Oh Lord, won't you buy me, a .....

Teutonic titan Mercedes has been voted the best customer service provider in the UK, at least as far as carmakers are concerned. Fair enough. I don't drive a Merc, so I can't say. But I know a man who does - and his rant isn't about Mercedes, but about a competitor trying to win away its customers. Like most of these blogs, Mr Merc isn't panning the competitor, which happened to be Porsche - rather, he's drawing attention to the lost opportunities Porsche could have exploited. All of which could have been resolved with a bit better communication.

Like all my rants, it's a real story from a real person. Here we go...

One day Mr Merc Owner gets an invitation in the mail. Inviting him to the UK launch of a very special vehicle: the new Porsche Panamera. No idea what "Panamera" means, but anyway it's the new four-seat one that Jeremy Clarkson refuses to look at 'cos it's too ugly. (In fairness, I don't think it looks bad at all.) Out of curiosity he decides to go down for a look.

The rear end doesn't look that bad, Jezza!

 

Bear in mind Mercedes drivers, along with perhaps BMW 5-series and ups, are the absolute be-all and end-all must-reach target for Porsche's new 4-seater car. Of which our Mr Merc is one. (With apologies to Janis Joplin - his friends don't all drive Porsches. Most of them drive Mercs, too. That makes him a "high-value prospect".) These are men - they are nearly all men - who enjoy their cars, like the feel of quality and solidity inherent to their brand, and who tend to be rather brand loyal.

This is the audience Porsche simply has to grip the imaginations of. Because this Porsche, the 4-seater one, won't be bought by "normal" Porsche buyers - the City boys and sportscar enthusiasts who like the little two-seater with a punch in the boot. Try telling them it came off the same drawing board as the Volkswagen Beetle.)  No, the target demographic for the four-up is older, wiser, less boy-racer. It's neither easy nor cheap to get 50 guys like this together in one room, so if you can manage it - and Porsche did - you've got to "pay off" their investment: make it worthwhile for both sides.

The canapes were pretty good, though

So when our Mercedes owner turns up at the event in London, he's expecting something a bit, y'know, interesting.

A (small) glass of fizz and a plate of canapes later, he's still waiting.

There's no workshop open where these mature petrolheads can look the car over and pop the bonnet. There's nobody offering him a test drive. (Apparently there's a desk upstairs where you can do that, not exactly lit up in green neon.) He restocks his canape plate and walks around a bit.

After an hour of chatting to fellow businessmen (he's quite possibly made more marketing capital out of the event that Porsche has) he's wondering if Porsche actually want to sell any Panameras. Maybe they're going into business as caterers instead and he's got the wrong idea about what they're prospecting for.

So instead of feeling interested in the new Porsche, he goes away feeling mildly aggrieved at their customer service. And a while later, the only followup he gets is a single letter from the dealership, asking him to "get in contact" if he wants a demonstration drive.

Now what gets me worked up about this story is there were so many moments where the right approach by a marketer would've made a big difference. They had at least eight "touchpoints" where he was ready to give a positive response. When he first got the letter. When he agreed to come along. When he arrived at the venue. When he first hit the nibbles table. And so on. All, it seems, wasted.

I still like the look of the Porsche, meself. But small blue apostrophes aren't exactly Porsche's target demographic. Panamera? Pan a marketing department, is what our Mr Merc says...

Growing pains for a car dealer

I haven't told you about my friend H's husband, have I? Well, like me he's a bit of an expert on customer service issues, and told me about an absolute humdinger he had with his car dealer ... one of those bury-your-face-in-your-hands ones, the sort that could've been solved so easily with just the odd phone call or two. So I thought I'd relay it to you lot. Take a comfortable Seat and read on...

There are two cars in H's family, During 'er indoors' pregnancy he had one of those blinding flashes of insight: heyheyhey, kid on the way, I might just need a bigger car! (Dunno what he had before - probably a Smart or something.) So off he went round the dealer to see what was on the forecourts.

