Service and communication (out of main)

[jerry33]

They need to beef up the central call centre to handle that.

Right now, they could have 10,000 people at call central and it wouldn't help because unless your car is down, or you can't find or have issues with a Supercharger, or one of the two other questions, you'll be told to go to tesla.com/service and use the nonexistent chat.

 

[Skipdd]

Bingo. I still love ALL the individual service techs, they've all been awesome, and I have to emphasize that. Even the call center people are good now... when I reach them.

----

So, I have VERY good news. Thanks to those who gave me a contact point. I have gotten a response from management which thanked me for my "tactful" letter, and I have a way to follow up.

I think in this case management awareness is probably 100% of the problem. Though the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we'll see whether the phone tree gets fixed promptly. (And whether chat reappears, and whether the list of service centers acquires email addresses, and whether voicemailboxes stop being always-full, and so on.)

I think people talking about the current "model" are missing the point. The real disaster was the catch-22. It's great to get as much as possible automated, but not everything can be. When the online or app options don't work (my preferred service center could only be scheduled by phone, and I couldn't find the email address listed), the remaining customers go to the phone. When the phone tree makes it impossible to directly reach the call center, which still exists, something has gone terribly wrong. I hope my letter gets the phone tree fixed.

Great news!

I would say the communications problem is analogous to when Elon tried to over automate the production line and eventually determined, there were big gaps that couldn’t be solved without people. Aside from the communications problem itself, what also disturbs me is the lack of an effective feedback mechanism to let them fail fast and fix. One of your key points is that this problem left to fester could kill the company. Stated differently, if their only feedback loop is orders placed, product delivered, they will miss a critical issue like this. Having good communications is not a hard problem to solve. Having an effective feedback loop is not hard to solve either. Neither are rocket science. Maybe that is the problem..

 

[MC3OZ]

How does the APP get vendors parts?

At some point Tesla has to realize that third parties will be fixing their cars right?

They have to push parts out to service centres as they planned... that will help... at least when Tesla is doing the job.

I don't think the App solves all problems,,,,

The central call centre has to be beefed up and in the case of third parties, shipping direct from a central warehouse is probably the only workable model. What may help is a number of regional parts warehouses to reduce shipping times. Perhaps even study how other car companies handle this.

 

[MC3OZ]

Right now, they could have 10,000 people at call central and it wouldn't help because unless your car is down, or you can't find or have issues with a Supercharger, or one of the two other questions, you'll be told to go to tesla.com/service and use the nonexistent chat.

By beef up, I mean give them the ability to pull logs for your car, and the expertise to offer good advice.

If it something that needs fixing, they need to schedule mobile, or SC service.

I agree the system needs improving.... otherwise we would not have this thread....

My only intention was to make people aware of the app, as I think that is the preferred way to book service.

 

[MC3OZ]

The reason I say this is there may be no staff at your SC dedicated to answering phones or emails...
It does not really matter who takes phone calls or answers emails.

 

[neroden]

The reason I say this is there may be no staff at your SC dedicated to answering phones or emails...
It does not really matter who takes phone calls or answers emails.

This is why I said in my letter that every office needed a secretary devoted to triaging phone messages and emails. The easy "Could you tell me the status?" questions could be returned directly by the secretary (looking at the computer system). Scheduling requests could often be accomodated by the secretary too, even if they had odd features (like "must call customer to confirm 4 hours in advance" or whatever). For the urgent issues, the secretary would run out and grab an employee or manager to deal with them ASAP. For the remainder the secretary would sort them and batch them by priority and category -- "query only" calls like "can I get this as a retrofit and how much does it cost" would go to the most expert person on staff for that. Remaining calls would be sorted by urgency and distributed to technicians as now, *after* the urgent calls were dealt with.

There is a reason 99.99% of companies have secretaries. They are not that expensive. Cheaper than technicians.

