Article: Elon "stole" client's car

[Dutchie]

Very strange story, but Tesla really dropped the ball on this one. Very bad!

Elon Musk allegedly stole a customers Tesla Model S | BGR

 

[Festerfeet]

It sounds like an unfortunate mess and I am surprised that (as far as we know) Tesla have not reached out to this potential customer as this story will reappear ad infinitum in numerous articles for a long time. A company is often defined not by it's mistakes but how they deal with them once things have gone wrong.

 

[Causalien]

It sounds like an unfortunate mess and I am surprised that (as far as we know) Tesla have not reached out to this potential customer as this story will reappear ad infinitum in numerous articles for a long time. A company is often defined not by it's mistakes but how they deal with them once things have gone wrong.

It's very typical of a perfection nist culture where people are afraid of making mistakes and not much power given to the lower level employees to make judgement calls. The simplest most correct solution is to take the hit and custom build a Model S with the exact spec that the customer wants.

What most likely happened is that engineering borrowed the car for a day or two to test ai on the car. And since delivery specialist is low on the totem pole, he said nothing. Then a day turns into a month and before you know it, the car has already been changed beyond recognition. Notice how the delivery specialist only replied when the customer called and the call is logged? He was afraid of being found out, yet is also caught being able to do nothing.

Someone upstairs, needs to establish how much of a profit hit they are allowed to do in order to make things right for each customer.

Zappos before the big change is the only company I feel did customer relationships right. TSLA can learn a thing or two from it.

 

[Festerfeet]

I always tell new staff hires that they will make mistakes and we welcome those mistakes as both they and our company can and will learn from them. Of course the new hires all say that they won't make mistakes and then get confused when I say that is a bad thing.

As we are a relatively small company with a fairly flat management structure it is easier. Also most of our staff are considerably brighter than me so I rely on previous mistakes to learn how to do it better next time

 

[calisnow]

Elon could've fixed this PR mess so easily with a goodwill gesture to the guy.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Elon could've fixed this PR mess so easily with a goodwill gesture to the guy.

Elon seems more intent on taking away people's Teslas judging by what he did to Stewart Alsop. Not a good direction, Elon. Stay classy.

 

[Just a Reader]

Elon could've fixed this PR mess so easily with a goodwill gesture to the guy.

It shouldn't even need the attention of the CEO. The service personnel should be able to get in touch with a sales/service manager who has the authority to fix issues like this.

 

[S'toon]

Elon seems more intent on taking away people's Teslas judging by what he did to Stewart Alsop. Not a good direction, Elon. Stay classy.

Except that's not what happened. A test model was accidentally put on the inventory list. When it was used for testing, the purchaser blamed Elon personally.

 

[bonnie]

Except that's not what happened. A test model was accidentally put on the inventory list. When it was used for testing, the purchaser blamed Elon personally.

This.

It's been discussed in other threads. Elon didn't steal anyone's car. It shouldn't have been on inventory and it shouldn't have been sold. What SHOULD have happened is that someone should have contacted the customer when they realized what happened. Not contacting the customer was the mistake, not Elon driving the car. He doesn't just walk out the door and take whatever car he wants.

The headline is clickbait, that's all.

 

[Just a Reader]

Except that's not what happened. A test model was accidentally put on the inventory list. When it was used for testing, the purchaser blamed Elon personally.

Who else should he blame? The service personnel on the ground level who don't seem to get the support to handle this mess?

 

[Larry Chanin]

This.

It's been discussed in other threads. Elon didn't steal anyone's car. It shouldn't have been on inventory and it shouldn't have been sold. What SHOULD have happened is that someone should have contacted the customer when they realized what happened. Not contacting the customer was the mistake, not Elon driving the car. He doesn't just walk out the door and take whatever car he wants.

The headline is clickbait, that's all.

Yes, Bonnie has focused on the real issue. Human error happens, it's what you do, or in this case don't do, after the error is discovered that establishes the level of customer service. Here's another article with a less clickbaity title in which Marty is interviewed.

One man's frustrating experience trying to buy a Tesla may be a sign of a larger problem

“I do want the concept of Tesla Motors to succeed. And that is really why I published that article,” Puranik told Tech Insider in an interview. “It’s not about me. It’s about you guys succeeding as a company.”

Puranik said that if Tesla really aims to enter the mass car market with its Model 3 and sell hundreds of thousands of cars per year by 2020, then it needs to work to make sure customers don’t fall through the cracks like he did.

“They are trying to go from $70K to $100K price point per car down to $30K to $35K, that is a different kind of customer. Those customers aren’t going to tolerate a lot of this stuff. They are normal people who are going to want service they are at least accustomed to from other dealers,” Puranik said.

Puranik said while there is nothing Tesla can do to win his business back, he does hope his experience spurs the company to reassess how it treats customers.

“It wasn’t meant to be a hit piece as much as it was constructive criticism, but then once again it really fell on deaf ears until it went viral. And then suddenly it matters,” he said. “But even after all of this is said and done, still nobody has called me. I think that pretty much says it all.”

Larry

 

[Just a Reader]

Yes, Bonnie has focused on the real issue. Human error happens, it's what you do, or in this case don't do, after the error is discovered that establishes the level of customer service.

I don't want to read too much into this but the behaviour of the service people looks to me like the panic of employees who don't know whom they can ask to take an issue that they can't solve off their hands. Therefore they don't answer the phone and hope that the "problem" (aka increasingly annoyed customer) simply goes away. Sometimes it works, but most likely not when a 100k vehicle is involved. I've seen this kind of situation from the inside of a company and this case here reminds me of it.

 

[Larry Chanin]

I don't want to read too much into this but the behaviour of the service people looks to me like the panic of employees who don't know whom they can ask to take an issue that they can't solve off their hands. Therefore they don't answer the phone and hope that the "problem" (aka increasingly annoyed customer) simply goes away. Sometimes it works, but most likely not when a 100k vehicle is involved. I've seen this kind of situation from the inside of a company and this case here reminds me of it.

For a guy that doesn't want to read too much into a situation, you sure are reading a lot into the situation. :wink:

Perhaps we all can agree that Tesla needs to do a better job of reaching out to their customers, or prospective customers, when something goes wrong.

Larry

 

[ankitmishra]

Another disrespectful article. Surely Tesla messed up, but what's up with the insulting article about Elon. Damn.

 

[bridaus]

I just stole some electrons from TMC to make this post.