What happened to Customer Service?

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?

Category:Miscellaneous
Tags:customer service,mini,ratings,reviews
Created:06 February 2018