I'm glad you were able to get through. This makes me feel a lot better. As an investor, we need to know this is not a systemic problem with the organization, because it's a time bomb that gets bigger with each car that's sold.
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Service and communication (out of main)
- Thread starter neroden
- Start date
I'm glad you were able to get through. This makes me feel a lot better. As an investor, we need to know this is not a systemic problem with the organization, because it's a time bomb that gets bigger with each car that's sold.
Guess the image was lost when the thread was moved. Here's the relevant portion of the email. Most of the email is my confirming over and over again, because it didn't seem possible.
Edit: The customer service rep was very responsive, and she seemed to go back and forth with management on this to confirm. No complaints at all about her responsiveness. However, I don't see the point of including their office location without phone numbers. This is a bad way to cut down on costs.
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I am not discounting that some have had service e issues with Tesla. But I have not. In fact, after 8 months of ownership, I have had nothing but great experiences. At the delivery location, they were great. To fix a minor cosmetic issue (meeting of two floor carpet sections, mobile service was dispatched and the problem corrected. And without my asking, they also installed my missing dual motor badge (nicely done, BTW). Visiting another location, I was well treated and given more info than I hoped to get about tire choices for winter. In my one recent roadside assistance call about a charging issue warning on my console, which BTW, turned out to be a non-issue, I was also well treated (and this is coming from someone with Apple/Disney standards for customer service). Keep in mind that Tesla is like Apple in 1997. What worked for Apple, and I hope can help Tesla, is that many problems get resolved by Tesla owners through mutual support, that Tesla learns to handle the rest. I think some are losing sight at what Tesla has done, besting a multi-billion industry in vehicle design and performance in ways that others have said were undoable. My vote of confidence: we take delivery on our second Tesla next week. And I intend to maintain or grow my stock position.
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
I don't have high hopes either, but then I never do; I'm a congenital pessimist. Being able to get through to someone at a high level is better than I was expecting.
Jeff, please contact me with the name and contact information of the person you worked with (and got no success from) and what you told them, because that will be useful for the followup I am going to do. I would ask you to do a "conversation", but I can't figure out how to start a new TMC "conversation" any more (something has gone wrong with TMC forums).
I have the time and the ability to follow up on this and I now have a number of you backing me. It would be so ridiculous if after accomplishing so much, Tesla failed because their phone tree is impenetrable. I don't want it to happen so I'm going to be an activist investor until Tesla fixes it.
I will say that my contact didn't promise anything. She did say that her group was advocating hard to get the senior management to fix this catastrophe, and that the timing of my letter helped a lot in their internal discussions. One of the things my contact said was "Your expectations are actually really..." and I said "Low?" And she said "Yes." And apologized again for the company not even meeting such low expectations. I told her to call me under /all/ circumstances including if she gets fired for trying to fix the problem, so I'll follow up.
Any other investors who want to back me up on this "activist investor" project to make Tesla customer service tolerable, I will continue to take point.
"Passive" investors who just want to sell the stock because of the bad management can continue to post in the investor forum and mods shouldn't censor them; they are providing useful investment information. But I'm taking the activist route for now. So many things are right about Tesla Inc., that it would just be stupid for it to fail over things which are this simple and this textbook. And yet it could happen. They're even fixing the internal communications (I got confirmation that the systems are actively being changed, big changeovers, so everyone can see all the data -- no more "mobile can't talk to service centers who can't talk to parts"), now they just have to make sure the external communications exist. Make your phone tree lead to a human answering the phone. Hire secretaries to go through the email and voicemail boxes.
The service is great. But a few weeks ago, they changed how to get ahold of service and it's just about impossible unless your car is non-drivable. You can still make appointments fine through the app, but if it's something urgent but the car can be driven, there's no official way to contact someone the way there used to be. Once you get to someone, then it's fine, but they've messed up the communications part.
OK, that's actually a little nonspecific on the part of the customer service agent. After you get free Supercharging turned back on, push to get a refund for the previous Supercharging which was supposed to be free - -be very specific about your request, and make it in writing. I was hoping for an email like "No, we will not refund you for the Supercharging you already did".
Sorry to tell you: It's still a systemic problem.
(1) I was only able to get through because I emailed Mr. Musk using an email address given me by someone here. No random person could have done that.
(2) I may only have gotten attention because I pointed out that I was a large shareholder who represented a large number of concerned shareholders and car owners (which is all true!)
(3) For my own car problems, I got a call back from the Henrietta service center, which went great, but I verified that this only happened when it did because of my executive contact -- he had not yet read my emails or responded to the appointment made by the Nevada call center or the messages sent by the Nevada call center or the messages I attempted to put into my appointment log.
The only good news is that someone at executive level in Fremont KNOWS that it's a systemic problem and has a group advocating to make it top priority. Someone who meets with the Director of Service multiple times per day, knows how to find the person responsible for programming the phone tree, etc. And I think I managed to get the key points through to her.
