DANG THAT'S A GOOD ONE!!!!! SHE PROBABLY NEEDS TO HAVE A LITTLE S*X SO SHE CAN CALM HER NERVES.

 

I called and talked to the owner of Tom Bush. He doesn't handle the day to day activities of any of the dealerships and referred me to the General Manager of the Mazda dealership (he owns several dealerships in town). Except he won't be back until next Tuesday. So the waiting game continues.

But don't worry, I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP!!!

He offered up the Sales Manager who takes over for the General Manager and also the Service Manager. But I explained I wanted to talk in person to someone higher than the Service Manager. I imagine he could easily be hounded with this kind of thing on a normal basis, thats why he hired someone to handle it. I wasn't taken abake by his response, but we will see what the general manager has to say.

On another note, kind of more of an update. I got the normal follow up call where they ask me two questions, if I was satisfied and if I would go back to that dealership I said no and NO. And the lady on the phone was actually concerned with my responses and said she would be forwarding my information to an upper manager and he would follow up, no call yet. And she also said I would be recieving ANOTHER SURVEY, because I said no and no. HOW FUNNY IS THAT!!!!!! I hope I get the survey before next Tuesday, I will fill it out, and not submit it, print it out and give it to the general manager stating this is what I am submitting on the next survey along with my letter I have prepared to send to Mazda USA.

And an even funnier note, I think the DCSM sent my information over to the other Mazda dealer in town, because that Mazda dealer sent me a coupon book for my 30,000 mile service and tire rotation balancing, etc. Its the only way that dealership could have gotten my info because I have never recieved anything from them.......could be a good sign, we'll see.

 

Keep fighting the battle Blue.
It sucks that they keep giving you the run around with all these different people to talk to.

Keep us updated

 

It's great that you're approaching this in such a cool manner blue! Since I'm planning on buying my own 8 around March/April it's show me and no doubt a lot of other people the best way to deal with bad service. Keep it up man!

 

ok, i'll go ahead and weigh in here as the enemy..i am a service manager for a mazda dealership.....don't throw things at me please.......it wasn't right for her to come back after you with the results from your survey....we do have access to all the survey's submitted about us....which gives us a few things....we can tell how we are doing for each customer....and we can also pull repair history to see what we did right or wrong....thats usually why the names are included......in my opinion...a calm, collected customer is going to get alot farther with me than any customer coming in here yelling....i've sent people away, or made them cool down before i would talk to them, cause you get nothing accomplished.....have you spoken to the service manager, have you given him a chance to make this better?? every one is so concerned with going straight to the top, and in some cases its necessary, but how is the service manager supposed to know what his people are doing if no one tells him??? most owners aren't involved in day to day operations, so thats not suprising....the gm handles all that...and you should call MNAO and let them know what is going on....but i can also sympathize with wanting good survey's, you want to do a good job for your customer, and if your not you need to change things......just my 2 cents if it means anything

 

I think we all can agree with that statement, but the problem is instead of trying to FIX the cause of the poor marks, they seek 'revenge' upon the person who took the survey.

 

and i can agree that she was wrong for doing what she did

 

Well, after vacations and my busy time at work I finally got a chance to get over there since I had yesterday off. So here's what happened.

I went in and asked for the Service Manager, I decided that I should start there and see what kind of response I got from him. So he comes in and we sit down in an office, I explain the whole situation just like I had explained it to everyone else. And what he says next SUPRISED the hell out of me. He said he already knew of the situation, he recieved phone calls and meetings from MAZDA USA, the DCSM, and the OWNER. He told me that the DCSM actually came down to the dealership and had a meeting with the Service Advisor and the Service Manager. He also told me in his 22 years of working at dealerships he has never actually met a DCSM nor had one come down to a dealership (as the Territory reps usually handle all that). He was not saying this in a mean way, he was saying it in a very embarrassed and suprised way. Which made me smile a little. So we continue. The owner actually had a conversation with the General Manager the Service Manager and the Service Advisor. He also recieved a call from MAZDA USA, with them saying they knew the whole story!!! This is where it gets a little interesting. There is no way the DCSM reported the dealership to Mazda USA, why would he do that since it is ultimately the DCSM's responsibility to handle all the dealerships, so the only thing I can get out of this is that MAZDA USA reads these BOARDS!!! This is the only way they could have figured it out. Kinda crazy, but now I believe it.

The conversation continued for about 20 min. I got the typical response that every company is doing these surveys and placing more and more wieght on them. He explained that with Mazda there is no in between, you either get a good score or you it gets really bad really quick. All of their (the whole dealership) incentives come from the surveys, the Service Advisors are paid on small base pay and a lot of incentive. I let him continue because he was explaining it in a nice way and not condesendingly. He told me that Paula is in the top 10 Service advisors in the country based on her scores. He said she has worked there for 9 years and almost always had good scores and that she almost quit. He wasn't saying this trying to make excuses, he was just explaining the events that unfolded in the past 2 weeks. So far I felt ok about the conversation.

