Mercedes (lack of) Customer Service

[jpwilliams]

I sent an email on 20 August to a specific individual in the service department of Mercedes Chester inviting him to requote me for a large B service (101,000 miles) on my W210 as two local indies had quoted £170 less than his quote of £619.
As of yesterday 29 August I had not received either an acknowledgement or reply so I phoned him. Receptionist said he was with a customer,she took my number and said he would call me back .He didn`t phone so I called back later and was then told he was with a customer and would call me back.

I am still waiting.Well I`m not any longer as they have lost my business and I will have the car serviced in Spain next week.
The Mercedes organisation will not last long in my opinion with such dismissive attitudes.

Regards

John

 

[nick mercedes]

I sent an email on 20 August to a specific individual in the service department of Mercedes Chester inviting him to requote me for a large B service (101,000 miles) on my W210 as two local indies had quoted £170 less than his quote of £619.
As of yesterday 29 August I had not received either an acknowledgement or reply so I phoned him. Receptionist said he was with a customer,she took my number and said he would call me back .He didn`t phone so I called back later and was then told he was with a customer and would call me back.

I am still waiting.Well I`m not any longer as they have lost my business and I will have the car serviced in Spain next week.
The Mercedes organisation will not last long in my opinion with such dismissive attitudes.

Regards

John

Do Mercedes dealers price match indies??

 

[R2D2]

I think you've just realised that Mercedes hope you and your more than three old Mercedes won't clutter up their shiny show room/forecourt with your car. The guy gave you a price, which of course as a sane person you thought was too high, and now he is hoping you'll clear off and let him get on with changing air filters on modern mercs. Mercedes dealers are where you go when you are in warranty and after your three years is up you buy AA cover to replace mobilo and you clear off out to someone who actually wants to look at your car!

 

[jpwilliams]

Hi Nick,

I didn`t ask for a match I gave him the figures and asked if he could revisit his figure of £619 with a view to reducing it.
He`s clearly not interested,so perhaps they do not need/want the business? If either its a strange attitude in todays economic climes.

Regards
John

 

[jpwilliams]

I think you've just realised that Mercedes hope you and your more than three old Mercedes won't clutter up their shiny show room/forecourt with your car. The guy gave you a price, which of course as a sane person you thought was too high, and now he is hoping you'll clear off and let him get on with changing air filters on modern mercs. Mercedes dealers are where you go when you are in warranty and after your three years is up you buy AA cover to replace mobilo and you clear off out to someone who actually wants to look at your car!

Thanks R2D2--I think that just about sums it up although they still give "discounts" for older cars.My quote of £619 was supposedly reduced from £800 on account of the age of my car.

Regards

John

 

[Will]

I can't see why he'd be interested in reducing the price?

Surely he's quoted book time and priced the job for the hours it takes - he's still got to pay his technicians the same amount etc.

MB dealers have higher overheads than indis, hence they're more expensive.

If you are happy that the quality of work will be identical from either establishment, just use the indi...

Will

 

[ukcodger]

Its supply and demand. If MB Chester have a full workshop why get into a bidding war?
Mind you, if I had been that service guy I would have phoned you back and got your business for £619 after I'd explained our overhead structure, what a great job my company do, our standards of work and warranty thereon etc,etc, also how we value past and future custom.
But then, in my past life as a General Manager I did care. But bidding wars were the beginning of the end.

 

[rf065]

I contacted Stratstone Mercedes through their book a service on line facility on three seperate occasions earlier this year.

Each time I got a standard reply along the lines of, "your e-mail has been recieved, will be treated with priority and you will be contacted to confirm your preferred dates".

Still waiting on the phone calls after 6 months, and the car has been serviced by another dealer.
(I should also add, I have no intention of going near a Stratstone dealership again)

Russ

 

[ddentrec]

... as two local indies had quoted £170 less than his quote of £619.

The £170 difference is needed to pay for the MB franchise fee. Seriously.

But if you wait 6 months the recession will really have hit home and the same dealer will then call you back begging for your business.

 

[Wunderpartz]

Me too, I contacted them by email regarding trading in my 99 SL against a newer W220 they had for sale. No reply kept coming. It's a shame that the sales team could not have even responded out of courtesy. For the sake of one email, the company, as represented by the sales crew don't actually give a monkeys.
Now, suppose I went in to enquire about buying a new one............

 

[Simon_M]

I was in the Thurrock dealership when I overheard a phonecall, a guy was wanting to speak to 'the sales manager' because he had twice been promised a phone call about a new car but had not been called.

He was put through to the sales guy who had not returned his calls (sat right by the receptionist) . It turned out he was after an SL65, response was 'that is a factory order car' will take 12 weeks. The punter obviously wanted it asap so he asked for an SL63 instead. The salesman's response was 'that is a factory order too'. No apologies, no mentions of searching for the car on his behalf, no offer to call other dealerships, nothing. The call ended and the salesman pulled a face as if to say 'what the fek did he want'.

