She’s beautiful, isn’t she? I decided
to treat myself a few months ago, and I haven’t regretted it for even one minute.
But last month I discovered that the car had
to go back to the dealer for something to be added. It was a part that needed
installing in order to upgrade the functionality of the car’s communications
system so that I can connect the on-board computer to my smart-phone using a
special app called 'Mercedes Me'.
I was completely happy about this because
it was being paid for by Mercedes and all I had to do was take the car to my
local Mercedes showroom and wait an hour (with lots of free cappuccinos) while
the part was being installed into the car. Easy peazy.
At least that’s what I thought.
So I booked the appointment at
Mercedes Benz of Leeds, and I turned up on time, and I got my free cappuccino.
And everything seemed fine.
Then after about an hour, an engineer
came into the showroom to tell me that the gizmo had been fitted, plus they had
given the car an extensive ‘health check’ (everything was hunky dory) and they’d even washed the car
for me (fantastic customer service, but completely pointless since I had washed
it myself only a few days earlier).
So all I needed to do was take her
home and enjoy her.
And that’s where the problems began. The
fancy new gizmo refused to work. So I looked on the internet for advice and
found a smorgasbord of information about needing to fiddle with this and
needing to fiddle with that. But after hours of frustration, absolutely nothing
solved the problem.
So I phoned Mercedes at their
headquarters in Germany and spoke to a really nice guy called Hans* who talked
me through a lengthy technical procedure to get the gizmo working so that I
could connect the car up to my smart-phone.
Still no joy.
So Hans said he would write a technical report
about this (typical German) and would get the engineers at Mercedes head office
to look into the problem.
I waited and waited and waited. Eventually
I received an email all the way from Stuttgart saying that they could not find
a reason for the gizmo not working, and advising me to go back to my local dealer
to have it checked out.
So I phoned the Leeds branch of
Mercedes and spoke to the head engineer who said that the part might have been
faulty and he would look into it for me and let me know how the problem could
be solved.
So I waited and waited and waited
(again) and eventually I received a call from them saying that they were unable
to explain why the part wasn’t working and that I would have to book another
session with them to remove the part, test it, and if necessary to fit a new
part.
This would mean me booking another
appointment with their engineers. This meant me taking another half day off
work (but at least I’d get more free cappuccinos in their snazzy waiting room).
I had no idea when I would be able to
take time off work, so I said I would call back to book the appointment when I knew
I could take time off.
By this point I was getting rather
exasperated. I began to question whether I was even bothered about the fancy gizmo.
After all, did it really matter whether I could connect my car to my smart-phone
or not? It all seemed like a lot of hassle, just for a fancy bit of technology.
Eventually, I rang them back and spoke to a
receptionist who said she was unable to make an appointment for several weeks
as they were very busy.
Then she said something interesting. “What
exactly is wrong with your car Mr. Bugg?”
I replied that there was nothing actually
wrong with it, but I just couldn’t get my smart-phone app to link up with the
car.
“Which phone app have you installed?” She
asked me.
“Ehh?!?!? Is there more than one app?”
I replied.
“Yes, there are two Mercedes apps that
you can download, but they do different things.”
So I looked at my phone and suddenly realised
that there was indeed another app that looked virtually the same as the one I
had downloaded.
No one had bothered to tell me that
Mercedes have two smart-phone apps. I had just assumed there was only one ... and I was trying to use the wrong one!
Five minutes later, everything was working fine. The receptionist had
been able to solve the problem for me immediately. A problem that neither
the chief engineer at a Mercedes main dealer, nor even the 'experts' at Mercedes
head office in Germany were able to solve.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY: never assume the customer knows something just because you do. And remember that in customer service
situations, the simple solutions are always the best.
* Footnote: Hans is not his real name,
but it sounded appropriate for this story.
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