Well, when you visit a dealer they take your phone number. And after several months of basically nuisance phone calls from the dealer asking if he's had made his mind up, the addition to the family arrived - and confirmed his worst fears.

The baby was a ginger.

Sorry. That was my joke. (I hope Scottish people have a sense of humour.)

What his worst fear really was, was that his car was too small. This realisation may not have been unprompted by his lady wife, who also decided that his car was now too small to transport the precious cargo of their little boy and his belongings (it's amazing how much stuff a baby can accumulate before even getting a credit card, eh?) and that we (meaning "he") should replace it for a larger one. Dutifully he agreed and on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon in June,  off they went to the dealer.

With some cars you expect trouble. Not others...

At the dealer they were welcomed with the usual questioning by the salesman of ‘how much do you want to spend?" (Note to sales folk: you're not estate agents: try to sell the car not the cost.)

My mate explained that he ("she") had decided what car he ("she") would like, and sat back to let said wife do the remaining complicated stuff. (Including, but not limited to: choosing the colour, and deciding which optional extras she wanted. Heated seats were Exhibit A here.) The salesman’s face lit up as you'd expect.

A delivery date for the new car was confirmed as 8 weeks. So off they went, thinking all was good. During the 8 weeks he sold his existing car and prepared for the new arrival... or, I suppose, the second new arrival.

As you'd expect from this blog, the delivery date came and went, without any communication from the dealer. The family waited.

And waited.

And - well, you get the idea.

Eventually at week 13 his missus decided that enough was enough, and contacted the dealer herself. She kindly offered to collect hubby from work (remember, he'd sold his own car at this point) and take him home, but on the way home she made a detour to the dealer to have a "wee discussion".

They sat in front of a selection of salesmen and managers while they ("she") talked and explained that annoying her any further would, in the Great Scheme of Things, not be advisable. In the meantime he sat quietly ("with a sort of quiet authority", I believe) letting her get on with trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

Eventually they were told that the dealer did not want to provide them with bad news ...  so didn't contact them at all.

PAAARPPPP!!!! Airhorn blunder! (Sorry - that's a Rapide thing. One of the management team blows an airhorn when a major event happens, and it's loud enough to make a vuvuzela go home in tears.) When you have bad news and you don't contact the customer, the perception of the problem doubles in size every day. Ask Forrester.

As some kind of apology the dealer offered a free MOT on her car when it was due, which was welcomed by H's husband. (He spent the money and she got the freebie. Go figure.)

You'll recall this saga began on "a hot sunny Sunday in June." Well, sometime in late October came the announcement that the car's ready to be collected.

H's husband reports it was "the fastest handover he'd ever experienced".. and think what the viewing conditions are on a garage forecourt in late October. He signed the paperwork clearly stating the car was collected in the dark and that he was unable to clearly check everything for damage.

The sun rose the next day. (It does that.) He's sitting in his car when he notices some damage to the internal dashboard... and radio... and gearstick.. and hand brake lever and door panels. Oh dear.

So he whizzes round to the dealer to "inform" them. First the dealer welcomed him with open arms, but after he explained the problems everything changed as they tried to apportion the responsibility for the damage back to him. (Rule Two of customer service: give your customer the benefit of the doubt.) C'mon Mr Dealer, this is a car that took three months to arrive... isn't there a fair chance that something could've happened in those months?

He managed to stay calm as the dealer booked the car in to get the parts replaced. But the replacement parts were also damaged (his life's sort of a comedy show by now) and the car needed to be booked in again later. Eventually the second batch of replacement parts turned up at the dealer, so the car visits the dealer again.
The car was dropped off in the morning and handed over with an agreement that if there was any problems he would be contacted.

That evening after work he walks to the dealer with the fond hope of collecting his car. Only to be told (by a individual needing to attend an anger management course) that it was not finished and that he shouldn't have expected a phone call informing him of the delay.

