Tesla CPO Process - Communication Frustration?

[northWETwa]

Greetings from the Great NorthWET!

Well we've taken the plunge to purchase a CPO P85. While we know that the car will be amazing, we have been severely underwhelmed with the experience from the get-go (travelled 2 hrs for test drive appt which was made 6 wks in advance only to be met with "who are you? why are you here??"). We realize that we are not buying a brand new vehicle and do not expect to be met with foot massages/tea/crumpets, but we're not buying a used Gremlin either. Thought that there would be more connect from Tesla as to our vehicle's prep progress/timeline - even just a quick email? The only communication (besides the auto-generated purchase emails) that we have had has been in response to our picking up the phone, and then only in vague terms. Are we over-reacting?? Doing something wrong? Or is this how they roll? Appreciate some positive pro-active tips for moving forward......thanks!

 

[Jaymc5]

I purchased a CPO 2013 P85+ last October from the Seattle location and initially felt the same as you. I came to realize that Tesla doesn't follow the traditional dealership model. If your delivery specialist is Andrew, he is extremely busy and prefers email correspondence and I always called the day before to better ensure them my arrival.

 

[northWETwa]

We were told that our delivery person is Marshall. Received no call from him. Husband finally called him to find out delivery timeline. Marshall said 1 - 1 1/2 weeks (standard response?). Hubby asked if he could get back to us with narrower timeline. *crickets* It's been 2 weeks now. No Marshall, no car, no call. I understand "busy," but...... it's an expensive purchase, even at cpo prices! I guess that we were (erroneously) expecting the process to be more connected/interactive? Again.....are we over-reacting?

 

[justg0]

We were told that our delivery person is Marshall. Received no call from him. Husband finally called him to find out delivery timeline. Marshall said 1 - 1 1/2 weeks (standard response?). Hubby asked if he could get back to us with narrower timeline. *crickets* It's been 2 weeks now. No Marshall, no car, no call. I understand "busy," but...... it's an expensive purchase, even at cpo prices! I guess that we were (erroneously) expecting the process to be more connected/interactive? Again.....are we over-reacting?

I bought a new car here in Bellevue and my DS was Marshall also. I "never" received any update or phone call from him. My OA was very responsive and got me my car delivered as soon as it was possible, so I didn't feel as frustrated as you probably do. But when I did call him, he would pick up the phone and talk to me. So there was that.

I would say just wait and call him every few days or so to get an update...

 

[JPUConn]

The DS on the east coast was just as busy (drowning) and communication was poor at best. If I didn't really really want the CPO S I would have walked away from the deal.

If it makes it any better, the service department experience post delivery has been nothing but excellent.

 

[Tomasz]

Again.....are we over-reacting?

No, you are not.

Except realize that selling CPOs is not their top priority, especially those last two weeks where they run to make the delivery quotas. I have ordered CPO S85 mid December myself and I already see huge difference in responsiveness of the DS pre/post New Year.

That tells me one thing - Tesla is severely understaffed right now - they grow production faster than they grow deliveries/servicing departments. And from posts in this forum, the new units still aren't as flawless as Elon would like us to do so delivery process is burdened with additional QC time that should have happened back in the factory.

I for one would greatly appreciate 'look man, there is nothing on earth that will make us deliver your CPO in December, unless you picked a unit that somebody refused delivery and is ready, otherwise we have no resources to process yours'. But I also understand that saying something like this is perceived like something akin to suicide in sales so I don't really expect it.

 

[ev-now]

Your expectations are yours, so if you feel under-served then that's just how it is - I would not say it's over-reacting. My experience was they have little time to be proactive but have been very responsive - my advice would be to be proactive yourselves and make sure they are sufficiently responsive. They'll be busy after purchase too, so if you cannot get happy with them now even less likely after.

The whole infrastructure is suffering growing pains, and a company with a hundred thousand customers is never going to be able to serve the way they could with less than ten. I don't think you are seeing a CPO/new buyer issue - I received my CPO at the same time as someone picked up their new MS - no difference in handling at all. Of course this is Colorado, YMMV.

