Are auto brands hotline numbers moving into the X-Files?
Car manufacturers spent thousands of ringgit implementing hotline contact phone numbers and incur high monthly expenses maintaining 24-hour call centers. Reason? Well, to be able to address issues that their customers face when on the road.
For some car brands, this hotline numbers have become an abusive channel for frustrated car owners who are plagued with car issues to vent out their frustration at having to pay high monthly ownership payments and have a vehicle that is unreliable. (below are some samples of what you will see on an auto manufacturers website)
It is manageable when yearly car sales grow step by step inline with with the growing population. However, when car bosses ‘push’ for high sales volumes to show their top management what a great job they have done, it is the after-sales department and the company hotline that gets over-worked, underpaid and under appreciated.
The verbal abuse never reaches top management, just the other person at the end of the phone line. At some point, the hotline operator turns their back and lets the phone just keep ringing and ringing.
Next comes the online website response. Customers take their issues to facebook and or email the car company. Even top management is emailed and all that happens is a black hole in cyberspace. No response. No call back. Nobody bothers. It is to much hassle to issue a response and instead, top management knows that this customer is right and it is better to just ignore them and let their ‘people’ on the ground deal with them.
This unhappy customer will now become a public relations issue as they reach out to social media.
This is why facebook thrives as facebook car clubs become a source of great information for possible new car buyers to get information and insight on the car they wish to buy.
Still, with some car brands, even after so many negative remarks of facebook, some people will still buy that dodgy product because the discount is too big to ignore and the sales person gave so many FREE things. Window tint, car coating, leather seat covers, umbrella, cap, t-shirt, etc.
Months later, this same person comes on social media and starts venting out their car problems. They deserve it!
Were all the FREE gifts worth the headache you are experiencing now with your new car?
