Car Trouble…

Have you ever noticed that your vehicle just doesn’t care when it breaks down.  It’s not mindful of  your financial situation, it doesn’t care about the vacation you are saving money for.  When it wants to break down it will.  It helps if you take care of it and maintain it properly, but bottom line, sometimes your vehicle just has bad timing.  We experienced this over the weekend.

The mini-van has 120,000 miles.  A green Ford Windstar that gets us where we are going every day, but on Saturday the battery light came on and on Sunday, with the help of Jill’s dad, we gave her a brand new alternator.  Not the cheapest part of a car to replace, but luckily, not the most expensive either.  Unfortunately after changing the oil, we noticed that the front tires, were more worn than we thought so on Monday, we made her an appointment to get new shoes, to the tune of another $200+.  Unfortunately, neither of these expenses were in our budget for the week. 

We went to a local chain automotive store for new tires.   We had been there before, they had the right tires and a 10:30 appointment available.  We get there and they are scrambling, not unusual for the tire guys, so we left the van and would pick it up at lunch.  On our way to pick up the van, we get a call from the mechanic.  Among their recomended maintenance was an oil change (just changed yesterday, guess they didn’t notice the new oil filter) a new battery (was tested the day before during the alternator swap) and a new serpentine belt (which had also been inspected the day before during our maintenance.)  I went in for 2 tires and they recomended over $1500 in work, most of which had just been done.  Scammers!?!  I am all for the upsell and makeing the most of a captive customer, but this should be illeagal. 

If you are trying to sell, BE HONEST, its not that hard, but it seems to be something that our society has lost somewhere.  An honest pay for an honest day of work.  If you are a salesman, sell me, sell me something I need or want, not something I don’t.  Sell me something that will truly make my life better, not the same crap I already have.  Be crafty, use sales techniques but at the end of the day, honesty is still the best policy. I’m sure for every 10 people that see right through the recomended maintenance there is one gullable soul that won’t say no and the boys make the sale, but how much of that work is really necessary. 

I have a lot of years left of being a consumer.  This company, makes tires, has autocare centers and is a well known brand.  It will be a long time before I will trust their brand again.  If you are a brand owner or company owner you have to be aware of who is making bad impressions on your customers.  Who’s hasty effort to make a quick sale today will cost you a loyal and repeat customer tomorrow? 

Now not only am I  upset, with one facebook post and one twitter update explaining my experience, 400 of my closest “friends” are now questioning your brand as well.  Word of mouth can make or break you and social media is word of mouth on steroids.  We used to say that a person would tell 2 friends about a good customer service experience and ten friends about a bad one.  With technology, letting everyone know your displeasure is very easy.  At the same time, treat your customer right and a whole new group of people might learn about your product or service. 

Cars and business are very similar.  Their objective is still the same, cars get you places, good business makes you money.  However, over time, technology has greatly improved the efficiency of both, but it has also made it much more difficult to fix things when they are broken.   You never know when your business or brand might break down.  Chances are it won’t be at a convenient time and it will cost you.  Perform routine customer service maintenance with your team to make sure they are all on the same page.  The goal of both cars and business is to make sure they are running good, not just today, but long into the future. 

Jake Daddy