 

[ev-now]

Except realize that selling CPOs is not their top priority, especially those last two weeks where they run to make the delivery quotas. I have ordered CPO S85 mid December myself and I already see huge difference in responsiveness of the DS pre/post New Year.

Different people I thought? New sales are from the stores, CPO sales are dedicated resources at different locations - no?

 

[Indpowr]

My CPO manager was tough to deal with in the beginning. He and I ironed it out and has been great since. Depending where the car is it can take up to 5 weeks to prepare the car. some of the CPO'S are service rentals which delays time.

 

[Tomasz]

Different people I thought? New sales are from the stores, CPO sales are dedicated resources at different locations - no?

On marketing/sales side - that might be true, but the same service center that prepares your CPO (that often requires substantial work to be done) has to take care of all those preps for new deliveries and urgent quality issues. Here is the bottleneck and sales guys know that and choose to stay quiet instead of sending you the same 'not ready yet' update over and over again. But they will respond if asked, so keep asking.

 

[whitex]

Greetings from the Great NorthWET!
We realize that we are not buying a brand new vehicle and do not expect to be met with foot massages/tea/crumpets, but we're not buying a used Gremlin either.

Uhm, I bought 3 new cars in Bellevue an not foot massages either, there was tea though, along with coffee and water.

That said, I just picked up the latest MS last week from Bellevue. Coincidentally, my DS was Marshall as well, and I have to tell you, either that guy is severely overloaded, or just the least responsive DS I've dealt to-date. I never met him once, not at trade-in appraisal or even at car delivery. Emailing him is almost a lost cause. Phoning and catching him is your best bet at getting any information, especially if you need information urgently. The online dashboard is only as good as your DS updating it (evidently it's not automated), so in my latest experience pretty much useless in terms of showing accurate car and delivery status. The one thing that compensated for this was I had the most responsive and knowledgeable OA - Shannon. She would respond to emails quickly with clear and direct answers to all my questions. So, the 3 Tesla buying experiences varied in terms of OA (sales) and DS (delivery), with the most recent one being best OA and least responsive DS. The one constant, which is a big reason why I keep coming back (and now have a Tesla only household), has been Bellevue Service. In my over 3 years of driving Teslas they have always been great. They also get slammed with volume of work, but always have been reasonable and very accommodating, always taking care of everything that needed taking care of. I would highly recommend them.

 

[justg0]

Uhm, I bought 3 new cars in Bellevue an not foot massages either, there was tea though, along with coffee and water.

That said, I just picked up the latest MS last week from Bellevue. Coincidentally, my DS was Marshall as well, and I have to tell you, either that guy is severely overloaded, or just the least responsive DS I've dealt to-date. I never met him once, not at trade-in appraisal or even at car delivery. Emailing him is almost a lost cause. Phoning and catching him is your best bet at getting any information, especially if you need information urgently. The online dashboard is only as good as your DS updating it (evidently it's not automated), so in my latest experience pretty much useless in terms of showing accurate car and delivery status. The one thing that compensated for this was I had the most responsive and knowledgeable OA - Shannon. She would respond to emails quickly with clear and direct answers to all my questions. So, the 3 Tesla buying experiences varied in terms of OA (sales) and DS (delivery), with the most recent one being best OA and least responsive DS. The one constant, which is a big reason why I keep coming back (and now have a Tesla only household), has been Bellevue Service. In my over 3 years of driving Teslas they have always been great. They also get slammed with volume of work, but always have been reasonable and very accommodating, always taking care of everything that needed taking care of. I would highly recommend them.

Yup can't agree more. Shannon was my OA and she was and continues to be the best. Marshall was non existent, I only saw him for 5 mins at delivery before he handed me off to someone else.

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

I am sure you will love your new CPO, I do mine.

You are right, you are not being treated well and it is a problem for Tesla. I would assume that every Tesla employee is trained and has some sort of a sales and delivery flow chart that they are supposed to follow. So either that system was poorly done, is poorly implemented, or probably both.