 

[MC3OZ]

This is why I said in my letter that every office needed a secretary devoted to triaging phone messages and emails. The easy "Could you tell me the status?" questions could be returned directly by the secretary (looking at the computer system). Scheduling requests could often be accomodated by the secretary too, even if they had odd features (like "must call customer to confirm 4 hours in advance" or whatever). For the urgent issues, the secretary would run out and grab an employee or manager to deal with them ASAP. For the remainder the secretary would sort them and batch them by priority and category -- "query only" calls like "can I get this as a retrofit and how much does it cost" would go to the most expert person on staff for that. Remaining calls would be sorted by urgency and distributed to technicians as now, *after* the urgent calls were dealt with.

There is a reason 99.99% of companies have secretaries. They are not that expensive. Cheaper than technicians.

I understand your point.

This is a recent change, they recently laid off a lot of these staff, I don't mind either model, whatever they run with needs to be adequately resourced.

For mobile service there are 2 models.

1. Hub - mobile service runs out of a nearby service centre

2. Country wide - all service is scheduled centrally, all service history is stored centrally, the system has no regional boundaries.

Your real requirement is someone answers the phone promptly and knows know what is going on with your job. Either model can accommodate that, but only if adequately resourced.

But a secretary at a SC can handle car pickup and drop offs, I know they reduced staff, my hunch is some probably remain...

 

[StealthP3D]

My LEXUS dealer welcomes me with graciousness.
I have a new clean loaner car at my want.

The hostess at the cafe bar offers me mochas and espressos...along with a wide assortment of nibbles.
The two story waterfall is soothing as I relax in the expansive second story customer lounge...

Wow! That's my wet dream! There was no soothing waterfall at my Tesla delivery center and there was no hostess. I will say, a couple of the customer service gals were very attractive, and I would have nibbled if I could, but being the gentleman that I am, I could tell that wouldn't be tolerated!

Now I'm DEFINITELY considering a LEXUS for my next car!
I had no idea this was even a "thing"!

 

[mrmage]

As a Tesla investor and MX owner, I can overlook 15% SP drops, communications issues, intermittent door sensors, and yellowing displays. Eventually, I assume they'll be fixed. But this incident has shaken me.

Tesla stopped free supercharging for our MX at 6 months instead of the promised 9. We caught the mistake when we saw the bill, so they're turning it back on after we saw the charge. But...

They're still going to bill us. For something they promised would be free. Because of their mistake.

I call this stealing.

I've gone back and forth a few times to confirm it's not a misunderstanding. It's unbelievable that any company would do that, much less a tech company, much less a luxury car tech company.

The amount is not much - under $100 - but as an investor, that's not the point.

Policies like this are set by management. Either Tesla has the shadiest customer policies, the most incompetent service organization, or something else. And I mean "most" very literally.

I've considered that this might be a one off, but don't see how. Only management has the authority to set policies like this.

Is this a sign of something systemically bad? If not, what else could it be?

------------

 

[mrmage]

I'd be interested if someone can tell me why this isn't evidence of the worst customer service in a major tech company. It's literally stealing - and I know what literal means.

Floored by Tesla customer service - in a bad way

 

[anthonyj]

I waited a year for a refund on my car's registration. I shouldn't have paid it in the first place since I transferred the plates. It's just bad communication, things get lost between departments. Also, I wouldn't pay that. Maybe tweet Tesla/Elon, if not then try to escalate it at the store or small claims court. That's not right

 

[neroden]

I'm not going to give the name of the contact I got through to at this time. But I will say that she was positively horrified by the stories I shared, and took lots of notes. She and her department have apparently been making massive efforts with top management to try to get them to make this sort of stuff a real priority. She really appreciated my letter to Musk because it reinforced everything she'd been trying to tell management, only it was better coming from me.

She did ask to see Karen's survey which showed 15-20% of people finding it nearly impossible to reach a human. I am going to try to dig up the link (edit: found it).

*cross fingers*

P.S. I guess I technically count as an activist investor now. Anything I can do to help the company get on the right path...

