Email for dealers

[Bill Rehm]

Below is a suggested email to use folks. If others can assist in coming up
with the appropriate email addresses for dealers in different parts of the
country I sincerely hope a large number of us will act by sending this, or
something like it, instead of whining about poor dealership service.
Another idea: possibly a member from each chapter could act as that
chapter's dealer liaison, someone on that chapter's committee --- to show
them we mean business? There can be strength in numbers folks and we have
the member (and none member) numbers in NZ!
Bill

Dear xxx
This is to inform you that you can anticipate a reduction in revenue at
your XXX dealership caused by fellow MX5 club members and me. This is
result of the ongoing rudeness and poor customer service of your employees,
in addition to the poor quality of their work. Many of us have tolerated
this for some time, however a significant number of us have decided this is
no longer acceptable.

Permit me to share some customer service related research with you. When a
person has a positive customer experience they tell approximately three
people, when they have a negative customer experience they tell nine to
twelve people. Of course those statistics were compiled prior to the use
of email and the Internet. I suspect the multiples are significantly
higher now.

As an organisation we represent a very large potential stream of revenue
for your business. Our loyalty deserves your recognition through your
establishing and maintaining a 'MX5 club members are valued customers'
philosophy. A philosophy demonstrated through all forms of better service
--- a philosophy that at present does not exist at your dealership.

If you don't improve your employee's customer related attitudes, behaviour
and work quality you can expect to lose my business. Of course that
doesn't take into account the additional impact that my fellow members and
I will have through our word of mouth, and email campaign.

The decision is yours to make. I'll be hoping you and your management team
make the fiscally sound decision.

Sincerely

[Sam Parker]

John Andrew DP is actually Ross Moore (Trevor Walmsley is Group GM or
similar) so may be better contact, apologies for that. I have had no
personal contact with them in a service or parts situation so can not
comment either way except that what has been said on the forum should be of
concern to them

Regards

Sam Parker

Adrenalin Publishing Ltd
PO Box 65 092 Mairangi Bay
Auckland
NEW ZEALAND
Ph 64 9 478 4771 fax 64 9 478 4779

[Charles & Morven Lynch]

Sorry Bill,
I don't like it. I think you're in danger of going off half cocked here.
Only Darryl and I seem to have experienced problems at the Auckland
dealership.
One or two of these e-mail to the manager there will only serve to get
his back up and
lead to the withdrawal of the club discount.
I think a more professional way to approach this, is to raised the issue
as a concern with the
committee and if they think it's appropriate they will pass it on to
their contacts at Mazda.
That's one of the benefits of having the club and it's much more likely
to be effective.
So rather than WHINING to random mazda dealerships, we should be telling
our committee members
about our specific experiences, and giving them the evidence they need to
make an issue of it with Mazda.
Cheers
Chic
--
Charles & Morven Lynch, chicnmo@lynchz.com on 05/07/2002

[Nigel Hughes]

I have to agree with Chic.

I have personally had prompt/good service from JAF/M on the occasions I have
been there and I think sending an email, ostensibly on behalf of club members,
based on the small response on this list is a bit presumptuous.

Nigel.

JST4FN

[...]

[Louisa Currie]

Sorry Bill - while I support your message, I'm not in support of an e-mail
in this tone either.

And perhaps the reason your response was so limited is because other people
have not had these problems. ???

I'm a teeny eenny bit disappointed that you have made the assumption that I
did nothing about the poor service I received and only WHINGED on the club
list. At the time I complained to the manager on duty and was satisfied I
had been heard.

Anyway - I applaud your efforts to get some group momentum going but prefer
Chics suggestion of a committee approach. I will happily draft something up
if required.

Louisa

[Mark Roberts]

I concur - good work Bill but maybe a more diplomatic approach as
suggested by others.

[...]

[Bill Rehm]

Sorry, I didn't propose what you claim Nigel. I proposed that individuals
who would like to see the level of service at dealerships raised
individually send an email.
Bill

[Bill Rehm]

Chic
I can be comfortable with your suggestion.

Candidly, I don't view my approach as 'half cocked'. In fact I've found
that in NZ, more proactive approaches achieve greater success than what
tends to be the PC norm here. The approach I've proposed has been
successfully used to gain the attention of the MD at a major international
company here in NZ and more important that company took immediate action to
deal with the problem identified. Also, there are many others who have
expressed dissatisfaction in the past with dealerships (myself included).

Again, I'm comfortable with whatever the majority of members want as long
as we do something! Hell, wouldn't it be nice if all could go to a
dealership feeling confident in advance that their needs as a customer
would be met?

One down side to the old committee approach can be best summed up by a
saying I heard for the first time recently: "a camel is a horse designed by
a committee", i.e. committee decisions can sometimes result in a diluted,
even ineffectual outcome. Business is a numbers game. One person sitting in
front of another person telling them that they represent a group doesn't
have the same impact as the group members individually expressing
themselves. You don't have to look beyond the current teacher's issue to
see the impact numbers of individuals can have rather than leaving things
up to their "representatives".

I wrote the email. Time permitting, I will seek the email addresses of the
dealership individuals mentioned and will post them to the list. Whoever
wants to use their own version of it so be it. If this is an isolated
individual owner issue as you suggest (which I suspect it isn't) then I've
offered individual owners an option.

I can assure you, a significant number of individual emails to a business
owner psychologically has more impact than a "representative" (as one
learns in any 'Political Movements 101' course). Of course if most people
would prefer to act out of a perceived fear of dealer retaliation, that in
itself suggests something about the dealer's motives (and their ability to
successfully be self-serving and NOT customer oriented) doesn't it?
Bill

[Bill Rehm]

Sorry Louisa, but reading my email I don't see where I've assumed you
didn't take action on your own behalf. Good on you for expressing your
dissatisfaction.

Having said that, "being heard" by the manager on duty, with your message
possibly going in one ear and out the other as soon as you left the
dealership, and getting a dealer's commitment at an organisational level to
some positive actions and agreed outcomes ---- well that's entirely two
different things isn't it?

As stated previously, I suspect that there are numbers of people who simply
haven't expressed their dissatisfaction (most research on customer
satisfaction would support this conclusion) or have unfortunately long ago
given up on dealerships providing them with value for money.

At the risk of being redundant, I still think it would be nice if members
could feel confident in dealer service, and be recognised as a valued
customer group who receive the appropriate expected outcomes. This is
something that a dealer will only provide based on a sufficient number of
individuals prepared to take action which could hurt the dealer in their
wallet.

Bill

[Lindsay]

Hi all,

While I must admit that my impressions of the Greenlane Mazda service are
better than John Andrew Ford/Mazda, I haven't had bad enough service
personally to support the email campaign.

When I first bought my MX5, one of the senior technicians at Greenlane Mazda
spent some time with me helping diagnose a problem without charging me
anything (and he recommended the club,) and I always enjoyed dealing with
the Scottish chap on the service counter.

In comparison I have only bought parts from John Andrew. They did follow up
a back order for a new battery which I was quite happy with (including
giving me a club discount.)

They do seem to have a different culture at John Andrew which may be in part
due to the quite different customer bases that Ford and Mazda have, with
Ford being more fleet and taxi oriented.

Anyone having personal issues with service should follow it up with the
dealer concerned, but any communications mentioning (or on behalf of) the
club should have the consent of the committee, to which end I think that the
AGM would be the best forum for concerns regarding service at any
particular dealers.

Just my thoughts, but I do urge caution when representing members who may
not support an approach such as this, or who don't subscribe to this forum
and have had no opportunity for input.

Cheers,
Lindsay