A good car dealership (they exist) has years of sales and service training. It is all designed to get more money out of you, sure, but if properly designed and implemented makes you feel valued as they take $100 dollar bills out of you, or more. There is nothing wrong with a formulaic system if done correctly, and generally a dealer, or a manufacturer gets better and more consistent ratings if they implement one.

Tesla needs to learn how to do the touchy feely thing better than they do the web thing, and soon. I mean, as in now.

 

[Gregkeys]

we bought ours new, our initial contact, Ava at the Tigard Oregon show room was the best part of a mediocre experience.

Ava was amazing constantly checking in on us even though we delayed delivery by about 6 months.

Ari was our delivery specialist, i think he initiated 1 maybe 2 emails aside from that I usually had to call or email to get an update.

Kyle was our delivery trainer, he finalized the paperwork and presented the car to us, through no fault of his the experience was harsh, the Tigard Oregon delivery room is a small garage painted white with no heaters.

The garage was freezing, Kyle was amazing, he kept on teaching us despite my toddler screaming and hitting me everytime he tried to talk.

Kyle actually followed up which was nice, he even sent my wife a Christmas present because she was bummed that she didn't get a coffee mug, which i think came out of his own pocket.

Service on they other hand that has been a down right frustrating experience, they had me drive out twice (i live over 2 hours away) only to turn me away and to schedule my appointment for a month later, I'm quite angry about how that went down.

I have no ill will towards tesla, but the delivery could have been a bit better and service down right sucks.

 

[whitex]

I am sure you will love your new CPO, I do mine.
Tesla needs to learn how to do the touchy feely thing better than they do the web thing, and soon. I mean, as in now.

Nothing wrong with the "web thing" as long as it works correctly. For me, being able to see up to date and accurate status of my vehicle delivery online, and getting answers to email questions within no more than 1 business day satisfies most of what's needed. I understand they are busy, as am I, email and electronic dashboards allow for good synchronization between customer and DS at their own convenient times. Even answers such as "I don't have an answer yet, but expect to have it by ______" are better than just ignoring communications (as long as you do get a follow up by the committed date/time).

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

Nothing wrong with the "web thing" as long as it works correctly.

Of course. I want both experiences to be better. They will get there, they just need to get systems in place and staff as necessary. People want to feel confident handing someone $100, let alone $100,000. Communication goes a long way to that end.

The volume of the model 3 will demand a new delivery & communication method to get the cars out efficiently and to make for a good experience.

I can't wait to see how the implement it.

 

[northWETwa]

Good morning all!

WOW-wow-wow.....Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us! Comforting (and a bit disconcerting) to know that ours is not the exception. Off to "take a chill pill" and will get hubby back on the phone today to chase down some new progress information. Hoping we will have our P85 in our garage soon!

I do hope that Tesla will catch on as they progress to the Model 3. The overwhelming theme among current buyers seems to be that they are not consistently providing a positive buying experience.

 

[PtG62901]

it is interesting, you order the CPO car, and it isn't ready to go today. Tesla has to iron it out, then ship it to where you are, and some line employee gets the blame? I bought new, but doesn't this seem broken? Like a take it up with Elon kind of problem?

If the car was ready, before it was put on sale, wouldn't almost all of these problems be gone? I wonder why Tesla has chosen to do business this way?

 

[Tomasz]

it is interesting, you order the CPO car, and it isn't ready to go today. Tesla has to iron it out, then ship it to where you are, and some line employee gets the blame? I bought new, but doesn't this seem broken? Like a take it up with Elon kind of problem?

If the car was ready, before it was put on sale, wouldn't almost all of these problems be gone? I wonder why Tesla has chosen to do business this way?

I believe it again comes down to staffing - they do not spend time on refurbishing used ones because they have plenty of things to do otherwise. My guess would be they planned to work on those CPO in free time that never materialized. As their staffing levels grow you'll see the wait time shrinking.

 

[DarkMatter]

It sounds like Marshall is overloaded. Andrew is another DS for the Seattle area and he was great to work with, responsive and complete in communication. I'm still waiting one last piece of information from him but won't follow up for another couple of weeks so they can get caught back up from year end.