There’s something to be said for great customer service. It makes you feel great about your purchase and/or experience - regardless how much $$ you dropped! A good sales person knows this. They also know that if the deliver first-class service you will be loyal. Take Albertsons for example. Their prices are higher than all other grocers in the valley (except for the Boise Coop) but by and large, the set themselves apart with the service - thay have to. I would far prefer to shop there after dark, when I know that someone is available to walk me to my car.
I don’t like to gripe often, but I just have to say shame on you to one local company. And KUDOS to another!
I’ll start with the Kudos.
THE EXCELLENT : Last night we went to Macaroni Grille for dinner. If we were greeted by one smile, we were greeted by a dozen. The staff was on their toes with “Happy Mother’s Day” greetings all night. We were personally serenaded by an accordion-wielding musician (twice) named “Enrico.” And, when the youngest member of our table was throwing a fit, Enrico came over and drew a picture and completely distracted our little one. It was smiles the rest of the night. It was friendly and excellent service throughout our experience. Despite the fact that I happen to really like their food…the service is what makes us want to go back (sooner than later).
THE GOOD: A trip to Home Depot proved to be crazy yesterday. It seems everyone else in Boise had the same idea. I had to buy a bunch of bricks for a garden box we are building. The staff was hard to find because they were so busy, but when you finally tracked one down, they were very accommodating and helpful. I would have expected them to be grumpy with that kind of traffic, but I couldn’t have been more pleased.
THE UGLY: Our last experience had to do with buying a car. We are not newbies to car buying…we’ve bought a few in our time. Like most red-blooded Americans, we try to get the best deal possible and we are not going to apologize for it. We bought a car from Lithia this weekend, but the service was truly lacking. Here’s the story.
We had been talking to a couple dealers and initially settled on a 2007 used car with low miles at Lithia. Meantime, another dealer called and was willing to drop their price by $4000 on a 2008 - also used with about 3,000 less miles. Their offer put the car within $1,000. When my husband called Lithia to inquire if there was anything they were willing to do to seal the deal for us there, he was referred up to the GM (I think his name was Shane or Sean) and boy, was he read the riot act! The guy was a complete jerk, and tried to make my husband feel bad for even asking the hard questions or get the best deal possible. The GM told him that they (Lithia) had done everything “right” and implying that we were being sneaky and disingenuous.
Ultimately, we decided on Lithia for 2 reasons - 1) there were some question marks about the other car because it was a previous rental car, and we’d have to drive out to Mt. Home to really check it out, 2) we thought, ultimately, we’d get better service because Lithia was local and the dealer for this particular kind of car.
Lithia ordered new wheels for the car for us, and had 5 days to get everything ready. When we showed up (with kids in tow), none of the paper work was ready to go and it took us 2 hours of waiting around to complete the deal (honestly, I have far better things to do with my time…). Then, when we finally saw the car, it had not been detailed or cleaned. It wasn’t anything significant - but enough to know (that other than cleaning the engine) they’d done absolutely none of what they’d said they did. There were crumbs and scuffs inside, grease on the front of the car, the exterior was covered with a thick layer of dust, and the gas tank had just over 1/4 tank left. The car was also missing a key and the driver’s manual. They gave us a drivers manual…only to discover when we got home, that it was for the completely wrong car (different year and model).
This is how you sell a car?? Seriously??
To their credit, we left the car for them to clean up. When we returned the sales guy was cleaning up the scuffs (with 409…on leather) and the car had been washed. We were told however that unless the gas tank was under 1/4 tank, they will not fill it on a used car. They are ordering us a new key and owner’s manual.
While we honestly feel great about the value of the purchase - and the car - the customer service (or lack there of) has left us completely questioning the experience. Needless to say, the likelihood of our going back to Lithia in a few years to replace our other car are slim to none.
Good customer service seems hareder to find these days… At the risk of becoming a grip string, I am going to open this up and encourage you to post your experience. Especially if you’ve had an experience counter to ours at Lithia, I want to hear it. Since it’s easier to find fault than praise good actions, I encourage you to balance the bad with the good. If we get too much griping, I’ll shut down the comments on this one.
