shah
Assistant: Thanks, Priya. You're booked for gait analysis at 1:30pm on Saturday, reference H-4519, and I've asked the team to keep the Glide 5 in UK 9.5 wide and 10 wide aside for you. Please bring the socks you usually run in, and your current trainers if you have them.
The model and sizes are made up for this sample. The assistant found two products in the catalogue (one per size), quoted the fit note from the knowledge base, booked the analysis and created a lead for the hold.
Setting up a sports shop assistant
Checklist
- Sign up and create an assistant. Pick a tone that suits your shop. Most sports shops go for friendly and direct.
- Write your workshop menu. Each service tier, what's included and not, price, turnaround and what to ask before booking. Do the same for stringing and any fitting services.
- Decide your workshop model (drop-off slots or bench time), and set up the services, staff, opening hours, minimum notice and closed dates.
- Write your stock and sizing notes. Ranges you carry, size runs, widths and fit notes by model.
- Add catalogue products for the lines that get asked about, one per size where it matters, in GBP, with honest descriptions.
- Write your policies. Returns (shop, online, worn footwear, printed kit), workshop terms, Cycle to Work, price matching, holds.
- Connect Slack or Zapier, so the workshop sees bookings and the floor sees holds and handovers. Klugon doesn't email or text the owner.
- Add the chat widget to your website by pasting one script tag. It works on any site, including Shopify; there's no plugin or stock sync.
- Connect WhatsApp if clubs and customers message you there. You'll need a Meta app and a WhatsApp Business number, and it adds $19 a month.
- After the 7-day trial, add a phone number and forward your workshop line to it at busy times. You can keep your number by forwarding; porting isn't supported. Write your own greeting, and say it's an AI assistant, because the default greeting doesn't.
- Test it with ten real workshop calls from last spring and ten stock questions.
Measuring whether it works
After the first month, check the booking list for workshop and stringing jobs taken by the assistant, the analytics page for calls, minutes and the busiest hours, and the insights page for questions without a good answer. If the busiest-hours chart shows Monday morning call spikes, you'll know why the workshop phone used to go unanswered.
The cost, worked through
Klugon has three separately priced products, in US dollars. Sports shops with workshops lean on the voice agent, because people book bike services by phone. The pricing page has the full tables.
A worked example with stated assumptions. Say your shop gets about 30 workshop and stock calls a day in spring, averaging three minutes each. Over 26 trading days that's 2,340 minutes, and you'd like the assistant to take the half you can't answer: about 1,200 minutes.
- Voice agent, Business: $299 a month, 3,600 minutes, comfortably covering spring. In winter you could drop to Starter ($99 a month, 1,000 minutes). Extra minutes on Starter are $15 per started 100 minutes, so 200 extra minutes in a spring month would add $30.
- Phone number: $9 a month.
- Social agent, Starter: $79 a month plus $19 for WhatsApp, if clubs message you.
Against staff: the National Living Wage from April 2026 is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over. A part-time person on the phone and front desk for 20 hours a week costs about £254 a week, or roughly £1,100 a month, before employer's costs. A mechanic's time is worth more: if answering the phone takes your mechanic out of the workshop for an hour a day, that's an hour of labour you can't charge for.
Against lost bookings: say five workshop calls a week go unanswered in spring and two of those callers book elsewhere at £75 each. That's £150 a week, or about £600 a month, before parts and any accessories they'd have bought.
The trial is 7 days, card required, charged when the trial ends unless you cancel. Phone numbers are added after the trial; before that you can test the voice assistant in the browser.
Consumer law for worn kit, workshop jobs and printed shirts
What follows is general information about UK consumer law, not legal advice.
Shoes and kit bought in the shop
You don't have to take back goods bought in person because the customer has changed their mind, as the government's guidance on accepting returns and giving refunds explains. Many running shops have their own policies, sometimes including a trial-run guarantee. That's your policy, not the law, and the assistant should say so in your words.
Online and phone orders
For distance sales, including online orders and orders taken on the phone or by message, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give customers 14 days from delivery to cancel without giving a reason. You can reduce the refund if the goods have been handled beyond what a shop would allow, for example running shoes worn on a run rather than tried on indoors. Printed kit with the customer's name or number is clearly personalised, and regulation 28 excludes it from that cancellation right.
