Trying to decide how irritated to be

".jdb." (brockmjd) 10/20/2014 at 15:27 • Filed to: None

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In today's edition of "Oh, Dealership...."

9:00 AM - Drop off 1-year old minivan for: Oil change, alignment, inspection, new key (we're tired of sharing 2 keys for 3 drivers), and some problems with the sliding doors. Explain that I need the vehicle no later than 2pm to get my kids from school. They say "we'll call you by 1 to let you know how it's going, but you'll have your car by 2".

1:00 PM - no call.

1:07 PM - Call them. "Well, we only ordered the blade for the key, not the whole thing, so we have to order the rest of it. Also your door needs a new actuator, so we'll do both of those together" *sigh*

"OK, so my car will be ready at 2?"

"Yeahh.....it should be ready by about 2."

"OK, I need my car at 2 to get my kids. "

"Oh. Right, yeah. No problem. It'll be ready by 2".

1:45pm - leave the house.

2:00 pm - Get to dealership. Car is done (they never contacted me.). Pick up car without further issue.

2:45pm - Get home with kids. Lock car. It doesn't beep. Scratch head. Check handles. The driver's side sliding door now doesn't lock. At all. You can lock it manually, but nothing - not the key, not the interior switch - will make it lock. Fortunately, it's done this before, and the fix was (and was again, this time) to turn on and off the "child lock" feature, then unlock the doors, then lock the doors with the key and it beeps.

So my issues are:

1: Not calling me when you said you would. 2: Not calling me to tell me the car was finished. 3: Returning the car to me with stuff broken that wasn't broken this morning. (I realize that the door needs a new actuator, but still. Seriously. When I have to fix my car after I pick it up from the dealership...that's bad.)

So here's where I'm asking your opinion, Oppo: On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "yeah, I probably should mention it when I come back for round 2" and 10 is "E-MAIL THE OWNER! CALL STEVE LEHTO! CALL THE NEWS! COMMENCE THE FREAKOUT!" ... where should my response be?
Right now, I'm thinking it's at "I know I'm going to get a call from the dealership saying "hey, were you 100% satisfied?*" and I'll say no, which will trigger their "HE SAID NO!" protocol, and I'll get a call back from the service manager and let them know what happened.

*-"...because you're going to get a survey call from Honda and if we don't get all 5s on our service, then BAD THINGS HAPPEN"

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 15:31

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I'd say i'd be at about a 4 (bad google review lol)

El-Verde > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 15:40

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You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Think about it from their perspective:

9:00am: This guy drops off a car with an issue that I need to have a tech investigate, hopefully identify the problem, and have it fixed by 2:00pm. He is one of 90 cars we will run through the bays today. I think we can get it done, and it seems like he might flip out if I don't guarantee him 2:00pm.

1:07pm: receive a call from a guy wondering why I didn't call him 7 minutes ago. That lady with the broken CV joint was demanding an explanation and accusing us of doing unneccessary repairs and that took a little longer than I thought. OK, man, It will be done by 2:00 it looks like the tech is almost done.

2:00pm: guy comes and picks up the car, which we had done in time, but damn I forgot to call in the 3 minutes it was complete. I hope my tech had time to button up the work before he arrived. Even so, we'd rather have him fix an issue he knows how to fix than have him flip out on us for causing him being late to pick up the kids.

I mean... I'm not saying this is your fault or that they acted in the best possible way, but this is really a pretty minor inconvenience. I'd rate this a 2/10. Here's the best way to handle it:

"I really love the service you guys provide, and I wanted to thank you for having my car done in time to go pick up my kids. That was really helpful. I noticed the door would not lock when I got home, but was able to figure out how to fix it (explain how you did it). Is that the right way to fix that issue or should I have your guys take a look to make sure?"

At worst he'll say "No, you're good, and thank you for coming in for service and your kind words."

At best he'll be like "Damn, I'm sorry we missed that. We'll change your oil for free next time."

BoulderZ > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 15:49

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I think you're at the right spot with waiting for the QA call, then just be polite but honest that they fumbled several key pieces, including, in fact, the key. It's up to them, then, if they're interested in trying to get bettering their processes and service.

