A little help: what is the customer perspective?

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Why would we want to be recommended for our free diagnostics, to other people who use independents for the actual work?!

We don't normally charge if we find nothing.
 

toby1

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A chap drives to a small village garage for petrol.

When he tries to start the car after filling up, nothing happens - it just clicks. Garage owner enquires if the owner would like him to look at it for him. Driver says "yes, please".

The garage owner grabs a hammer from his tools, opens the bonnet, taps the starter motor with the hammer and Robert's your mother's brother - it starts!

Garage owner says "That'll be £20 please"

Driver says "How much!? Didn't take you any time at all!"

Garage owner says "£5 for use of the hammer and £15 for knowing where to hit it"

Not sure if relevant but made me chuckle :)
 

Jay Gee

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As has been mentioned,a Star is only as good as the person using it.What annoys a lot of people (not only Mercedes owners) is having to pay for a fix that was wrongly diagnosed,then have to pay yet more money until it's fixed.No refund for wrong diagnosis,either parts or labour.Properly trained technicians are no good without proper experience.
 
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Andy.M

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And that's the nail on the head moment, it should be a fixed fee diag, even if you get the diag wrong and have to do it all again.
 
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As has been mentioned,a Star is only as good as the person using it.What annoys a lot of people (not only Mercedes owners) is having to pay for a fix that was wrongly diagnosed,then have to pay yet more money until it's fixed.No refund for wrong diagnosis,either parts or labour.Properly trained technicians are no good without proper experience.

And if the fix is wrong, we refund the cost of the first before the second is paid for.

If we quote an hour's diagnostic, and it takes longer because the rookie gets it wrong, we only charge an hour.

If it takes no time at all and we just reset a value, we charge nothing.

The Aftersales Director's mantra is "you can shear a sheep many a time, but you'll only fleece it once".
 

Gkinghorn

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You are funny. You ask what we consider to be important and then tell us all how wrong we are when we tell you.

Tell you what next time don't do your market research here but just do whatever you want because clearly you don't give a flying **** what we think.




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You are funny. You ask what we consider to be important and then tell us all how wrong we are when we tell you.

Tell you what next time don't do your market research here but just do whatever you want because clearly you don't give a flying **** what we think.




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Matey, I'm telling that I do some of the stuff you're mentioning already. I'm also telling you that as a business, we can't go handing out our commodities F.O.C. all the time. Some people have made some very interesting and helpful comments. Others have a bugbear with dealers in general, based on experiences with certain ones.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. But because I'm responding to your comments, you say I'm not listening?

Thank-you for your constructive feedback, but if you don't like the thread, or me, then nobody's forcing you to post here or read what I have to say. Thanks for taking the time to post in the first place, though, because some of what you are saying is, as I say, useful.
 

EmilysDad

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..... Others have a bugbear with dealers in general, based on experiences with certain ones.
....

I would expect that would be due to 'once bitten, twice shy' ..... certainly the case of me with my local Vauxhall dealer's service desk - charging me for more (time) than I knew he'd worked on my car for, they've never ever worked on my car since and that was probably 10 years ago.

I agree with you though, that diagnostics should be charged for if the customer is going elsewhere for the work to be done, but included in the price if the car is being worked on by you.
 

Gkinghorn

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Matey, I'm telling that I do some of the stuff you're mentioning already. I'm also telling you that as a business, we can't go handing out our commodities F.O.C. all the time. Some people have made some very interesting and helpful comments. Others have a bugbear with dealers in general, based on experiences with certain ones.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. But because I'm responding to your comments, you say I'm not listening?

Thank-you for your constructive feedback, but if you don't like the thread, or me, then nobody's forcing you to post here or read what I have to say. Thanks for taking the time to post in the first place, though, because some of what you are saying is, as I say, useful.

It really doesn't come across that way ...


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I would expect that would be due to 'once bitten, twice shy' ..... certainly the case of me with my local Vauxhall dealer's service desk - charging me for more (time) than I knew he'd worked on my car for, they've never ever worked on my car since and that was probably 10 years ago.

