Service in Europe & US

[apowell@ezlink.com]

Tom Nas hisself said: 

...Here in Holland, the customer's complaint is registered at the 
reception desk, and the mechanics determine what is wrong with 
your car. I know from a friend of mine who's a mechanic, that their 
training is very good (most of it's organized by a central training 
organization not connected with VW/Audi). IMO, someone who 
deals with the same cars every day and has proper training is the 
best candidate for determining what's wrong with your car.

Tom, if the dealerships and mechanics here in the US had the 
same ethic in regard to training and responsibility, and the same 
quality of training, I think those assumptions would be OK.  
However, there is (note attempt at diplomacy) a VERY high degree 
of variability in:

1)  Whether the dealership actually values its service department 
as a potential source of positive customer relations;
2)  Whether the mechanics are well-trained (regrettably, many are 
not as competent as those in Europe);
3)  Whether the dealership encourages the mechanics to do high-
quality work even if it takes more time, OR whether they insist they 
shove as many jobs out the door as possible each day with very 
limited regard for the quality of work.

Having said this, there are some dealerships which score high in all 
regards - however, these are hard to find.  As a result, there is a 
VERY, VERY low trust level between service customers and 
dealerships here in the US.  Most customers (myself included) 
would find the European procedure unacceptable because there are 
too many dealerships which will run up the bill and do poor work at 
the same time.

Why?  Because they figure that most people don't know enough 
about cars to evaluate the quality of work done (unfortunately, 
generally true) and that there re enough people around that it 
doesn't matter if they p**s off their customers.  Sometimes these 
asumptions are wrong and result in real business problems, but 
they are seldom attributed to the work that is being done; rather, 
they are likely to be compensated for by increased sales efforts.

Sigh.

Happy New Year!
++++++++++++++++++++WSU-CSU+++++++++++++++++
Al Powell
Apowell@EZlink.com
1958 Fiat 1200 Spyder "Transformabile"
1983 Datsun 280ZXT
1990 Audi 200
http://www.ezlink.com/~powells/
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