I hope you’ll all excuse me for the mild rant and 10pm shoddily-cobbled-together manifesto (of sorts) that follows but it’s got me rustled.
During my most recent SC experience I learned that Tesla U.K. have recently absorbed, moved or otherwise closed most if not all of their front of house service teams into other remote teams. There is now no one on-site to interface between customers and tech’s other than the tech’s themselves, (one or two of whom in many cases I’m told are doing all of the go-between at a location if the SC manager can’t).
This is from a somewhat exasperated tesla employee trying to help me unpick the status of my appointment and report some issues with a loaner car, so unless I’ve been given the wrong info, I’m staggered by this decision.
Long story short:
The experience prior to this one was fantastic, as was the one before but this move seems an awful one. The front of house service teams were AMAZING. Efficient, knowledgeable, understood customer needs, understood and communicated the constraints tech’s are working under, and made things smooth.
The app and ‘remote where possible’ aspects of the Tesla service experience were the icing on the cake as both an entry point and way to get easy updates but I really hope Tesla U.K. reconsider this. Maybe I just got unlucky in the changeover phase, but it seems there are big organisational and process challenges now and it’s a total PITA for customers potentially. I know Tesla is the AI company, but service interactions need human beings in the right places, able to do their part.
I’ll keep it brief from here, and am interested to hear other thoughts but this feels like a big step backwards for us as owners in the U.K. and I’ll try and summarise why.
TLDR; Tesla U.K., I implore you to bring back your front of house service centre teams. Until 8/10 appointments are mobile, they are vital.
Boggling my mind just recounting it all. This has gone from an experience that tore up the legacy dealership hymn sheet for the better, to a demo on how to make every single step of the process a stumble.
Service centre specific ‘front of house’ teams could even work from home if that’s the play! (I doubt this is the case given Mr. Musk’s most recent emails though). The point is they would still have direct contact with the tech’s and customers, and can manage the detail for active tickets for their specific service centre, so the detail required is manageable. Having a dedicated ‘case manager’ is invaluable on so many levels, I can’t even start on it because I’ll be here another hour…
I should clarify, this is not primarily just a rant about a specific SC experience. It’s ongoing and they’re doing their best to do a good job, but it seems stacked against them right now. They have been very apologetic and I have no doubt it will all work out, I just want to make the case using this example for why these teams are needed, and wanted.
Am I missing something?
During my most recent SC experience I learned that Tesla U.K. have recently absorbed, moved or otherwise closed most if not all of their front of house service teams into other remote teams. There is now no one on-site to interface between customers and tech’s other than the tech’s themselves, (one or two of whom in many cases I’m told are doing all of the go-between at a location if the SC manager can’t).
This is from a somewhat exasperated tesla employee trying to help me unpick the status of my appointment and report some issues with a loaner car, so unless I’ve been given the wrong info, I’m staggered by this decision.
Long story short:
- 3 month wait for appointment and parts (not uncommon at this point, but still not something to shout about).
- wrong parts despite promises and logical assumptions to the contrary. I will need multiple visits after all which I was trying to avoid as it’s a long drive.
- no internal communication (customer now fulfils role of intermediary between teams bizarrely).
- app lacking necessary detail and prone to allowing errors in service centre processes.
- parts ordered that weren’t even needed. The ones that turned up for the appointment were not needed, the ones that didn’t turn up were needed (no one has ownership of the service request now, so the detail that can be provided in the app was missed, ignored or unavailable to right the person). Waste of time, shipping, parts that may be needed elsewhere.
- overlapping processes.
- confusing, conflicting notifications.
- not enough on-site staff (ghost ship mode).
- It’s a big mess, and a waste of my and Tesla staff’s time.
The experience prior to this one was fantastic, as was the one before but this move seems an awful one. The front of house service teams were AMAZING. Efficient, knowledgeable, understood customer needs, understood and communicated the constraints tech’s are working under, and made things smooth.
The app and ‘remote where possible’ aspects of the Tesla service experience were the icing on the cake as both an entry point and way to get easy updates but I really hope Tesla U.K. reconsider this. Maybe I just got unlucky in the changeover phase, but it seems there are big organisational and process challenges now and it’s a total PITA for customers potentially. I know Tesla is the AI company, but service interactions need human beings in the right places, able to do their part.
I’ll keep it brief from here, and am interested to hear other thoughts but this feels like a big step backwards for us as owners in the U.K. and I’ll try and summarise why.
- Service techs should be empowered to use their skills and be free to troubleshoot and work on vehicles free from the hassle of customer updates and being responsible for providing those updates to customers. I shouldn’t have to ask someone at the other end of the country to call a tech who is trying to do the job on my car to ask him to stop work and text me an update. It’s madness. A single front of house staff member at the SC who had an overview would have made every issue experienced a non-issue. They just wouldn’t have happened with even modestly adequate oversight, which was far from lacking before.
- Front of house and organisational staff should be allowed to do what they do best, and be there as both a filter, organiser (and advocate) for the customer and the tech’s to ensure the process goes smoothly and that the gaps between automated or repeat processes are bridged effectively.
- The app is great, ok? It’s great. But it’s not a human being. It’s not intelligent and it’s not infallible. As a customer, sometimes you just need to speak to or message someone who can be close to the challenges, has relevant experience and who can grasp the nuances of a given situation to smooth things over.
- You cannot automate a process where customer needs (and vehicle or problem specifics) are infinitely variable - no app can do that alone, and one that tries to be all things is bound to cause frustration.
- Having service request information accessible to all the remote teams only goes so far. It does not help said teams (or the customer) problem solve. Every time a different team member is involved, it takes time for them to get up to speed and requires time on the part of the customer to give them the context or nuance, which whilst in theory you would hope and could argue is the exception not the rule, this rarely proves true in my experience. We go to service centres because we have vehicle or use case specific problems, therefore detail and nuance is a given.
TLDR; Tesla U.K., I implore you to bring back your front of house service centre teams. Until 8/10 appointments are mobile, they are vital.
Boggling my mind just recounting it all. This has gone from an experience that tore up the legacy dealership hymn sheet for the better, to a demo on how to make every single step of the process a stumble.
Service centre specific ‘front of house’ teams could even work from home if that’s the play! (I doubt this is the case given Mr. Musk’s most recent emails though). The point is they would still have direct contact with the tech’s and customers, and can manage the detail for active tickets for their specific service centre, so the detail required is manageable. Having a dedicated ‘case manager’ is invaluable on so many levels, I can’t even start on it because I’ll be here another hour…
I should clarify, this is not primarily just a rant about a specific SC experience. It’s ongoing and they’re doing their best to do a good job, but it seems stacked against them right now. They have been very apologetic and I have no doubt it will all work out, I just want to make the case using this example for why these teams are needed, and wanted.
Am I missing something?
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. I’d move it if I could.