So - and this is where it gets truly sitcom-ish - he had to walk 4 miles home in the cold (where’s the lady wife at THIS moment, eh?)

The problem (a broken wire on some test equipment at the dealer) resulted in the car being held captive for 5 days. On checking it over (in daylight this time) he found the paintwork on the door had been damaged by the dealer. Once again, the dealer promised to make good the damage, which consisted of sending him a couple of touch-up sticks in the post.

H's husband does not like the car anymore and wants to sell it.

I'm not going to mention the carmaker or the dealer here, because it's irrelevant: this little story is illustrative. On at least nine occasions, the dealer had every opportunity to make things right, and it could have been very simple - as simple as a phone call, or even a text message. Maybe the customer wouldn't have been entirely happy, but at least they might have been mollified.  Cover up a problem and you just make it worse.

And there's the lesson: no matter how bad the situation is, you've got to, got to, got to, stay in contact with your customer. Rapide's put together one of its Thought Bubbles on this very subject - drop them a line.

Sandwiched in paradise

Numerous texts were sent from here, in flagrant violation of H&S.

I know I'm supposed to be the office curmudgeon, but it's hard to be grumpy when you're sunning yourself by a pool with its own waterfall.

Yes, the Rapide team is visiting Las Vegas, and a frown doesn't fit with forty-degree heat and one of the best hotels in town. Which means I've got to do something that doesn't normally come hard to me: find something to be grumpy about. Oh yes... Subway.

No, not the underground railway thing (it runs above ground here in Vegas, anyway.) I'm talking sandwiches here. You know, those "subs, "half subs", the famous "footlongs". Subway does, about 60 varieties of bread and fillings that you'd think would be sandwich heaven... but aren't, in one very particular way. And the rest of the team were heading off for the steaks at Smith & Wollensky, where I couldn't find something to complain about if I worked all week at it.

So being me, I sloped away from the joints the rest of the crowd were visiting - and went for a sandwich in the nearest Subway.

You see, I enjoy a good sandwich, and Subway does plenty of them. The meatball marinara. The trusty BLT. The Cold Cut Combo, the Oven Roasted Chicken, and the cringingly-spelt Veggie Delite. (I feel better already.)

But there's one big problem: these sarnies FALL APART.

Yes, in the land of the supersized dashboard cupholder, the eight-lane boulevard and the 24-hr drive-through, Subway don't do a single sandwich you can eat at the wheel without a $200 cleaning bill.

The problem starts with the bread. It's a victim of its own freshness I don't know if the franchisees bake it on the premises, but it just comes apart in your hands. (If you're lucky enough to have hands. I sort of levitate it towards my mouth.) The Sandwich Biosphere is divided into One-Handed and Two-Handed sandwiches, and Subways are - beyond any doubt - Two-Handed Sandwiches.

And the bread problem's exacerbated by the fillings. A lot of them are "loose leaf", not "glued together" by the sauces (actually, Subway are a bit stingy with their sauces sometimes.) So once the bread's broken, scattering crumbs all over your rental Kia, the salad items are in hot pursuit. And those black olive slices are hell to pick up from a dark footwell, believe me.

This is America, land of the car? I mean, I could practically make out the Hertz and Avis representatives discreetly stationed outside the Subway branch, forever on alert for stray squirts of meatball sauce and ryebread crumbs on their Kias and Saturns.

Look, there's no shortage of reasons to like Subway. The 2009 Zagat Fast-Food Survey rated Subway the number one provider of "Healthy Options". In business terms, they're the Number 1 Franchise in America, which must mean plenty of people are spending their recession-depleted pay packets on footlongs. But a gripe's a gripe, and this is a major missed opportunity for the Subway bods.

That's why after a Subway when I'm on my way somewhere, I always feel slightly - y'know - dissatisfied somehow, as if something containing huge promise just didn't quite deliver. I'll be back at Subway again, no problem, but next time I'm leaving the rental car behind.