 

[mrmage]

I waited a year for a refund on my car's registration. I shouldn't have paid it in the first place since I transferred the plates. It's just bad communication, things get lost between departments. Also, I wouldn't pay that. Maybe tweet Tesla/Elon, if not then try to escalate it at the store or small claims court. That's not right

Waiting is one thing, but they flat out said that they wouldn't reverse the charges. I'll dispute, but my concern is as an investor.

The first tier service person is communicating to a manager, who's looking up a policy that says "no refunds for any reason", which means it's happening to others and word will spread. Some reporter will write about the terrible customer service anecdotes, we'll say more FUD, but it's not FUD. It's terrible for the company.

EM needs to know though, because something is broken and needs to be fixed before that happens. I doubt he'd catch my tweet though.

 

[neroden]

Could you quote the email where they flat out refuse to refund the money? I now have a contact point who may be able to do something on a systemic level, but I want to make sure your ducks are in a row.

 

[azred]

Waiting is one thing, but they flat out said that they wouldn't reverse the charges. I'll dispute, but my concern is as an investor.

The first tier service person is communicating to a manager, who's looking up a policy that says "no refunds for any reason", which means it's happening to others and word will spread. Some reporter will write about the terrible customer service anecdotes, we'll say more FUD, but it's not FUD. It's terrible for the company.

EM needs to know though, because something is broken and needs to be fixed before that happens. I doubt he'd catch my tweet though.

It’s easy to solve your concern “as an investor.” Invest in other companies. I can’t imagine an owner of a GM or Ford product gong to one of their forums and complaining “as an investor.”

 

[neroden]

It’s easy to solve your concern “as an investor.” Invest in other companies. I can’t imagine an owner of a GM or Ford product gong to one of their forums and complaining “as an investor.”

Yes, well, I guess some of us are "activist investors" -- though not in the "trying to take control" sense, just in the "trying to influence management to do the right thing" sense.

 

[N5329K]

I waited a year for a refund on my car's registration. I shouldn't have paid it in the first place since I transferred the plates. It's just bad communication, things get lost between departments. Also, I wouldn't pay that. Maybe tweet Tesla/Elon, if not then try to escalate it at the store or small claims court. That's not right

Maybe it’s a car dealer thing.

Robin

 

[ggr]

As a Tesla investor and MX owner,

Mod: except for this initial sentence, nothing you have written is of any relevance to the investment thesis in Tesla. In other words, this is the wrong place to post your complaint. Or you could have posted it in the existing service/communication thread. So I'm (for the moment) merging the threads, but if they continue to just be rants, they will go somewhere else. --ggr.

 

[jeffro01]

Mod: except for this initial sentence, nothing you have written is of any relevance to the investment thesis in Tesla. In other words, this is the wrong place to post your complaint. Or you could have posted it in the existing service/communication thread. So I'm (for the moment) merging the threads, but if they continue to just be rants, they will go somewhere else. --ggr.

With all due respect, I'm really confused by this post... We're trying to make it clear to the investment community Tesla is broken and dangerously so in order for those of you with substantial holdings to get out before you end up losing it all... People telling their stories to provide more than just claims is an important part of this effort. If it's the position of the investment community that none of this matters then okay, fine. Reading the "I can't believe I lost everything" threads are going to be lit...

Am I missing something here?

Jeff

 

[jeffro01]

I'm not going to give the name of the contact I got through to at this time. But I will say that she was positively horrified by the stories I shared, and took lots of notes. She and her department have apparently been making massive efforts with top management to try to get them to make this sort of stuff a real priority. She really appreciated my letter to Musk because it reinforced everything she'd been trying to tell management, only it was better coming from me.

She did ask to see Karen's survey which showed 15-20% of people finding it nearly impossible to reach a human. I am going to try to dig up the link (edit: found it).

*cross fingers*

P.S. I guess I technically count as an activist investor now. Anything I can do to help the company get on the right path...

Been there, done that... Maybe you'll actually get someone who can actually do what they actually say they can do but I don't have high hopes so to speak...

Jeff