Thursday, July 23, 2009

A response from Government Motors in the comments

so apparently they're actually paying attention to this kind of mess. The other day I posted on how a writer was screwed around when he was trying to test-drive a Camaro because he really wanted to buy one. Response in the comments is listed as from Adam Denison from GM:
Our response, I thought, was pretty proactive. This is a case of supply and demand because of how much in demand the Camaro is right now. Granted, it could've been handled better (hindsight is always 20/20, right?), but we're trying to correct the situation. Vijay and I have been in touch and we'll follow up with him when he gets back from vacation.

Mr. Denison, 'could've been handled better' is an understatement. Supply and demand problems mean telling the guy "Sir, we are flat sold out of them right now, we can notify you as soon as we have one you can drive" instead of either ignoring him, saying "We don't got one" and dropping him, or trying to push him to buy sight unseen. Or setting him up for a test drive and then him finding out A: it isn't the kind he wanted to drive and B: "Oh, you're not allowed to actually test drive it!" THAT was flat idiotic, and crap like that is why so many people hate looking at cars at all; and right now you can't afford to treat customers that way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Big Three American auto makers STILL haven't learned the first rule of staying in business: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. EVEN IF HE'S WRONG, HE'S ALWAYS RIGHT.

Sheesh! Idiots all.

B Woodman
III

Adam Denison said...

I guess we have to disagree how on the situation was handled. Thanks for the dialog though.

Firehand said...

Mr. Denison, the situation was handled in lousy fashion. If ONE of those dealerships had actually worried about taking care of a customer properly, there wouldn't have BEEN a problem. That you contacted him by Twitter after his story was published doesn't exactly thrill people as a successful handling of things; it makes people think "Yeah, for someone who gets the story published they made an effort; I doubt they'd do it for me."

Windy Wilson said...

Firehand is right. It isn't good customer relations to be all conciliatory and thoughtful and respectful AFTER the story hits the news.
We are all rightly cynical about the criminal who is remorseful after he is caught, or the life prisoner who finds Jesus and tries to make that a reason for comutation of sentence.