I agree with you though, that diagnostics should be charged for if the customer is going elsewhere for the work to be done, but included in the price if the car is being worked on by you.

Oh, absolutely. I think people associate a brand with their local dealer, and vice versa, rather than seeing dealers as individuals, too. Which is fair enough -- we probably all do it with other chains.

We get lots of garages sending cars down for diagnostics.
 

Frontstep

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You visit an MB dealer on your guard, your butt cheeks clenched and with the a surge of adrenaline normally reserved for fighting.
Why ?
Its the fleecing, the overcharging, the patronising chat from some of the staff and then when you have clamed down the survey the b***dy survey arrives,
a missive from some yoof in customer satisfaction sat in his grey office in his grey suit.
How did we manage before that opiate of the brainless ?
We just did a good job every time at a reasonable price commensurate with the costs.
We knew we had done a good job because customers kept coming back and they brought others.
When your labour costs are ten times the average wage you will struggle, when you want the customer to support your absurd chrome palace,
When your business ethos is, screw every penny out of every customer and prices are not fathomable, you will struggle.
Ditch the surveys please, they are a passion killer on par with "How was it for you" after sex.

The smile and coming back should tell you enough.
 
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Terrycufc

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My comments on the original question:
Make sure the technology in arranging a service through the website works!
I made a booking with a proposed time, got an automated email back.
Having had no other confirmation I called the dealership, they knew nothing about the booking.
They were able to fit me in only as a while you wait as no loan cars were available
Dealer was Mercedes Cambridge, David the personal contact, and apart from the problem just mentioned they seem pretty good.

Terry
 

ampwhu

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the company I work for can only service / fix the equipment it sells. our engineers are the best there is. we are in the business of communal heating. if we cant fix it, nobody can.

but what you get is joe blogs attempting to fix it without actually knowing what to do. I try to explain that you need me to fix your problem, you cannot do it yourself. if you ignore my advice, then what you do is pay for your 'plumber' to attend, often £250 plus....... then when he can't fix it, then I fix it for less than what you have paid beforehand.

simple maths.
 

malcolm E53 AMG

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Interesting thread and the given response was to be expected and justified.

Perhaps the OP would have been better served by starting the thread with the Daimler Benz 'Mission Statement' and then the forum could have commented on that.

In my opinion MBUK struggle to offer value for money to owners whoes cars are out of warranty and will not win the majority of this business due to excessive labour charges. The Independents have filled this void and the only way for MB to partially rescue the situation is to offer value for money extended warranties which will keep the majority of cars in the dealer network longer.

I wouldn't expect to ask a customer what they valued in customer service, it's pretty obvious really.
 
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EmilysDad

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....

In my opinion MBUK struggle to offer value for money to owners whose cars are out of warranty and will not win the majority of this business due to excessive labour charges......

When in the dealers at the parts desk, just out of interest I asked re a B service for my car. It'd just gone up from £400-odd to £630 :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: A local Indie quoted me around £250 .

I'm not sure I could drink enough 'free' cups of coffee at the dealers to make it worthwhile!
 
OP
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In my opinion MBUK struggle to offer value for money to owners whose cars are out of warranty and will not win the majority of this business due to excessive labour charges. The Independents have filled this void and the only way for MB to partially rescue the situation is to offer value for money extended warranties which will keep the majority of cars in the dealer network longer.

MB actually offer minor 'value' services for 7+ year old cars at £119 for A and B, £139 for C, £149 for E, £159 for SLK, etc. So they are making a bit of an effort.

We do a lot of ad-hoc deals where I am, but that's probably because we're a small dealership with two service advisors and five technicians.
 
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st4

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MB actually offer minor 'value' services for 7+ year old cars at £119 for A and B, £139 for C, £149 for E, £159 for SLK, etc. So they are making a bit of an effort.

We do a lot of ad-hoc deals where I am, but that's probably because we're a small dealership with two service advisors and five technicians.

Do these services keep mobilo intact? This was something asked on here.
 
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