In my last post “Pre Recorded Telephone Marketing“, I had mentioned my car dealer and receiving a recorded message, all about them, and nothing for me…
… And to top it off, I already had an appointment with them, to have an oil change and to get my car treated with a sealer. Yes in a moment of weakness, in the finance office during buying the car, I took out a package to have the car treated with a special coating, to protect the paint and upholstery. This being the last treatment, I wanted to make sure it was done right, seeing as the last time, they missed some places.
I got up early, and was the first car to arrive for service, which amazed me, as I was normally in a long line of cars. I guess the bad economy is taking it’s toll on Honda too. I was met by one of the service people, who’s first words were, “who are you here for” I assumed he meant, who did I make my appointment with, I told him and he walked off. A few minutes later, another service person came up asking if I was Michael, when I replied “Yes, Good Morning!” all he said was “give me your keys, it’ll take about 6 hours”. No problem, I brought some work to do, and would be in the waiting room, take your time.
3 hours later, I was paged to the cashiers booth to pick up my car. The cashier said it’s all done, and was handing me a bill to pay, I said that was fast, can I take a look at my car first… talk about a look, and the words “if I have to”.
I went outside, found my car, and found out why it only took 3 hours, the hood and front of the car, along with several areas were untreated, and I’m sorry but a blind person would have seen this. I hunted down the service writer and showed him, his response…
… “I told him to hurry, you were waiting, he spent 4 hours working on it, he’s at lunch now and won’t be back from lunch for an hour, when he gets back I will have him finish, I’ll page you when it’s done”.
You think, doing 4 hours of work in 3 it would have came out better. I went back to the waiting area, where after 4 more hours I was paged to the service area, where the service writer and the person that worked on my car was waiting. And the first words out of his mouth were “is this better”… I looked over the car, with some bugs still stuck to the bumper, which he noticed that I noticed, and I kid you not, he bent over and took his fingernail and stretched them off and said “that’s better” what do you think now. All along the service writer looking on, and all he could say was “It’s better now, come pay” and headed to the cashiers office, me following.
At this point, I was tired, had finished all my work and then some, and was way beyond hungry. So, I paid, he handed me my receipt and said “Thank you, here’s your keys”. Which made me feel all better, so I would come back again… NOT! 
So, in this case and sadly I’m seeing this more and more, is it the Bad Economy, or is it a Bad Attitude, causing more and more businesses to fail?
To me if businesses can keep a good attitude during these hard economic times and show they care about their customers, they will be the ones that make it, and as the economy come back up, they will reap the rewards. Just something to think about.
Until next time,
PS. I’m interested to hear if you have also noticed this type of thing, happening to you, please let me know in the comments.