Delivery Contact Problems

[KENCAL]

I am all for Tesla trying out new ways of selling cars, but can it really be a sensible approach to selling a £35,000+ car to make it impossible for the customer to talk to any human being about their purchase between the point of order until they turn up to take delivery?

I've tried all sorts of ways to talk to someone at Tesla about some questions related to my delivery but without success. All I get back is automated text messages. The showrooms can't help. The chat room tells me that they cannot help with delivery questions, and refers me back to the UK delivery team, who are only contactable by email, and do not answer my emails.

Has anyone found a way through to speak to a human being about their delivery?

 

[sahs12]

I am all for Tesla trying out new ways of selling cars, but can it really be a sensible approach to selling a £35,000+ car to make it impossible for the customer to talk to any human being about their purchase between the point of order until they turn up to take delivery?

I've tried all sorts of ways to talk to someone at Tesla about some questions related to my delivery but without success. All I get back is automated text messages. The showrooms can't help. The chat room tells me that they cannot help with delivery questions, and refers me back to the UK delivery team, who are only contactable by email, and do not answer my emails.

Has anyone found a way through to speak to a human being about their delivery?

Quoting what I read from someone else in this forum: Tesla’s human resources department is lacking in the “human” aspect of HR. They are notorious for not answering phone calls, emails, etc.

 

[ewoodrick]

Up until the computer spits out your car, no one knows. And even then, it's not guaranteed. Go read the threads in the UK forums, Right now they have one focus, delivering as many cars as fast as possible. They are trying to make the most people as happy as possible as quick as possible.

Think of it like Amazon, you order, it arrives. Tesla is a little better, you order, a few days before delivery, you get a call to arrange delivery.

They just don't have time to answer calls from thousands of people everyday with information that they don't know and listen to people asking why they don't know and then complaining that it is lousy customer service.

How many cars did you order and not but off the lot? If none, then how do you know that other dealers don't do the same thing? My guess is that they do. The dealer won't know anything until it's on the car carrier headed toward the dealer.

 

[jjrandorin]

Up until the computer spits out your car, no one knows. And even then, it's not guaranteed. Go read the threads in the UK forums, Right now they have one focus, delivering as many cars as fast as possible. They are trying to make the most people as happy as possible as quick as possible.

Think of it like Amazon, you order, it arrives. Tesla is a little better, you order, a few days before delivery, you get a call to arrange delivery.

They just don't have time to answer calls from thousands of people everyday with information that they don't know and listen to people asking why they don't know and then complaining that it is lousy customer service.

How many cars did you order and not but off the lot? If none, then how do you know that other dealers don't do the same thing? My guess is that they do. The dealer won't know anything until it's on the car carrier headed toward the dealer.

Actually, I have ordered 6 BMWs in the past 9 years (2 cars on 3 year lease cycles, 3 times). At least for BMW, its NOTHING like tesla in the order department. You can find out everything about your car, from where it is in the factory, to the actual date it was built, and assigned a vin, when its being painted, when it gets on a ship, and even follow the ship across the ocean via freight information if you want.

The same information that is available to the person who sells you the car is available to a consumer. The consumer can call an 800 number of a call center, that has regular hours, and answers the phone, and will tell you the status, as well as answer any other general non sales related questions. The other tracking is available online.

Dont get me wrong, I love my tesla, and also realize that BMW has had years (decades?) to perfect their logistics in selling into the US, and did not expect the same from tesla. With that being said, some companies definitely do a much better job at the "ordering a car" business than others. Not sure about US car manufacturers other than tesla because before tesla (who people seem to forget is also a US manufacturer of cars for some reason ) the last US based car I bought was a Ford Taurus, and it was a spectacular POS.


OP, unfortunately there isnt any way through to humans here in the US either unless your car has a VIN and you are scheduled for delivery by them. They sell these cars like a commodity, and people who are used to working with a dealer to "arrange things" get shocked when its basically very hard / impossible to arrange anything that is not boilerplate / cookie cutter.

 

[OCR1]

There’s no way they could hire enough customer service people to answer every call without losing ridiculous amounts of money at this point. As it is they are selling the cars for significantly lower prices than anyone else with a competitive EV solution and the cars are better than any other EV available. Something has to give, and unfortunately it’s the service. And even with the minimal headcount they have, they are still losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter.

If we were willing to pay another $20K for the same car they could staff up to have Mercedes level of customer service. But at this point the EV market is not mature enough for that to be a possibility.

Keep in mind that Tesla will only sell around 350,000 cars this year. In 2018 they sold 182,000 cars. In 2017 it was only 48,000.

Mercedes sold over 2 million cars last year. They have a much larger base of revenue to absorb customer service overhead. It’s just not realistic to compare Tesla to a well established auto manufacturer. Tesla is still very much a boutique company trying to compete in a very well established marketplace where barriers to entry are enormous.