Just trust me!

I drove off the car dealership in my new car excited about my purchase. My old bucket of bolts had been leaving me stranded for months and I had finally found a new car. I was in my early 20s and had taken my time in looking for the right car that fit my limited budget and would provide reasonable gas mileage.

I was nearing a decision, but I still wanted to check out a few options when the sales manager took me aside and gave me a spiel about how he took trust seriously, how I could trust the dealership, and that their mission was to make the customer happy.

Image by Andrea Piacquadio by Pexels.

I can’t get no satisfaction!

I didn’t have a lot of money, had a tight budget, and needed all the help I could get. I figured why not and decided to make my decision right away. Of course, it wasn’t to be a great buying experience. Two days after purchasing the car, I was rear-ended outside of Washington, D.C. on my way to visit my then girlfriend, now my wife.

When I took my damaged car back to the dealership, they barely recognized me. It was like I was visiting them for the first time. Oh, they felt for me and got a good chuckle about my story — like that made me feel great — but service went out the window. I asked for the sales manager and he forgot who I was.

To make matters worse, it took weeks for me to get my car back. They had little to no empathy for my situation. I had to call each week to get an update on when they would be done with the work. When I did finally get it back, the car had lots of issues that hadn’t previously existed.

It’s not rocket science

In the years to come, I took my business elsewhere and was sure to mention my unhappiness in the small community where I lived. I have patience for lots of things. When a company says to trust them, but ends treating you the exact opposite of what you would expect, my patience goes out the window. 

Here’s a few of other examples of client service lately that have reminded me to trust, but verify: 

• The large Health Networks and their specialists who are late for appointments and when they do show up, they spend next to no time with you, treat you like you’re a machine, or worse an idiot, and fail to listen to your needs. This has long been a problem, but I feel like the health advice I’ve been getting is getting worse and worse.

• The whole airline industry has angered people with high fees, rising ticket prices, and poor service records. I’ve seen poor customer service scores for the whole lot of them, the cheaper “you’ll get what you get” airlines as well the biggies, including Delta, US Air, and American. When I flew American recently I was surprised by the general lack of care. I swear the flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker: “Yes, yes, you’re flying with us, sucks to be you.” It wasn’t quite that bad, but you get what I mean.

• My wife and I were heading off on a weekend trip recently and decided to rent a car through Enterprise instead of putting the miles on our own car. On our way home, we were pulled over by a police car and his flashing lights. I was traveling the speed limit so I was little confused why the State Trooper decided to pull me over. He was sitting along the side of the road and ran my plate and saw that car registration was out of date. Enterprise, had not updated the registration. He would have been within his right to give us a ticket, but, fortunately for my wife and me, he let us off with a warning, reminding us to bring it up to the rental company. Of course, I mentioned it when I handed it back in, but have heard nothing in return. It’s a cliché , but still applies, pigs will fly the day I hear back from Enterprise.

Image by Lukas by Pexels.

Business 101

Warren Buffet pointed out the importance of customer service years ago when he said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” In the end, I come back to a simple sales statement I learned long ago: “Do what you say, say what you do. And stick with it.”