General Customer Care and Car Tech Attitudes

[xLibelle]

Guy on the board here reminded me of attitudes purveyed by car techs, service, whomever, while i have tried for advice and info on purchases and the general observation i have made.

The observation? - crappy attitudes!

I either get a, "I dont have time to help you", "This question is redundant and under me", "Youre an idiot to try such a thing", "OH, where did you hear that?", short tempers, idiots who really dont know what they are talking about, etc., to help when i call to bmw and other service places.

Granted, i might perceive them off a little, but you can tell. And then there really are ones that love to help you and take as much time as needed, but it always seems to be the major companies like Direct Tire, Bavauto, and Turner that center on customer appreciation.

I can pull out a list of people (yes, i have their name and number) that have been short of helpful. I asked a friend that has been building race cars for a little while now if this really is true and he agreed.

Has anyone else come across bad help and rude people while seeking info and parts for your cars?????

 

[jrt67ss350]

Has anyone else come across bad help and rude people while seeking info and parts for your cars?????

Definitely, especially when dealing with partshouses for my old Camaro. These places tend to be much less than helpful and inflexible in returns. I think some of it stems from the fact that alot of the reproduction parts for these early Camaros are pure crap, and they know it but don't want to admit it or stand behind the Made in China product that they are selling for a big ass markup. There is one particular partshouse that has the absolute best prices, but also has the absolute worst customer service. I finally resorted to driving 2 hours into another state to pick up parts direct from this place, because you can't trust them to send you a quality part that isn't damaged in some way from the get-go. Then, after receiving the defective part, they give you a bunch of attitude and are inflexible when you want to exchange it. I have also found that they don't want to take any time to assist you with anything specific for your car - my Camaro is far from stock and has a mix of parts from other year Camaros (like 1969 front seats and such). They are useless for trying to help you with a situation unique to your car or an idea you might have about something unique you want to try. They just want to know what the part number is that you want and what credit card you want to pay with - anything beyond that, and they don't want to help.

On the other hand, in dealing with parts for my BMW, BMPdesign was very courteous and helpful when they sent me the wrong part (immediately sent out the right one and didn't even make me send back the wrong one they sent me). The parts department at the local Flow BMW dealer has also been very helpful (remember the whole seat cover investigation) and goes out of their way to please me - even beat the pre-shipping BavAuto price on a new glove box latch for my car that they even had in stock.

 

[aNoodle]

Absolutely. And I totally agree.

I think the average service advisor is simply not a BMW enthusiast. They are taken aback when a customer is asking too many questions they are not familiar with. They prefer the docile types who don't ask too much.

Personally, and here's my leap...I think the structure of having a separate service advisor or rep separate of the shop is F'ed up. I want to talk to the guy who did the work on my car. But you see, service advisors/strokers are a lot cheaper than a trained mechanic. So in we come asking a whole buch of questions and they just want us to leave. The serice rep obviously wants to hear what is wrong. But they just want to type it into their consol fast, and when the work is done and you're back, don't ask anything more than what the mechanic just said there on their work slip. They don't have a clue.

The parts guys I've found are more with it (throughout several different dealerships). They seem to have a grasp...but if you push them too far on how you can do something yourself, they seem trained to say they can't give advice to do-it-yourselfers. I can only imagine the product liability training they went through to insillate the dealership from the jerks who asks a question, were told something, and ended up blowing up their garages and want to sue the dealership for giving bad advice.

The parts guys seem more mechanics though and can give good advice...over the service reps who, in my opinion, are glorified secretaries.