I just found out that customers have no avenue to escalate a new vehicle delivery issue with sales or service beyond the level of local store manager. If the issue is the store manager or the issue conflicts with the business pressure put on the store manager, the customer really has no recourse. I understand that there is no way to escalate to a regional or corporate level as other roles are not “customer facing”, and executive escalation has been taken away for a while. I understand from Tesla this was because of the increase in volume due to the model 3 and Y. There are really no safeguards to prevent a store manager from behaving in an unethical manner as the customer virtually has no ability to file a complaint expect to the same store manager. This is a pretty concerning development imo.
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Customer service appears to be broken
- Thread starter andrewkc
- Start date
Tiger
Active Member
Cheburashka
Active Member
Its nothing new. If you want consistent good service look elsewhere. This isn't why people buy Teslas.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Welcome to post-Model-3 Tesla. You didn't discover anything new really. Elon planned that by now Tesla would have a million mile, completely autonomous self-driving car to sell, so other things like service expansion were planned around that - very few cars needing service before the 1M mile mark. Full self driving is very late and falling behind every day (remember they sold in since 2016), but the in car games to play while the car is driving you around are already there! 
For new vehicle your recourse is not accepting the car delivery until everything is resolved, returning it within the 7 days, or trying to declare it a lemon. The latter two will more than likely get you banned you from ever buying a Tesla again.
For new vehicle your recourse is not accepting the car delivery until everything is resolved, returning it within the 7 days, or trying to declare it a lemon. The latter two will more than likely get you banned you from ever buying a Tesla again.
From my experience both sales and service are controlled by the mothership. Most employees will not deviate from procedures no matter how small as it may end their tesla career.
It's the trade off we make to own a product that is innovating constantly. Much like the Steve Jobs days at apple. Everything is locked down and controlled.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
–Henry Ford
It's the trade off we make to own a product that is innovating constantly. Much like the Steve Jobs days at apple. Everything is locked down and controlled.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
–Henry Ford
MXLRplus
Active Member
I find it comical that when I bring in my Tesla to be fixed againagain, I can't get a Tesla loaner.
Why do I find it funny? When I bring my Jaguar in for service, I would ask for a Tesla and they would let me borrow one.
Why do I find it funny? When I bring my Jaguar in for service, I would ask for a Tesla and they would let me borrow one.
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Ostrichsak
Well-Known Member
Broken? Sounds like it's working exactly as designed, sadly. You see the artificially inflated quarterly financials & stock prices though? Weeee! it sure is easy to post a profit when your "Customer Service" support budget is reduced to zero.
If there is an issue at delivery, have the issue resolved on the spot. If the issue cannot be resolved, reject the vehicle.
We had to reject a Y that looked like a 4 year old assembled it. Not because the body lines couldn't be fixed, but due to fish eye's all over the frunk. Our sales associate was off that day so we were dealing directly with the store manager. Not to be ageist, but I'm not really sure she was of drinking age. When she couldn't see the dent in the quarter panel I knew things were going south, when she finally saw the second (of so many) fish eyes on the frunk she offered to have it re-painted. We thanked her for her time and left. I'm not accepting a car that is brand new and needs to be repainted.
We had to reject a Y that looked like a 4 year old assembled it. Not because the body lines couldn't be fixed, but due to fish eye's all over the frunk. Our sales associate was off that day so we were dealing directly with the store manager. Not to be ageist, but I'm not really sure she was of drinking age. When she couldn't see the dent in the quarter panel I knew things were going south, when she finally saw the second (of so many) fish eyes on the frunk she offered to have it re-painted. We thanked her for her time and left. I'm not accepting a car that is brand new and needs to be repainted.
I just don't get how Tesla cannot fix this situation, they are now synonymous with producing too many poorly made vehicles and yet are they even trying to put in place new processes to stop history repeating? It would appear not.
I would love to know what the Chinese Model-3's are like, if they are coming out as good as most manufacturers can build cars then the problem sits squarely at the California plant.
It’s almost as if Tesla bets the entire customer experience on a single store manager behaving in the interest of the customer, with no safeguards internally to protect the customer. Abuses are bound to happen given bias, implicit or explicit and competing business pressure placed on the manager meeting metrics etc. The customer has absolutely no recourse or no means to escalate the issue except legally.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Lol, no, it’s clear they bet the entire customer experience on their managers behaving in the best interest of the company and doing what they’re told to.
From what I’ve seen, Tesla is holding control very tightly at the top and frankly doesn’t want empowered managers anywhere near their stores and service centers. The manager’s job is to implement and enforce policy from the top. That’s it.
Man the replies are so depressing. When I bought my S75D in 2016 sales and service was phenomenal. I got a model 3 in ‘18 and never had to bring it into service once so no real negative experiences. Got a performance X this year and recently an S LR+ and man have things changed. I have always been a huge tesla fan and talked several colleagues into purchasing Teslas.
I can see why people are jumping ship even back to ICE cars.
Customer satisfaction is such an easy problem to solve with minimal investment and pay dividends on orders of magnitude. Tesla is literally burning up goodwill for no reason.
I can see why people are jumping ship even back to ICE cars.
Customer satisfaction is such an easy problem to solve with minimal investment and pay dividends on orders of magnitude. Tesla is literally burning up goodwill for no reason.
Wol747
Active Member
So far, probably. But people are not going to keep buying Teslas unless it stops being a software company (and in some respects not a particularly good one) and becomes a car company.
I wonder why there are such things as lemon laws... it can't be because of these other companies?!
As a fellow Aussie from what I've experienced things aren't as diabolical as the US with regards to servicing, thankfully any issues I had early on (like 2018) did get taken care of promptly and without fuss, BUT I've not needed to go there since the Model-3 was released here. It seems this is when they became overwhelmed and things turned sour.
As for the software issues it just bugs me that they can release sloppy software so regularly, other than that I do have some dread about needing to one day try to book an appointment at the SC now.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are very different personalities with different skillsets. Can you imagine Apple every telling customers "your brand new, iPhone screen yellowing is normal wear and tear and not covered by warranty or AppleCare". Tesla officially told their customers that, except it was a $100,000 car rather than $1,500 iPhone. Not just that, they sent lawyers to court and arbitration to fight customers who demanded a fix. And yes, the service staff was just following orders, reading from the screen, privately just as stunned as the customers.
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