Some mid-week wisdom

Leadership Magazine: Car industry case study in customer service gone wrong

Unfortunately, (although I suppose understandably for editorial and advertising purposes), I was not allowed to mention the manufacturer. Click here for the full detailed saga.

The Leadership article is on page 90 and 91.

Why is it that some industries just don’t get the importance of customer service? Over the years I have invested in a number of cars and with a few exceptions, it has been pretty horrendous. My most recent experience has provided me with the near perfect proof that our reputation model, the Repudometer^®, isn’t just theoretical or academic, I now have a wealth of practical, applicable examples.

I absolutely love my current car, but now that I’ve taken up cycling and am training for the Cape Town Cycle Tour I have found that transporting a bicycle in a cabriolet isn’t all that elegant or user-friendly. I started to look for a car that suits my needs and went to a dealership which sells the brand of vehicle I currently drive.

When test driving a new vehicle, my current car was inspected, and then broken by someone who was meant to assess it to confirm the trade in value. Instead of receiving a heartfelt apology, blame was shifted from one to another and I was offered a dirty staff vehicle to drive until they fixed my car. Common sense dictates: Here is a potential customer, she has test driven a specific vehicle, she needs a temporary vehicle, let’s give her the demo vehicle to drive around with in the interim. Eventually I left driving the demo car, but when I went to fetch my own car later that week once the roof and boot were fixed I found that there was a loud “clank” every time I drove over the slightest bump and it sounded like all the panels of my car were about to fall off. The service manager confirmed the “clank” but couldn’t fix it as the service station was closed. He told me my car was still safe to drive but I refused to accept that and again they offered me a very unimpressive staff vehicle in the interim. After a heated discussion I was again sent off in the demo vehicle I had test driven.

After all my interest in buying a new car and receiving a trade-in quote, there was absolutely no follow up communication from the dealership. After sending an email to the company’s Corporate Affairs Manager to warn him that the dealership is on a slippery slope to ruin the reputation of the company, suddenly everyone jumped into action. I had two meetings set up, one with the Corporate Affairs Manager and with the general manager of the area to discuss my trade-in options.

Unfortunately, the general area manager did not really listen to my concerns or what I said I wanted and ended up supplying a second trade in quote R100K more than the original quote I had received from the dealership! He tried to confuse me, talked down to me in a patronising manner and gave a speech on how he has over 20 years of experience in the car industry, that I have no clue and I should leave the details of the car industry with the experts. I left feeling deflated, angry and with no trust in their brand. My meeting with the corporate affairs manager was no better, in fact it was cancelled by his PA at the last minute and never rescheduled.

Taking our ten reputation elements into consideration, this is where the car company is going wrong, and my advice:

Strategic Intent is the golden thread that needs to be communicated on all levels of the organisation to all the stakeholders. This entails the vision, mission and values; if the vision, in their case, is to “enrich people’s lives” then why was this one of the most un-enriching experiences of my life? From the low staff morale that I witnessed, clearly this vision is not shared by employees and they are most certainly not ‘enriched.’

Corporate governance looks at the leadership element of an organisation. When the corporate affairs manager cancelled our meeting at the last moment, it showed his disinterest in people who have a genuine interest in the business. Here is an executive who is meant to set the example and lead the bigger team. His behaviour explains why the general area manager avoided taking responsibility for different quotes and blamed others. He set a poor example of not listening to a customer so I really can’t blame the dealer principal for his lack of leadership and the poor example he set for his team.

Corporate Capital entails the employees. Are the right people appointed to do the right work in the right way? It’s all good and well to have a great staff complement, but it is just as important to invest in the Operational Capital of the organisation. Investing in training, mentorship and coaching is very important, it doesn’t help having top talent but not investing in them as individuals. At the dealership I went to, low staff morale is palpable. If the team felt nurtured, invested in and heard, this would make a profound positive difference to how they felt and how they worked. Employees are brand ambassadors, they represent the brand, if they have lost faith in the organisation they work for then their friends and family will be the first to hear about it.

Value offering relates to why someone will be willing to buy your product or service instead of the competition. Of course, most car brands have competitive value offerings, however the question is how do potential customers feel about this offering? I was made to feel inferior, as though I couldn’t afford to buy the vehicle that I wanted which did nothing to build my confidence in the brand.

Business results focusses on the transparency of financial dealings. With the number of different trade-in offers I received from different representatives of one company, their transparency level is clearly in need of some Windowlene.

Strategic Alliance relates to who the organisation associates with. My current car is part of a luxury brand sold by the dealership I visited. After my awful experience at the dealership, purely by association, the reputation of the luxury brand now suffers too.

Corporate Social Investment is something that we assess as it impacts on a company reputation. Here I have no idea what the brand is doing to invest in uplifting people and communities.

Communication is the glue that ties all of these elements together. Here we look at internal dialogue, and from my experience, it is clearly very poor. I witnessed massive staff fights at the dealership I went to. With no clear leadership, and unclear values, it is not surprising that employees are in a difficult position and regard work just as a ‘job’ which they can’t wait to leave at 16:55 every afternoon.

External dialogue concerns public relations, website, social media, all the ‘fun’ and exciting elements of external communication. You can spend millions on a funky ad campaign or glossy brochures (there were a lot of these piled in their waiting room) but if you don’t have the basic reputation building blocks in place you’ll be wasting your money and actually cause more damage to yourself.

Why am I so upset about this situation? Mainly because I bought a luxury car and invested in a brand promise associated with it, the expectation of being treasured. My recent experience and the appalling customer service I have received at a dealership run by their strategic partner has jeopardised the way I feel about both brands. If the reputation building blocks were in place, this would never have happened at all.

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Book: The President's Keepers, Jacques Pauw

The minute I heard that they wanted to ban the book from being sold, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. It is incredibly sad, however incredibly good, that the public are finding out exactly what is happening. The web of corruption, fraud, lawlessness is absolutely mindblowing.  One of my (many) gripes, is the fact that we have to slog and save to diligently pay SARS to avoid penalties and interest; the people who are meant to set the example owes amounts with so many zeros, it sounds like a made up number.  It is the law-abiding citizens who get punished and the criminals rewarded and looked after. 

Personally, it wasn't as easy a read for me as The Republic of Guptas that was published earlier this year. There are a lot of names in the book, which does at times got a bit tricky to remember where they all fit into and whether or not they are the good guys. 

What was incredibly interesting was a name that cropped up that was the same name as an ex-boyfriend's dad. A quick Google search and low and behold it was! Neither were keepers.