Long winded car update below: Today marked one of only a few customer service experiences to cause me blood boiling anger. After what has been a long drawn out process to get my car to a working reliable state I finally managed to get someone from BMW Canada on the phone 8 days after someone from their social media team said I would be contacted shortly (semantics I guess). My positivity was short lived when the rep introduced herself. Hi there is this Mr. Harnett? This is Kate from BMW Canada. This was the same person who had politely thrown policy in my face via email a few weeks back. She started the conversation by saying that she had received my concerns via social media and email and that the purpose of the call was to see if there was any new concerns I would like to add. I could here her typing as we talked proving to me that she was only half listening. The next twenty minutes that followed would have been better served if I had spent that time bashing my head against the hood of my car. Kate offered no real empathy, reiterated BMW warranty terms and offered no solutions other than to take my car to another dealership for repair. What this and other situations involved in my case have unequivocally proven is the need for change in the dealership/manufacturer model. The incentives are all wrong for the dealer, and the technical teams. When a used car is sold the dealer makes money (often an inflated cost over MSRP or private smaller dealerships) dont get me wrong I am okay that they make money, there should be added value here. My experience has shown me that your luck with a used car is no better or worse purchasing it from a random person privately or a BMW branded dealership. The dealership is incentived on the sale of extended warranty or in my case third party extended warranty. Then they are able to turn around and make money on the repairs they perform on that same car. The only dealership you can take your car into without upfront repair cost is the one you purchase the warranty from. This incentive is likely to cause technicians to have little motivation to perform an honest pre-sale inspection, why would you? The repair technicians are paid on a commission structure piece work meaning the higher the billable hours complete in a day the better the paycheque. So who is left holding the bag? Well the customer of course, with the dealer pointing at the manufacturer saying they made a faulty car and the manufacturer pointing at the dealer saying its not our fault the trade in value the dealer is offering is so low. Trying to get a hold of anyone with actual compassion or empathy and the ability to do anything for you is harder than it should be. My question for BMW is why they continue to allow a third party dealer to dictate their brand perception? In a world where image is everything why is there no one on your team connecting the dots here? This is by no means an exclusive problem to one dealer or auto group. Another auto group locally rents out cars while your car is in for repairs. Youd think being a BMW dealer they would want you in exclusively BMW cars. Youd be wrong, if you arent interested in paying a fee for your loaner you will be stuck driving almost any other brand of car than a BMW. In closing, I am tired, disappointed, and feel let down. I know to BMW my investment and decision to purchase a car from them means very little, shortsighted thinking absolutely. The positive is there are options in other car manufacturers just finding one who is part of another auto group will be the challenge. I guess there is always Tesla Motors when a 3 Series competitor is launched. Until then I can keep my fingers crossed that my car survives the next couple of years incident free.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 04:10:21 +0000
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