WHAT could be the "new approach to servicing" at all SCs?

[AudubonB]

Tesla's 3Q13 Shareholder letter contained the following enigmatic statement:

Tesla is pioneering a new approach to vehicle servicing that we believe will revolutionize the customer experience. An announcement about this will be forthcoming shortly.

So what has the company got up its sleeve this time? Free coffee in the waiting room while your tires get changed? :tongue:

I think it has to be just a tad bit more revolutionary than that. The company's and the cars' strengths are in the flexibility and utility of the computer interface. We already have seen how our autos can receive major upgrades through remote downloading - engendering some controversy with the high-speed "Low" function, but that's not the point. At the same time, this itself cannot be the "new approach", as it has been in pace since Day 1.

Has anyone any ideas?

Full disclosure: it was a 3 Dec. Motley Fool article by Nickey Friedman that alerted me to this....

 

[yobigd20]

So what has the company got up its sleeve this time? Free coffee in the waiting room while your tires get changed? :tongue:

they already have free coffee at both the service centers I visited

I think it has to be just a tad bit more revolutionary than that. The company's and the cars' strengths are in the flexibility and utility of the computer interface. We already have seen how our autos can receive major upgrades through remote downloading - engendering some controversy with the high-speed "Low" function, but that's not the point. At the same time, this itself cannot be the "new approach", as it has been in pace since Day 1.

Has anyone any ideas?

I'm really hoping for a few things.

1) some sort of iPhone (mobile app) service integration. where we can log issues, receive feedback, schedule service appts, reserve loaner cars, get notified of new service bulletins... basically make this MUCH more interactive.

2) some new innovative way to deal with their really crappy communication problem. aka a way of addressing/resolving the smart air suspension lowering, the alignment/tire wear problem, and all future major issues so that its no longer this cloak and dagger / beat around the bush / refuse to comment or address the issue etc etc etc / type approach....

 

[rlang59]

...reserve loaner cars...

They would have to stop selling them first!

 

[Gizmotoy]

1) some sort of iPhone (mobile app) service integration. where we can log issues, receive feedback, schedule service appts, reserve loaner cars, get notified of new service bulletins... basically make this MUCH more interactive.

Basically taking what Apple's doing with their Genius bar, and expand on it. I'd love that.

 

[mkuendig]

Tesla's 3Q13 Shareholder letter contained the following enigmatic statement:

Tesla is pioneering a new approach to vehicle servicing that we believe will revolutionize the customer experience. An announcement about this will be forthcoming shortly.

So what has the company got up its sleeve this time? Free coffee in the waiting room while your tires get changed? :tongue:

I think it has to be just a tad bit more revolutionary than that. The company's and the cars' strengths are in the flexibility and utility of the computer interface. We already have seen how our autos can receive major upgrades through remote downloading - engendering some controversy with the high-speed "Low" function, but that's not the point. At the same time, this itself cannot be the "new approach", as it has been in pace since Day 1.

Has anyone any ideas?

Full disclosure: it was a 3 Dec. Motley Fool article by Nickey Friedman that alerted me to this....

in my opinion first fix the basics. get a case management tool like remedy and a crm tool. currently they forget basic enquiries. this should not happen at a premium company. When that is done take apple genius bar as example. Reserve via iphone app, get appointment and a fix at first visit. nothing forgotten.

 

[derekt75]

in my opinion first fix the basics. get a case management tool like remedy and a crm tool. currently they forget basic enquiries. this should not happen at a premium company. When that is done take apple genius bar as example. Reserve via iphone app, get appointment and a fix at first visit. nothing forgotten.

At previous service requests, I thought they were really missing tools like this.
If they want to be revolutionary, maybe they'll allow us to enter what we wanted from a PC and have that be available to the technician.

I never really understood the typical dealer service model where you explain what you want to a middleman who types it into the computer ("When it's cold in the morning, the engine makes a clicking sound, with about 2 clicks per second" gets translated as "Customer states engine noisy".) The technician reads what the middleman wrote, does some work, and tells the middleman what was done. The middleman than tells you what was done.
I'd prefer it if I could make the middleman just the business guy who deals with payment/pricing and leave him out of recording what I want done.

 

[jerry33]

I never really understood the typical dealer service model where you explain what you want to a middleman who types it into the computer

This is basically about profit. One, it hides the technician so they can hire the cheapest person possible. Two, it hides the quality and quantity of work from the customer. Three, it allows a salesperson to maximize the bill. And Four, it keeps the technician from developing a following of loyal customers and keeps customers from finding out who the good technicians are.

 

[stopcrazypp]

in my opinion first fix the basics. get a case management tool like remedy and a crm tool. currently they forget basic enquiries. this should not happen at a premium company. When that is done take apple genius bar as example. Reserve via iphone app, get appointment and a fix at first visit. nothing forgotten.

I though they were doing that with salesforce (given the recent commercials from salesforce).

- - - Updated - - -

This is basically about profit. One, it hides the technician so they can hire the cheapest person possible. Two, it hides the quality and quantity of work from the customer. Three, it allows a salesperson to maximize the bill. And Four, it keeps the technician from developing a following of loyal customers and keeps customers from finding out who the good technicians are.

It might be a multi-tier approach (like in most tech support). "Tier one" is basically information gathering (and there is some analyzing to get to the "real problem" rather than symptoms), however they should keep most of the information available for the higher tiers, not just prune out useful information.

