An Example of Phenomenal Customer Service
A story of how two companies -- Tesla Motors and GEICO Insurance -- did me right.
Today, I was driving a loaner car since my Model S was getting its 3-year annual service done. Driving home from a work meeting, I had a "non-contact motor vehicle collision" (the police officer's words). I was coming through a busy intersection in the right-hand lane. The left-hand lane in my direction was backed up with left-turners. The last driver in this long queue decided he wanted to suddenly be in my lane, so he pulled over into my lane right as I came up alongside him. I honked and swerved up onto the sidewalk (no pedestrians present), avoiding him, then came to a stop. A moment later, I heard a hissing sound and the car's tire pressure system issued a low-pressure warning. Getting out, I found the cause -- hitting the curb had destroyed the sidewall.
A little ticked, I waved the 16-year-old driver (why does it always seem to be a teenager??) over behind my car and called the police. After talking to them, I called my local Tesla service center, which is about 20 minutes away. Once I had described the situation, Jon (awesome guy!) said, "OK, we'll load up a new wheel and head down...should be there shortly." About 30 minutes later, Jon showed up with a tech, a jack, and a fresh wheel and tire. Five minutes after that, I was ready to go. Having completed my discussion with the officers (I decided to not press charges...hopefully the situation itself is its own lesson for the kid), I thanked Jon and Scott (the tech) profusely and continued on home.
Once home, I called GEICO, the kid's mom's insurance company, and talked to a wonderful customer service rep named Mandy. She walked me through getting my information very efficiently and said they'd take it up with Tesla (since it was a corporate vehicle) and their claim holder (the kid and his mom) directly; I was pretty much done with the whole experience.
And that is what amazing customer service means: Minimizing hassle for the customer while exceeding his expectations and being happy to do so. I'm not currently a GEICO customer, but this impressed me. And this is the level of service I've come to expect from Tesla.
Jared Garner Bitching is easy. I try to also post examples of great experiences when I have them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, the power of personal customer advocacy. Sounds almost exactly (NOT) like the manual caesarian section procedure I've been going through with State Farm since April 18, 2016, when my car got flooded.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey J Davis State Farm is highly variable in my experience, which is a terrible thing in its own right. One collision situation we had was handled delightfully well, whereas another turned into a big hassle. It's really strange how there's so little consistency in what should be a fairly standardized process.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle Too me , this has been a result of poorly managed business processes more than anything else. I finally wrote a detailed letter to corporate on Friday threatening to move my house + 4 vehicle policy and amazingly enough I am getting great customer service today . . .
ReplyDeleteGreat story. I hope the kid knows that Calif has a contributory negligence law that you could have hung him on. And if he'd fled it would be worse.
ReplyDeletePhillip Landmeier This is Ohio, but he was very responsible, even mature for a 16-yo.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle Good to hear. Oh, I forgot you're in Ohio. As soon as you said Tesla, I assumed California. :-p
ReplyDeleteAn excellent experience with somebody else's geico agent is what convinced me to switch to geico. It's a smart business choice.
ReplyDeleteI work in IT, so I know all about this. This is precisely the types of discussions that have been occurring regularly at my work (Comcast). Lots of people have been doubting the commitment, but there really has been a major shift at the company to push for these sorts of experiences, which makes me feel a lot better about working there. I was working in telecom for about three and a half years with an over-the-top VoIP provider, and so I had to deal with Comcast a lot there. I know what it's like being on the other side of the phone calls I get every day, and I try really hard to give people an experience as far on the positive end of the spectrum as I can.
ReplyDeleteI use GEICO and have had one very-low-speed accident. Literally zero damage, but the other guy was nuts. GEICO was good about it.
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