Faulty goods
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. The customer can reject faulty goods for a refund within 30 days. After that, they're generally entitled to a repair or replacement first. Worn sole units, split seams and failed zips are questions for staff, not the assistant.
Workshop and stringing jobs
Servicing and stringing are services. Under section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act, a service must be performed with reasonable care and skill. If a customer says their brakes failed after a service, or a racket string broke on the first hit, hand it to the workshop immediately. The assistant shouldn't apologise in a way that admits fault, or argue.
Cycle to Work
Many cycling shops take Cycle to Work vouchers. The scheme is run through employers under the Department for Transport's Cycle to Work scheme guidance. Write down which providers you accept and what customers need to bring, and have the assistant hand the rest to staff.
Customer data
Booking details and messages include names, phone numbers and sometimes injury details. Klugon is operated by a German company under the GDPR, with transfers to processors covered by standard contractual clauses as listed in the privacy policy. You're the controller of your customers' data, and the ICO's advice for small organisations covers what that means in practice.
How it sits next to workshop software and booking pages
Many bike shops use dedicated workshop management software or an online booking page, and some racket shops use a simple booking form. Those tools are often better for managing the jobs themselves: parts used, job cards, labour time and invoices. Klugon doesn't replace them and doesn't connect to them.
Where Klugon fits is in front of them: answering the phone and messages, explaining your service tiers, booking a slot in its own calendar and passing the details to your team. If you already run a booking page, you can put its link in the links library and the assistant will share it in chat, or you can move simple bookings into Klugon's calendar. Some shops use both, with Klugon for phone and WhatsApp bookings and the workshop software for the job cards. For more on automating bookings generally, see the guide on how to automate appointment booking.
An answering service would take a message. It wouldn't know which drop-off slots are free or what tension you string polyester at, and someone would still have to ring every caller back.
If your shop sells fashion-led activewear, the clothing boutiques page goes into holds and size runs in more depth. Shops that run kit printing will find more on lead times in the gift shops page, and the tailors page covers fittings and alterations with deadlines. The retail hub covers every shop type, and the AI appointment booking page explains the booking calendar in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Can it book bike services into my workshop diary?
It books into Klugon's built-in calendar, using your opening hours, service lengths, mechanics and closed dates, and checks for clashes. It doesn't connect to bike workshop software. You can also connect Google, Outlook or Apple calendars after setup on the Business tier, but that sync isn't automatic two-way.
Can it tell customers when their bike is ready?
No. Klugon doesn't send texts, emails or reminders. Staff call the customer, or reply from the inbox if the booking came in on WhatsApp and it's within Meta's 24-hour window.
Can it take racket stringing orders with tension and string?
Yes. Set stringing up as a service and tell the assistant to ask for string type, tension and any regrips. It records them in the booking, and the stringer checks them when the racket arrives.
Does it know my stock in each shoe size?
Only for products you've added, one per size, with a stock count. There's no size field and no sync with your EPOS, so stock is updated by hand. Most shops list their top sellers by size and describe the rest in the knowledge base.
Can it diagnose bike problems?
No, and it shouldn't try. It can book a safety check or service and note the problem for the mechanic. Crash damage, e-bike battery faults and anything safety-related should be handed straight to the workshop.
Can callers reschedule a service over the phone?
The phone assistant can book and cancel but not move a booking. In WhatsApp, website chat and other messaging, it can reschedule. Staff can also move bookings in the dashboard.
Does it handle Cycle to Work questions?
It can explain whether you accept vouchers and which providers, from your knowledge base. Specific voucher queries should go to staff, because each employer's scheme differs.
Can it take deposits for workshop jobs?
No. Klugon doesn't take deposits or charge no-show fees. Keep using your existing process for that if you need one.
Will it work for a shop without a workshop?
Yes. For a shop selling footwear, rackets and kit, it answers stock and size questions, takes holds, books fittings and explains returns. The workshop features are optional.
How long is the trial?
Seven days, with a card required and charged when it ends unless you cancel. You can add a phone number after the trial; until then you can test the assistant in the browser and on your website.
If the workshop phone is what's costing you bookings each spring, start there. You can read how Klugon's AI receptionist answers calls and messages across channels, or set up a trial and book a test service into your own diary.