I told him that I didn't care how much weight was put on the surveys and that if the customer service level was good then the surveys would be good. And that the attention has been taken away from the service and placed all on the surveys. He agreed with me and we both agreed that its not necessarily his fault, its Mazda's for putting so much pressure on them to get good survey results. I agree with this and think it is completly wrong of Mazda to put so much weight on the surveys and take away from our customer experience because of it.

The next thing he said also shocked me. He told me the Mazda USA rep that called him told him there is going to be an investigation opened up into how Mazda handles these surveys. They couldn't believe how fast this word spread with just one phone call to the DCSM (which I think it had more to do with the postings I made here). The Mazda rep told him this could be a policy changing experience. I will be keeping in touch with him to see what comes of that.

So now what to do, I was faced with the decision of staying with this dealership (Which besides this experience, everything has been good and the territory rep told me they have the best Technicians in the SouthEast) or going to the other Mazda dealership in town. He also asked me what he could do within reason to make this better.

I asked him personally what he would do given the situation. And also that I was concerned about the attitude towards me during future visits by any of his staff in the Service Dept. Of course he said he would give it another chance and that he would see to it personally that I am met with the utmost respect by any of his staff.

My decision.....I decided that since I really felt good about the conversation with the Manager, and I felt that everyone has seen what can happen when they treat a customer like that. Also given the somewhat inside information about the Service Advisor and the technicians. I would give the dealership another chance. He had offered to do whatever I needed to make things better, I didn't really need to much done to the car, but I did just get new rims and they needed balancing, alignment and one of the TPMS sensors was malfunctioning, I explained this to him and he said he would take care of it. He also asigned me another Service Advisor that only handles "higher end" clients (they have a BMW dealership right there too and I guess they have a Premier customer rep that handles customers who have bought a lot of cars there, etc.). He said I would have a rental anytime I needed and that he would take care of what I requested. They even had to send the car down to the Performance shop to have the wheels balanced due to the rims, and he is taking care of that too.

All in all I am ok with the situation and how the manager handled it as well as how Mazda handled it. My car is there right now getting the things done and I have had a rental since yesterday. I think this situation should have never happened, but I feel that I will be treated lot better now and we'll see how that goes.

I guess one thing that we as customers can learn from all of this is that although we all agree that if we have a bad customer experience and are offered a survey, we should fill it out honestly and let the company know. But now in a lot of companies those results are not anonymous and we are probably going to get no where by filling it out badly. If we have a problem go to a manager first, explain it and make them take care of it. Then just don't fill out the survey. If its a completly good situation fill out the survey that way, if you have to go to a manager and the manager is bad, then fill out the survey that way. Unfortuanely it has come back to the customer to control the experince when the company should be controlling it. But it just doesn't work that way anymore......!!!!!!

Hope I explained it all well, kind of hard to convey the tones each of us (the manager and I) had during this conversation but it was a good conversation and I am willing to give them another chance.

 

Actually Blue I kinda disagree with your conclusion. True, things may have been better for you if you had gone directly to the manager, but ultimately your bad experience is helping out the rest of us, especially if Mazda really does re-think the way they handle these surveys.

I'm of the opinion that you go to the manager, and then fill out the survey and give all of the details. How the service advisor treated you, what you did in response, and how the manager treated you.

Sometimes it's a good thing when mistakes can't be covered up by the direct manager.

But I am glad that you got everything worked out to your satisfaction. I also agree with your decision to stick with that dealership, as long as you don't have any more troubles. Chances are you're going to get very good service from them from here on out.

 

Good Job!
So, you didn't get a rental car, caught someone on their off-day, and kicked up an almighty fuss, allowing a bunch of freakin' pen pushers that leach off of the whole servce system to justify their existence, jacking up the price of everyone's service in the process. Well done.
"Give them another chance".... who are you trying to kid? Its not like they did anything bad to the car in the first place! Get over it, there are far more important things to worry about than what Mazda does with your data.... like the new iTunes which spies on what music you're listeing to!

 

I think this whole thing was handled very well, and don't understand either the 'sue them!' or sarcastic "nice going" type remarks.

I've had no end of problems with dealers in Scotland, so I'm dreading my Mazda experience a little (because my cars are leased, they don't usually come from the dealer that services them - though in the case of a Peugeot I had, it did and it didn't make the slightest difference, they were so bad I will never own another PSA group car again).

Franchises frequently fob customers off. $20 bribe to speak to a service advisor from Honda?! I'd never go near the dealer again. With a complex modern car, you are having to put a lot of faith in the technicians - and whilst it seems like a minor thing reading it, being denied a courtest car when you have been told to expect it can be a major hassle - where I live, not having transport arranged can cost £50 in taxi fees (little to no public transport) and lost hours of work. Not a trivial matter.

