Getting in touch with Tesla service at some locations is horrible

[hokiefan]

Update: I wish I could change the thread title to "Getting in touch with Tesla service at some locations is horrible". I'm not sure whats going on at the Rockville service center, but I tried calling 4 times, 20 minutes apart this morning and each time it rang and went to the service center voice mail, which was full and couldn't leave a message (Improvement #1, either don't allow messages, or clean up your darn VM box. Its tacky to have a full box).

So, not knowing how these mobile appointments are set up, I called Owings Mills. Thats where my car was delivered and had my initial service done. They were really friendly and happy to help. Someone immediately picked up and apologized for the run around. He sent a note to the Baltimore mobile team to get in touch with me. Not even an hour later I get an email, and have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. Night and day between the Baltimore team and the people my wife interacted with at the 800# national support and Rockville. I will definitely be reaching out to them directly in the future.

Edit: The reason I was trying to contact Rockville is because the 800# support person told my wife that mobile scheduling for my area was done out of Rockville.

Can you schedule mobile appointments online? That would be improvement #2.

Improvement #3 is designing a better frunk safety latch, or at least having a manual way to override it.

Anyways, hope this helps someone in the future!

 

[StellarRat]

I think saying Tesla Service is horrible as a blanket statement is misleading. They've been responsive to me.

 

[suwaneedad]

First things first... I love the car and it is fun to drive. I am a believer in the company. My late father's bucket list was a Tesla S that he enjoyed for his last couple months. That being said, we had our first major issue since taking delivery. The frunk safety latch won't release and my wife's friend's Christmas presents were trapped inside. Did some research and it appears this isn't an uncommon problem. Called support and they were closed for the night. At the time didn't think it was worth calling the roadside emergency number.

Next day my wife sits on hold for 45 minutes to try and schedule someone to come out and release the frunk and fix the problem. We are an hour away from a service center and with two kids its just not that convenient. We already had the car there once for a couple days to fix the turn signal problem, panel alignment, and paint issues. She finally gets through the wait on the phone and they tell her someone will call her back to schedule the ranger. That was 4 days ago. She called back yesterday and the same story. Rangers are scheduled out of Rockville and they will call you back today. Guess what? No call back.

I emailed the executive escalations address and they came back with "please call to schedule service or use the online tool, we are sorry we are busy right now". If I am going to drive all the way to a service center I want to make sure they actually have the part needed so I don't need to leave the car and drive there twice. Unfortunately there is no way to actually talk to the service center directly, everything gets forwarded to the national wait forever on hold number.

They need to figure service out, quick. Either more physical locations are needed or the phone and ranger support need to be staffed up. When the issue happened last Thursday the first available appointment online was for today. Luckily I've worked on a car or two and had tools to open up the frunk. I ended up using a torx bit in vice grips to unscrew the two bolts that hold the latch to the hood. I'm running out of patience and wondering what happens if I have a bigger issue with the car that won't let me drive it?

Any ideas? Any secret ways of contacting a local service department? Nothing is more frustrating than someone telling you they will call back and never do. I expect better from Tesla.

Here's what I've learned in my nine months of Model 3 ownership...
- once you do meet/know a human in your local SC, you'll have their direct line from their business card
- the tech who worked on my 3 back in May texted me from his personal phone. I found this to be really cool relative to the usual comms protocol, so now I have his number. I don't abuse this, but he has helped me out one other time since.
- the local SC has a process where en employee essentially triages the upcoming service appts, to reduce inefficiency of you showing up and a part not being in stock. I've found that mine does this the day prior. So in your case, make the earliest appt and expect interaction with your SC the day prior to your appt.
- i called the 800# this past Saturday. Shortly into the hold time, I got the option to leave my number for a callback. I got a callback inside of 10 minutes, when the computer had said hold times were at least 20 minutes. The girl who called me back had already reviewed my car history and was ready to solve. Very impressive.

Hopefully some of the above will help you navigate, although of course the ultimate goal is to have cars coming off the line in Fremont that simply don't require later interaction with Service! (A girl can dream, right?)

 

[hokiefan]

Final Update: Mobile service tech called to see if I was around this afternoon since he lived nearby. Took less than 15 minutes to replace the actuator. Said he has replaced a bunch of them and doesn't know why the safety latch one keeps failing. Its the same part as the frunk release actuator.

Big kudos to the Owings Mills service center and mobile team!