Meatcoma > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 16:13

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Look at the bright side. It was done by 2 and they said it would be.

I agree it's bad they didn't get it all fixed and it's a good thing you knew what to do. But you would have been in worse shape if it wasn't done by 2.

.jdb. > El-Verde 10/20/2014 at 16:14

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Yeah. None of these is a "go nuts" issue [1] but it was a series of little "ok, you fumbled that" things that got to me. Which is kinda why I posted this, to see if my ire was justified. Of course, they kinda started off on the wrong foot — last time I was there, an oil change and a flat repair took (if I recall correctly) a bit over 2 hours (I was promised 1 hour, then an extra half-hour ...because of something, not sure what, then another half hour of "it'll be ready any minute now". As others have suggested, I think I'll just bring it up when I get the QA call. This is not a "let me speak to your manager" thing, more of a "hey, these are some places where you could tighten things up" thing. (example - I know they have an automated system that reminds you with a phone call for appointments. I know they can be programmed to call when the car is done. How hard would that be?)

[1] True story - Went to a Meineke to get my brakes done years ago. Tech failed to torque the calipers. One slid into my wheel, I slid off the road. Nobody died, but there's a good chance someone could have.

El-Verde > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 16:47

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I know that it is a service industry, and as paying customers we always demand the best.

Story: I went to a local tire shop to have tires swapped onto new wheels for my 911. They quoted me one hour gave the job to the youngest kid there, and he looked sick from fear that he was going to screw up $6000 wheels. I went over there and told him "take your time, be careful, I'm sure you'll do just fine on them. I'm in no hurry." The kid took it to heart and was done a little over 2 hours later, but my wheels were perfect. I told him story #2...

Story 2: When I was 16 my first job was working in a repair facility. 2 months into the job I was pulling a customer car in (we always locked cars in the shop at night) and ran the damn thing right into the trailer hitch of a truck already parked. Big hole in the bumper...I'm a dumbass...yadda yadda.

Customer comes to pick it up the next day, my boss makes me explain what I did. Older guy who is super understanding: "Honestly kid, I'm going to trade the damn thing in and I don't think it'll make a difference. Just promise me you won't be in such a big hurry all the time and won't make this same mistake with my new car." This guy bought a brand new Mustang and every time he came in, he told my boss I was the only one allowed to work on his car. He was so, in my opinion, unbelievably nice to me and understanding of my error, you'd better believe I gave that thing the best service you could ever imagine.

Moral of the story: As a worker, do your best to help people and be honest. As a customer, understand mistakes happen, handle them with grace, and you'll probably earn someone's respect and get even better service the next time around.

.jdb. > El-Verde 10/20/2014 at 17:01

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Wise words. One of the things I respect most is "Look, I/we screwed up, here's the problem, we're sorry, we're going to fix it." And I can only imagine the horror of 16-year-old you tearing a hole in the bumper of a customer car.
I'll share one of my best work screw-ups: Summer job in college, helping set up a new office for the company I was working for. IT guy said "I need 20 Ethernet cables 10 feet long. Here's a tape measure, spool of cat5, crimper, and plugs. Here's how you do it. I'll come back and check on you in a bit."

The first 3 or 4 I measured with the tape. Then I measured the table I was working on and realized that IT was a 10 foot folding table. PERFECT. Measure, cut, crimp. Measure, cut, crimp. Measu- oh. Right. Sure, I can move to another table. Measure, cut, crimp...
...15 cables later....

"How's it coming?"

"I've got this big pile of cables!"

"These look short...."

....it was then that I realized that the table I moved to was shorter than the one I'd measured. The short cables were used in the server room, so it was OK, but....oops.

El-Verde > .jdb. 10/20/2014 at 17:28

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Haha, trust me, I was not excited to tell the customer. But I was thankful my boss saw me do it and made me own up to it. I might have been more comfortable in the short term if he covered for me, but learning a valuable life lesson was better for me in the long run.

Hilarious on the cables. I don't know what it is about 16-25 males, but we are seriously "durrrrr" sometimes. Full disclosure, I am 25 and hoping that next year is the year I stop being "durrrr."