Fwd: Re: Audi of America finally wrote me back!-kinda long

[loren01@ix.netcom.com (Scott Bermes)]

>Monica, the lady on the other end of the phone, called the head of 
>Product Planning (tried to get his/her name so we could mail him/her 
>tons of "Bring a Coupe to the US" letters, no luck.  She said Germany 
>makes that decision.  Stingy basta$@*) and she said that there will 
>not be an armrest in the 1.8s from the factory this year.  But she 
>said that a swap should be straight forward. She got back to me within 
>24 hours.  Maybe Audi is getting better.  Or by the sound of your 
>response, maybe not.

This is certainly not standing up for AoA, since I have called them a 
number of times and have experienced similar helpful customer service 
reps only a fraction of the time.  And I find it kinda sad that AoA 
doesn't have a more personal response to their customer service related 
letters.

However, this is only an observation and a generalization, but my 
twelve years years managing a retail establishment plus being a trainer 
in two Fortune 500 company has led me to the following conclusion:  
Half the problem is the ignorant, dumbed down and lazy workers we 
continue to produce in this society.  Those same yahoo's who put their 
infants in the front seat of their cars are very likely working that 
customer service job with some big manufacturer of appliances, sterios, 
cars, your credit card company, etc. 

It starts with high schools not producing good students.  Sure, 
corporate culture and procedures plays a part, but you have to admit, 
we here is the US are producing more "dumb downed" citizens than we 
were 10-20+ years ago. 

My present company spends a lot of money "training customer service", 
and for every class of 20 students, we are lucky to get a few like 
Monica mentioned in the post.  However, since we want to be "best in 
class" in our industry, we need bodies to answer the phones so 
customers are only on hold for what's considered "best in class" hold 
times.  Automated phone systems play their part, but it's the training 
of the product AND the intellegence and quality of the human on the 
other end of the phone that makes all the difference. 

If they are working because it's a job and don't give a flip about cars 
and a company like AoA does their job of training the product (wonder 
how much training they do get) I suggest a customer still won't be 
talking to an employee like Monica...........

Enough of my vent....I just spent the day dealing with a brain dead 19 
year old customer service rep trying to get my credit card problem 
taken care of!  Oh what an experience.

Scott
89 200tqw