I hope that works. Our experiences may be anecdotal, but this is already coming from the most pro-Tesla group on the planet.
I've sometimes had an urge to send a giant stuffed animal addressed to EM to get his attention. I don't think it would help without gathering statistically sound data though.
I'd personally contribute to an effort to provide them with better feedback. I don't want to see an article in Consumer Reports someday that rates auto OEM service quality. Negative perceptions are hard to turn around after they take root.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
Have that too. I asked the question many times in different ways.
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adiggs
Well-Known Member
Count me in. My overall service experience has been a lot better than most - in particular the communications with service (at least most posting in this thread). The difficulties I've had with service, going all the way back to 2013, have to do with what (based on my professional experience in data management) has to do with non-integrated databases / applications. Something Tesla seems to be good at for years.
On the plus side, the problems from back in 2013 have been fixed, and we have new dis-integrated data problems today. Which tells me that those kinds of problems do get attention - maybe not at the pace that we would like as customers, but they do still get fixed.
Anyway, I don't know how I can help, but I like the idea of helping Tesla get through this.
Was this contact in response to your email to Elon? Or did you find another method to get help?
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Thanks for doing this. You can count me in. Send a PM if there's anything I can do to help. While our TSLA share count is modest compared to yours, it feels pretty substantial to us, and it reflects our desire to be a part of Tesla's mission and the company's success.
So, today was Mobile Service day for both of our Tesla vehicles, and I was quite happy with the technician. It turns out that he has owned a Model S for years, and he just joined Tesla earlier this year. Before hiring on with Tesla, he was working on his own Model S while employed working on gas cars. Kudos to Tesla for a good hire!
There were a couple of issues that will require a follow-up visit. Before I even had a chance to attempt to schedule a new appointment this afternoon, someone from the Mobile Service department called me to try to set something up.
Also, the technician was open to chatting, so I mentioned my recent difficulties, 1-2 months ago, trying to get a Mobile Service appointment scheduled. He said that he thinks their system is much better now than two months ago. Still, phone tree improvements are needed.
Tesla Execs Claim Service Problems Are Over As Owner Frustration Boils Over
Appears to be hitting more mainstream news. Quotes this forum. Perhaps the OP who has a media connection?
Appears to be hitting more mainstream news. Quotes this forum. Perhaps the OP who has a media connection?
Sudre
Active Member
I laugh because one doesn’t need a media connection. It’s pretty clear that some of them (media/journalist) read this forum digging for news.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I hate that this issue gives that piece of crap Niedermeyer ammunition. He's a long term FUDster.
I agree; he has never seemed to want to say anything positive about Tesla.
Tesla Service has many, many good people, and I am confident that the current service issues are resolvable. The Tesla App is great, but Elon and others should not treat it as a full substitute for human beings who answer the phone. So what if people are calling en masse for help using Autopilot? That should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the customer relationship, not pawn them off on how-to videos. This is not an area where Tesla should be trying to cut costs!
cpa
Active Member
I think this is the source of some of Tesla's administrative ills. Tesla has a lot of entry-level employees to handle the mundane and repetitive jobs. Those employees probably have a handful of supervisors to guide them when situations creep up that are not part of their basic training or that can be accessed via their computer screens.
There appears to be a sizable gap from this level to "senior management."
Not every situation with companies requires advancement to "senior management." There should be enough players with enough responsibility in their job descriptions to be able to evaluate situations and make decisions without involving senior management. Some decisions of course would require senior management to sign off. Others, no.
From my days as a controller, we had executive vice-presidents, vice-presidents, regional managers, managers, and everyone else. It seems to me that Tesla has a lot of managers and everyone else, but then the next level is executive VP.
While I do not propose that Tesla spend zillions on middle management salaries and benefits, I do think that there needs to be some sort of employee level to be able to receive customer feedback and evaluate the concerns and inefficiencies and take steps to mitigate them before making a PowerPoint presentation to some senior executive for final resolution.
For the record, I've never contacted the media about any of this. Of course, what I write here is public and Niedermeyer can read it as well as anyone else can.
I really really dislike Niedermeyer, who engaged in offensive and ignorant stunts like the "Tesla Death Watch", but unfortunately the article you linked is accurate, largely because it's just an assemblage of links to direct quotes from customers.
I was hoping to get Tesla to fix this before it hit the media, but Tesla's lines of communication were so broken that I couldn't. :shrug:
I guess this shows that Niedermeyer is backed by someone other than Big Oil; maybe Big Auto, given his preferred publication locations. It'll be interesting to see whether this spreads to the writers who I suspect of being Big Oil backed; I bet it won't.
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FYI, I had to take the weekend off to avoid getting too stressed out. I'll check on the phone tree status on Monday, though I'd appreciate anyone else checking any time.
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