 

[AEdennis]

Probably some integrated DB that logs issues for the vehicle for all service centers... I usually go to Costa Mesa, but today, the valet took my S to Van Nuys... Guess what, they don't know the history of my S in Van Nuys and we had to refresh the service guys in Van Nuys on what is being done to fix my S...

Now... My first stop to a Service Center was at San Rafael on my pickup weekend... There was wind noise and the guy at the Service Center identified what needed to be done and I opted to have it done when I got back to Southern California... Now it turned out (on November 9, 2013) that the centers did not share information amongst themselves, so I needed to write down what he found to convey to Costa Mesa when I brought it in to fix the problem...

So... Something really basic like that would be very useful. Especially since the service centers are all Tesla controlled.

 

[agileone]

1) some sort of iPhone (mobile app) service integration. where we can log issues, receive feedback, schedule service appts, reserve loaner cars, get notified of new service bulletins... basically make this MUCH more interactive.

Yes, and I want all of this on my big mobile 17 screen....

 

[SeminoleFSU]

This is basically about profit. One, it hides the technician so they can hire the cheapest person possible. Two, it hides the quality and quantity of work from the customer. Three, it allows a salesperson to maximize the bill. And Four, it keeps the technician from developing a following of loyal customers and keeps customers from finding out who the good technicians are.

Wow, never thought about it like that...

 

[yobigd20]

This is basically about profit. One, it hides the technician so they can hire the cheapest person possible. Two, it hides the quality and quantity of work from the customer. Three, it allows a salesperson to maximize the bill. And Four, it keeps the technician from developing a following of loyal customers and keeps customers from finding out who the good technicians are.

Wow, never thought about it like that...

Tesla's ownership support works the same way. You call to complain. Some idiot writes it down and may or may not send it to a real technician or software engineer. The tech or engineer logs a note in response. And the idiot calls you back and reads from the log. Hides the real techs and engineers from the owners.

 

[AudubonB]

I haven't read anything revolutionary yet. Those are itsy bitsy improvements. C'mon folks, gotta think outside that box we're all in!

 

[Cattledog]

Subscription service like some softwares where you pay a (relatively) low monthly fee and it covers ANYTHING that happens to the car. Tesla acting as insurance company for their cars and guaranteeing themselves the repair work. They must have heaps of data that would allow them a view into how often cars are being repaired for any reasons - accidents, mechanical, electrical, warranty, wear and tear, etc. You could use your Service Plan money to switch over to this.

At the end of 2014, 50,000 Model S paying, say $100/month = $60M/year. Most importantly, they take complete control of the user experience. Bump a light pole or run over a trailer hitch, call Tesla. Air Suspension on the fritz - call Tesla. Seat heater shorting out, call Tesla. Tires need rotating, you get the picture. Sets them up for the upsell at the right times, especially when you're supposed to turn in your loaner!

 

[Andrew]

I'm also scratching my head as to what this could be, since I think the service has already been revolutionary.

I've had the SC deliver a more expensive loaner (P85) and pick up my car for warranty service.* In other instances, instead of swapping cars, they've simple sent a ranger to my house to do the work in my garage.

Do any other car companies/dealerships offer that kind of service?

(* As another example: My car is in right now for service, and while they were testing something, they noticed a problem with the stereo that I hadn't mentioned.. They asked if they could keep the car a little longer to troubleshoot, and then they decided to replace one of the amplifiers to fix the problem. Totally proactive. Totally awesome.)

 

[Jason S]

in my opinion first fix the basics. get a case management tool like remedy and a crm tool. currently they forget basic enquiries. this should not happen at a premium company. When that is done take apple genius bar as example. Reserve via iphone app, get appointment and a fix at first visit. nothing forgotten.

I though they were doing that with salesforce (given the recent commercials from salesforce).

Salesforce1 app can be branded as a Tesla app with a link to portal for customer specific issues. Given the paperwork I've seen, I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to see your service work as part of overall Salesforce CRM integration. Same kind of thing for requesting service, etc.

Reserving/scheduling loaners might be a bit more difficult, but they could prolly do something if the loaners were well integrated. I know developers that could do that for them in Salesforce.

 

[redi]

Ok, I will guess.

Since Tesla "knows all" and collects data from your car daily, I suspect it would be based on this already unique feature. Maybe the reach out to the "owner" when service is due, or send some in-car message and arrange to collect/replace the car for annual inspection.

I am not sure if any other car manufacturer can collect data to the extent Tesla does (and I don't know if the full extent is completely known by us either). I don't mean to make it sound like the NSA here, but they do have a fairly unique advantage with this functionality inherently in place in every car. Probably good to make it more of an "extreme service and care" feature rather than let it spin off into a big-brother/spy sort of tone. There's already been discussion about who the "owner" is with the firmware 5.8 air suspension stealth crippling and maybe this can counteract that if there is some over-the-top "customer care and service" offering put forward.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Since Tesla "knows all" and collects data from your car daily, I suspect it would be based on this already unique feature.

GM's Onstar system has been doing this way longer than Tesla, although there's a subscription attached to it.

 

[Mike_Schlechter]

I'm going with drones. Sure, it is insane and makes no sense, but a year into being a Model S owner and nothing they do would surprise me in both the audacity and the fact that a month later you scratch you head and wonder why no one else is doing this yet...

OK, drones are far fetched, but it's a Thursday, let's have a little fun Tesla-speculation.

 

[vfx]

Self driving car parks in front of your house and after you take the key, your car drives away to get serviced.