Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 27th, 2014
The other night I visited the New York Auto Show as its time to get a new car: This experience was an eye-opener in the area of customer service.
Firstly I was amazed that they would charge visitors a $ 15 entry fee to come in to see their products that they would be trying to sell to ME: Should we charge entry fees to open houses? Surely this entire show is an advertising mechanism not just a fun event? I feel certain the car companies are paying enormous fees to display their merchandise here.
At Mercedes I asked the lovely attendant whether she could unlock the door so I could sit in one of their brand new models: she responded by saying that she was unable to do so because the door and locking system were broken. Really? So this brand new, crazy-expensive car was falling apart already before it had been used AND Mercedes did not have a repair team to respond IMMEDIATELY to this problem? YIKES!
At Audi, after a long search for an attendant, I was told that I could not sit in one of their cars. Why not? “Because we don’t want it damaged or dirty!” I was wearing a recently dry-cleaned custom made suit and had showered in the morning: was I really such a threat to the condition of their car? YIKES.
At Range Rover, I asked if they had any car that had some acknowledgement of fuel economy: the attendant looked at me blankly like he had never heard of soaring fuel costs, not to mention our reliance on Middle Eastern oil. I asked why in Europe there were several diesel models that are 25% more fuel efficient but not one in the USA? He said rich people don’t care about the cost of gas. That may be true, but some actually do care about excessive consumption that has cost this planet a fortune in costs and lives.
Most of the car displays had electronic I-pad style information displays. While this is very useful and informative, it felt impersonal. High Technology without High Touch seems almost old-fashioned already.
The show highlighted to me how poorly most customer service takes care of the ‘more affordable’ price-points in life. Is $ 40,000 for a car really that cheap? Is $ 750,000 really such a bargain for a small New York apartment? Why do we treat these people so badly? Its time for a change.