 

[shrspeedblade]

Final Update: Mobile service tech called to see if I was around this afternoon since he lived nearby. Took less than 15 minutes to replace the actuator. Said he has replaced a bunch of them and doesn't know why the safety latch one keeps failing. Its the same part as the frunk release actuator.

Big kudos to the Owings Mills service center and mobile team!

Maybe, I don't know, change the thread title?

 

[hokiefan]

If I could I would, but I can't seem to find that option anywhere. Maybe a mod could? The service from Thursday until this morning was pretty bad. The local employees in Owings Mills were great though.

 

[EVDRVN]

We may not need to hear more such stories but Tesla sure do. In about a year, people will start dialing 1-800-LOCAL-AUDI for their electric car service needs and it will be game over for Tesla if they’re in the same sorry state as today.

That's funny, because Audi will be worse considering they sell any cars. They are alsready

Be smart. The first thing I do with an manufacturer is develop a strong relationship with my SA. I know almost everyone in the Toronto Store by name. Whenever I need anything I just send my SA a text message and he springs into action for me. It doesn't hurt to bring in a box of donuts for the staff when you go in for service or pick up a nice bottle of something for your SA for Christmas. I'm 2 years into ownership and I can honestly say that Tesla has been by far the best in service of any company I have dealt with and my list includes; Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Land Rover and Audi.

The way you treat people in life goes a very long way.

Same here. I get what I want when I want it and I think I will bring a bottle in to my advisor who deserves it. A big issue with the call line is there are many newbie EV owners calling with silly questions they can answer on their own jamming up the lines.

 

[skhenry81]

Update: I wish I could change the thread title to "Getting in touch with Tesla service at some locations is horrible". I'm not sure whats going on at the Rockville service center, but I tried calling 4 times, 20 minutes apart this morning and each time it rang and went to the service center voice mail, which was full and couldn't leave a message (Improvement #1, either don't allow messages, or clean up your darn VM box. Its tacky to have a full box).

So, not knowing how these mobile appointments are set up, I called Owings Mills. Thats where my car was delivered and had my initial service done. They were really friendly and happy to help. Someone immediately picked up and apologized for the run around. He sent a note to the Baltimore mobile team to get in touch with me. Not even an hour later I get an email, and have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. Night and day between the Baltimore team and the people my wife interacted with at the 800# national support and Rockville. I will definitely be reaching out to them directly in the future.

Edit: The reason I was trying to contact Rockville is because the 800# support person told my wife that mobile scheduling for my area was done out of Rockville.

Can you schedule mobile appointments online? That would be improvement #2.

Improvement #3 is designing a better frunk safety latch, or at least having a manual way to override it.

Anyways, hope this helps someone in the future!

Instead of pressing "1" for service press "2" for sales. Sales people always pick up. You can then tell them to get someone on service on the line for you. I'm not sure what number you press for what department but you get my point.

 

[skhenry81]

That's funny, because Audi will be worse considering they sell any cars. They are alsready


Same here. I get what I want when I want it and I think I will bring a bottle in to my advisor who deserves it. A big issue with the call line is there are many newbie EV owners calling with silly questions they can answer on their own jamming up the lines.

Life is one big game. Best to figure out how to play it so things go in your favor.

 

[insaneoctane]

If I could I would, but I can't seem to find that option anywhere. Maybe a mod could? The service from Thursday until this morning was pretty bad. The local employees in Owings Mills were great though.

On the original message, hit "more" and then "report" and ask a mod to rename the title to what you'd like....

 

[StellarRat]

By the time Audi actually manages to bring meaningful numbers of EVs to the market (about 5 - 10 years from now) Tesla will have ironed out their service problems. I'd be willing to bet the only problem with Tesla is they are swamped. That's not a hard problem to solve.

 

[TeeEmCee]

By the time Audi actually manages to bring meaningful numbers of EVs to the market (about 5 - 10 years from now) Tesla will have ironed out their service problems. I'd be willing to bet the only problem with Tesla is they are swamped. That's not a hard problem to solve.

That’s what I’m hoping. On the other hand, running a nation-wide network of service centers (never mind the international locations) has a very slim chance of yielding the level of quality that one would get from several smaller competing providers.

 

[ohmman]

Update: I wish I could change the thread title to "Getting in touch with Tesla service at some locations is horrible".

mod note: done.

