In this day and age where “ratings” and “reviews” are pushed
at us from every direction, what happened to simple customer service?
I am inspired to write this following the purchase of a new
Mini for Herself. The sales person was very pleasant but possibly the most
unreliable sales person I have ever come across and did not fulfil any of his
promises. In fact, Herself was even unable to do a test drive because, despite an
email promising an automatic, only a manual car was provided. Even the “I’ll
call you in a few days to make sure all is well” when we collected the car
never happened. There is much more but let’s not get too boring!
So, soon after collecting the car I get a brief survey
from the dealer. I respond that I am pretty unhappy with the sales process and
leave a comment something like “You need to actually do what you say you will
do”. The dealer clearly did not consider this as criticism or that I might be an unhappy
customer despite a score of 2 out 5.
Shortly after I get a survey from Mini (BMW) themselves. For
the question regarding the dealer/sales side of things I score a 2 and leave a
comment something like “great car, shame about the dealership”. It seems Mini do
not consider that I might be an unhappy customer either.
The final trigger for this short missive was an email a
couple of days ago from the dealer “Introducing our aftersales team”. I quote “I
hope you are enjoying your new car, and that the service you have received from
[Dealer name removed!] MINI [Town name removed!] has been exceptional”.
What?
“Exceptional”?
Are you kidding me?