I've chosen a Mazda partly because I good a good deal and partly because I have had a bad experience with my VW dealer - my Beetle leaked, and being new, I'd expect the warranty to be honoured. They were so outstandly rude and unco-operative about fixing it that I gave up, and it really spoiled a lot of the time I have had with an otherwise very pleasant car. I would have another VW (but not when I can afford a car like the RX8!), but that dealer has lost a local customer for good (one who historically let them off with a serious error - they sold me an aircooled Beetle that gassed me - had it been the US, I don't think I'd need to work now, but being a student and a reasonable, car-centric person I allowed them to repair it and accepted a small goodwill gesture to cover repairs from the accident. Had I known what ******** they would be over my Beetle, I'd have sued them into bankruptcy, or make a good attempt at it).

One dealer has been fantastic to me, however. My local Toyota dealer has been absolutely brilliant at dealing with my imported Sera, ordering parts, doing work, charging reduced labour because of the age of the car, answering daft questions, returned parts I'd ordered in error because we couldn't figure out the EPC - I wanted so badly for Toyota to make a NEW car I could buy, but I don't see the point of an FWD Celica - if I want a dull car, I'll get a BMW 116 and peel the badges off, tell people it's a Skoda or something. Anything to get a good RWD chassis

 

Nice work, thanks for the follow up. Nice to see a "little guy" make a "big difference".

Also, I understand your conclusion, but what a hassle. The surveys *should* be our way to let them know they need to improve- we shouldn't have to hassle ourselves and get ahold of the manager to let them know we were meerly moderately pleased with our last service. But until something is changed with Mazda, it's good to be aware of what the process is and how we affect dealerships.

alp22- go troll on some other boards plz

 

Asmoran, I agree with you as well. And I don't feel this level of a situation would have been handled very well by just going to the manager. And I agree that letting everyone here know of the situation and how Mazda handled it from all angles will hopefully help everyone approach dealerships with caution but also with knowledge, thats what these boards are all about, sharing the knowledge and experiences.

I also agree with your opinion that when a problem arises you should go to the manager and fill out the surveys honeslty. And I have always done that as I am sure you have.
"Sometimes it's a good thing when mistakes can't be covered up by the direct manager." Very true!

 

I almost didn't respond to this post. But I figured I wouldl point out a few things.

I'm not sure if you read the original post, but it has nothing to do with whether or not I got a rental car. That was the least of my worries. But, according to the warranty document, any time a car is left for warranty work a courtesy car will be provided. I also found out from the manager that it is the dealerships choice if they give a car right away or offer one when the car has been in the shop for more than one business day, but a car must be provided.
There was no cost for this service as it was a warranty service, and I bet you items like this are in each of the "pen pushers" job descriptions, hence why they recieve a paycheck.
The "give them another chance" has to do with the way the Service Advisor reacted to the bad survey. It has nothing to do with them "doing something bad to the car".
If I was "worried about what mazda did with the information I provided" I wouldn't fill out the survey. But when the survey states that it is anonymous and it is not, then I have a problem with it. If I had been asked what they did wrong and what they could have done to make the service experience a little better (as a whole) then non of this would have been brought up.

As far as you comparison to iTunes......I will just avoid comment.

Thanks everyone else for all the comments!!

 

Well done, BlueGrim. Thanks for the detailed update, despite your concerns I think you conveyed the tone very well. And I agree with your decision to give them another chance.

 

This isn't that far off from my worst case senario that worked out in my head. I am VERY glad it didn't come to that!!!!!

 

I think you made the right choice. As long as the manager stays genuinely concerned and you get the "good buddy" service back and it feels real. I sincerely hope mazda reads these forums. A complicated situation like this couldn't have been nearly explained proplerly on a survey. I hope Mazda realizes how this is backfiring and causing undo tension, they can't possibly believe every experience is gonna be perfect, we all have our own opinions of how things should go and if nothing else we're human and prone to error. Its how we recover that makes the experience good or bad. The Japanese may have taken TQM one step too far, Toyota dealings are similar, I can't say for Nissan or Honda tho.

 

blue, thanks for the update and good luck with the future dealings with the shop. I was wondering, anywhere in your discussion did they mention that they would be improving everyone's service level or just yours?

 

Yeah, my dealer is about to show its true colors: When they prepped my Shinka for delivery, they sprayed their regular wheel cleaner on the polished rims and the cleaner ruined the finish on all four wheels. They gave me an IOU and said they would send the wheels to a local place to be refinished. After talking to my local RX-8 club mates and others, I asked my salesman for new wheels instead. The owner was away, getting back tomorrow, the salesman and sales manager are going to talk to him about new wheels. We'll see what happens. So far my dealer has been stellar, and other than the wheels issue, I have only praise. I have my fingers crossed. Thanks, Blue, for starting this thread, I now know I have some recoarse if my dealer says No to new wheels.

 

The local press will be more effective than a lawyer.

"There is no news like bad news" and word of mouth is a killer for dealer reputations. Just let the owner of the dealership know first and see what happens Good luck man, and your story is totally f-up and they deserve it.