A couple years ago, I sent a big email after an experience with a national tire shop chain. Having just come from a great experience with a mechanic the day prior, this was a bad way to follow it up.
I was visiting Utah and had to get some work done on my car. After the work was completed, it was suggested to get an alignment. The shop we were referred to for an alignment was booked past the time we would be around, so we found a TIRE SHOP (actual business has been redacted).
Had I known the service experience would be half as bad as it was, I would’ve avoided TIRE SHOP like most people avoid the check engine light! If you’re going to endure my email, make sure to note where they went wrong and what you would do to fix things.
The Email Complaint
Dear Sir or Ma’am:
As someone who values and expects decent customer service from business, my experience at the UT TIRE SHOP Tires was vehemently reprehensible. The following is a recount of the service we received for invoice XXXXXXXXXXX on November 2nd, 2022 at ADDRESS:
On November 1st, we made an appointment over the phone to have a tire alignment at 8:00 AM on November 2nd. We dropped the car off on the afternoon of the 1st and confirmed the time. We were told the alignment would be completed sometime between 9:00 AM and 9:30 AM.
At 8:50 AM on the 2nd, we showed up to get a status update on the car. The car was still where we parked it. The customer service representative informed us that there still was a “car stuck on the rack” and that our car would be up in a few minutes.
This interaction was very poor as the customer service representative acted as though we were bugging him. He made my fiancé feel like she wasn’t important. This isn’t uncommon when it comes to repair shops treating her like she’s less than, but she didn’t want to deal with the shop after that point. However, the shop we were referred to was booked until November 8th and we are heading back home on November 6th. We also just had the struts replaced on November 1st and were informed an alignment needed to be done. Not wanting to drive the car more than absolutely necessary, we decided to wait it out.
At 9:28 AM, she received a phone call telling her the inner and outer tie rods needed to be replaced for the alignment to be done. The cost would be about $308. We were next door at Heritage Motor Company with her father. A mechanic for 35+ years, he wanted to check it before they started working on it.
He and I walked over to TIRE SHOP and he requested to check it. We were informed that the vehicle was being “pulled back in”. After they pulled it back in, he checked it and found that only the inner tie rod needed replacement. He told the mechanic to only replace the inner tie rod because that was the only one that needed replacement. He was told it would take about 2 hours to replace the rod and do the alignment.
Having never been in this town, we decided to walk around while the work on the car was being done. We were expecting a call around 11:30 AM. We walked by just before noon, and the vehicle wasn’t parked out front. We also never received a call, so at 1:12 PM, I went back to the shop and saw the car parked out front.
At this point, I was extremely disappointed in the service we had received. Why were we not contacted when the vehicle was finished? I wanted to give them a chance in the case that the vehicle literally had just been parked and waited 10 more minutes to see if they would contact us.
After still not receiving a call, I went in. A new customer service representative informed me that “the car just got finished” and that he hadn’t even had the time to do the paperwork because it just got done.
After being informed that we needed to have another $300 of work done (without being given the price of the bolt that needed to be replaced), I was informed that I owed the full $308. I was told that both rods were replaced, so of course I asked why the outer tie rod was replaced when we didn’t want to have it since it didn’t need replacement. The customer service representative talked to the mechanic and he was told my fiancé’s father told him to replace both rods.
Meanwhile, the customer service representative that we had dealt with in the morning was sitting behind his computer, too afraid to come out and handle this situation. To me, it didn’t make sense to have this second customer service representative handle this situation when the other one already had some knowledge of what was going on. I felt some empathy for the second representative, so I didn’t want to interrogate him more, but I also didn’t want to deal with the representative who was avoiding the situation. This experience told me the leadership didn’t care, and we really needed to get going.
After some silence, the solution to this whole mess was to remove the cost of the part that was installed that didn’t need to be replaced and that we requested not be replaced. The customer service representative made sure to iterate that we got a new outer tie rod installed and we aren’t being charged for it. This was strange because it didn’t need to be replaced and we specifically requested it not get replaced, so it being taken off the bill and me being treated like I’m supposed to be appreciative of that was a joke.
I have worked in customer service most of my life and have worked in environments with both great and weak leadership. I didn’t want to speak nor hear from the manager. It was obvious to me at that point that the leadership of this shop doesn’t train and mentor the staff. We also had things we needed to get done yesterday, which we still may have been able to accomplish if the 11:30 AM completion time was met, but since it wasn’t completed until sometime after 1:00 PM (that’s what I was informed of, anyways), we weren’t able to get everything done. We wouldn’t have stuck around if it was going to take that long to finish the vehicle.
So, to recap the failures in our experience:
- We expected the alignment to begin at 8:00 AM, since that was the appointment time. It didn’t even begin until some time after 9:00 AM, and we were never informed until we showed up. I also am not sure why the vehicle was pulled out of the shop to call us since it was already 88 minutes late.
- The customer service representative didn’t treat my fiancé like her business was important to him.
- There was service performed on the car that was specifically requested to not be done. The mechanic completely dismissed what my fiance’s father told him.
- At the very latest with the time estimates we were given, the service should have been completed by 11:30 AM. I paid for the repair at 1:36 PM, according to the receipt. I was also told the vehicle “had just been finished” when it had been sitting out front for at least 10 minutes.
- The customer service representative that we had been working with just let his coworker, who had no idea what was going on, flounder. Teamwork wasn’t imperative.
- We were not given any type of discount for this experience. The only “discount” was the removal of the part that didn’t need to be replaced and that was requested to not be replaced. On the receipt, the removal of the tie rod price was listed as “Customer Satisfaction.” Why would removing the price of something we requested not done and that didn’t need to be done satisfy the poor experience we had?
The lack of communication, the absence of training and teamwork, the inability to actively listen, the “attempt” at resolving the service failure, the multiple breaks in trust, and the cowardice displayed at the TIRE SHOP in T—, Utah made our first impression of the TIRE SHOP chain a drastically negative one. As of right now, we would never, ever entertain the idea of even thinking about getting service at any TIRE SHOP location. This experience was so bad that I would have to wonder if TIRE SHOP even has a customer service training program in place for their employees. I sincerely hope this shop is an exception to the rule, and I hope steps will be implemented to correct the poor condition the shop is in.
Perhaps since the vehicle was from out of state, they didn’t think we were important. Is this the case? Or are all the customers treated this way? If anything, this negative experience sticks out even more since it is the only negative experience we’ve had on our vacation so far.
My email is —@gmail.com If a response is made, make it via my email, please.
Thank you for your time.
***********
This isn’t my first experience with a mechanic that has been negative. This was exceptional, though. I never received an email back from customer service, and the Facebook message I got back asked for the address of the store I was at, even though it was at the beginning of my complaint. They did make sure to point out that their stores are independently operated.
What stories do you have? What would you do to make sure your business doesn’t make similar mistakes?
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