 

[artsci]

We may not need to hear more such stories but Tesla sure do. In about a year, people will start dialing 1-800-LOCAL-AUDI for their electric car service needs and it will be game over for Tesla if they’re in the same sorry state as today.

We’ve heard this “game over” mantra for Tesla ad nauseum. It’s getting very boring.

What we know for sure is that the game is over for ICE propulsion and some manufacturers who wait too long to fully switch to electric, including perhaps a few in Deutschland

 

[Darren Donovan]

We’ve heard this “game over” mantra for Tesla ad nauseum. It’s getting very boring.

What we know for sure is that the game is over for ICE propulsion and some manufacturers who wait too long to fully switch to electric, including perhaps a few in Deutschland

Doubt it. Until the charging network is MUCH MORE widespread, EVs will be a small part of overall vehicle sales.

 

[artsci]

Doubt it. Until the charging network is MUCH MORE widespread, EVs will be a small part of overall vehicle sales.

It's not a question of if but when.

 

[alloverx]

The big picture is
-if the cars were made better you would not have to know your SC internal phone usage patterns. i.e. it would save Tesla $$$
-you should not need to bribe your SC with food gifts but its a nice human gesture (I do the same at my gym)
-if the escalation path does not work than replace it with something better. A simple FAQ on the website would do

 

[SMAlset]

I was on the phone yesterday with customer support (in Canada this time, previously in Utah) trying to get my Model 3 moved from my husband's account to mine and with my account granting access to him for times he needs to drive my car. Back in mid-November they had us submit my car's title and my driver's license to effect the Model 3 to my account and then get the access granted to my husband. Hadn't happened yet so decided to tackle trying to reach them by phone again. The situation and a number of exchanged emails were just too complicated to relay by chat.

Yesterday when I called in, unlike past times, when you routed your call to Account services, the phone message was -- you can go online and submit your request, there's a FAQ page to answer some questions and you can also do a chat. The message will repeat with no way to ever talk to a person. So after trying this twice (I know stupid but wanted to be sure), I called a third time and this time had my call directed to Service instead. After maybe 10-15 minutes on hold did reach a very nice guy in Canada who was able to check our accounts and dug up our previous emails and confirmed receipt of the documents. Asked if we could get this moved up to priority (since it had been more than a month since we started this request), and he said yes, we definitely can and this type of account request should normally only take 5-7 days on average. I think I'm set now and hopefully the wait will be only a few days. But yes, as an owner who has used the phone system to contact customer service when more than an appointment was needed to be scheduled, it has been trying. I will say that this time I only had a 10-15 minute wait where in the past could be more close to an hour on hold.

I wanted to pass on that the CS guy said that they are in the process of setting up another call center and hiring for it--didn't ask where. So things are being addressed and that should help alleviate alot of people's frustration in wait time on hold and trouble getting through. Oh and I mentioned to him about trying to reach Accounts and no option to talk to a person before it kind of disconnects on you. He said he would pass that info on.

OP glad you got your frunk open and got service out to replace the actuator. And that not all of your service experience was bad. In general with our two cars we've been treated well by service in our area. With only one quarter so far behind them in the black and a lot more cars being produced and sold, I think the communications and service end of the company will be seeing improvements quickly now that production is moving forward well. I don't think at all that it's that Tesla doesn't care about providing better service. More that they have been understaffed and given the success of the production line and adoption by the public, it's been a waterfall moment for them and drowning in their own success.

 

[SDKoala]

- i called the 800# this past Saturday. Shortly into the hold time, I got the option to leave my number for a callback. I got a callback inside of 10 minutes, when the computer had said hold times were at least 20 minutes. The girl who called me back had already reviewed my car history and was ready to solve. Very impressive.

Is this feature back? The option to receive a call back instead of waiting on hold was there earlier in the year, then it disappeared over the summer at some point. A few months ago I was waiting on hold for almost an hour, drove through an area of poor reception, and dropped the call along with my place in line (with an estimated hold time of less than 5 minutes left). I remember cursing that so much and wishing the call back option was still there.

 

[Darren Donovan]

It's not a question of if but when.

Agreed on that point.
Technically, it's not "over" for ice propulsion, we're quite a ways from that. When Tesla vehicles cost upwards of $50,000, and other EVs can't go long distance AND easily recharge, and Tesla vehicles still inundate service centers with quality issues, ICE vehicles will vastly outnumber EVs for the near future.