Now sales ain't my thing, but if a punter walks in with 150K to spend you make sure you relieve them of their cash, especially in this climate.


Muppets.....

 

[DC_insider]

The £170 difference is needed to pay for the MB franchise fee. Seriously.

What franchise fee?

 

[Dryce]

I can't see why he'd be interested in reducing the price?

Surely he's quoted book time and priced the job for the hours it takes - he's still got to pay his technicians the same amount etc.

MB dealers have higher overheads than indis, hence they're more expensive.

If times are hard and you have all those fixed costs then it actually pays to take the work you'd otherwise lose discounted down to zero or even negative margin as long as you're taking up slack utilisation and you're covering the variable costs.

 

[Rory]

Its supply and demand. If MB Chester have a full workshop why get into a bidding war?
.

MB Chester is my local dealership and I've never seen a more deserted looking place - and that's not just recent, it's been like that in the 3 yrs I've been going there.

They do have a amazing knack of turning the most straightforward thing into something hughly time consuming. Dropping my car off for its last service took a full 40mins - a good 10, maybe 15mins of which the dopey girl dealing with me disappeared to photocopy my documents for the courtesy car.

They constantly advertise low cost servicing in the local paper - in fact they sponsor a section. And it's not limited to older cars, they'll do any car at those prices.


ETA: I just looked up their ad in this weeks Chester Chronicle. They don't list E220CDi but a B service on a C220CDi is £299 and on an E320CDi it's £349. This is using fully synth oil, 2yr guarantee etc. I do fully expect, however, that those are just prices to get you in the door and all ammer of additional work will no doubt be required. They do note 40% discounted labour rate on cars over 3yrs old.

 

[Rory]

Its supply and demand. If MB Chester have a full workshop why get into a bidding war?

MB Chester is my local dealership and I've never seen a more deserted looking place - and that's not just recent, it's been like that in the 3 yrs I've been going there.

They do have a amazing knack of turning the most straightforward thing into something hughly time consuming. Dropping my car off for its last service took a full 40mins - a good 10, maybe 15mins of which the dopey girl dealing with me spend photocopying my documents for the courtesy car.

They constantly advertise low cost servicing in the local paper - in fact they sponsor a section. And it's not limited to older cars, they do any car at those prices.


I would also add that I've always found car dealers - sales and service - useless at email. They just don't seem to have got into email at all.

 

[jpwilliams]

Its supply and demand. If MB Chester have a full workshop why get into a bidding war?
Mind you, if I had been that service guy I would have phoned you back and got your business for £619 after I'd explained our overhead structure, what a great job my company do, our standards of work and warranty thereon etc,etc, also how we value past and future custom.
But then, in my past life as a General Manager I did care. But bidding wars were the beginning of the end.

My thoughts exactly Codge. If he`d have explained that he was at rock bottom price I could have made a decision to go with him or not. As it was he left "the circle broken". It was discourteous to say the least.

Regards

John

 

[jpwilliams]

MB Chester is my local dealership and I've never seen a more deserted looking place - and that's not just recent, it's been like that in the 3 yrs I've been going there.

They do have a amazing knack of turning the most straightforward thing into something hughly time consuming. Dropping my car off for its last service took a full 40mins - a good 10, maybe 15mins of which the dopey girl dealing with me spend photocopying my documents for the courtesy car.

They constantly advertise low cost servicing in the local paper - in fact they sponsor a section. And it's not limited to older cars, they do any car at those prices.

Rory,
Thanks for your comments.They did not respond to an email or 2 phone calls.I believe that their workshop is empty of vehicles to service and that they should be falling over themselves to encourage customers.
However one dealership`s loss will be someone else`s gain!

REGARDS

John

 

[travelininstyle]

When I was interested in purchasing a C180 K Sports Coupe recently,I rang the used car sales of MB Preston three times,and each time was unable to speak to someone,it was always,we will get someone to call you back - which they never did.On the final occasion,I was told by the receptionist that all the sales team were busy in a meeting - obviously discussing tatics of how they were going to meet this months targets - whilst a real customers was struggling to make any sort of first contact.In the end,I went to MB Whitefields,Manchester and found them most obliging - I have yet to avail myself of their service department - however they did fix a couple of items very promptly,some weeks after I had the car - one was my fault and I was satisfied,but I have yet to avail myself of their service department.The car is under an extended mb approved used warranty still and I am wondering if anyone has used any of the Manchester MB Dealership service departments,including Whitefield,or Central,or MB-Direct in Manchester and could possibly guide me to a satisfactory one.Once the warranty is up,I shall of course use someone like 124works etc.

 

[crockers]

Don't think you should class all MB dealerships the same ... I find Swindon Service dept. very helpful and accommodating....

When I have enquired about cars - have always had good feedback and cars available for testing...

 

[travelininstyle]

Thats a fair point and some work hard to win customer plaudits,but some are just consistantly bad.I am tempted to ask name names ?