Zeusblog

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (well, Salford actually), I used to be a car salesman. One of the things I was taught was that it is a good thing for your customer to have a problem. Deal with it well, as Saab recently did for me (click here to read), and you have won a customer for life. It’s true of any sales situation, not just cars. Of course, the opposite applies too. Which brings me to Renault.

Renault started well. Our nearly three year old diesel Clio has an amazing engine with incredible economy (50mpg round town, and I once averaged 72mpg on a London-Birmingham-London trip), has very low emissions (so only £35 a year tax), came with 0% finance, and we bought 3 year’s servicing for only £100. So far, so good.

But then, bit by bit you begin to realise why you don’t often hear the words ‘quality’ and ‘French engineering’ together very often. Inside the car it’s all a bit plasticky and things rattle and squeak. Then there was that strange banging noise that turned out (after trying to discover its source by driving up and down the road leaning over the back seat with my head in the boot until I was nearly sick) to be a loose exhaust heat shield.

And when you throw a bit of good old-fashioned British jobsworthyness into the mix it can all get a bit annoying. A couple of months ago, it sounded like the exhaust was blowing. So, a little surprised that it hadn’t even lasted three years, I popped into Kwik Fit. It turned out not to be the exhaust but an air filter cover. The Kwik Fit guy showed me the gouge mark where whoever had serviced the car had prised it open with a screwdriver and broken the catch. As the local Renault dealer had serviced it from new, I pointed out the problem and asked them to remedy this when the car was in for its annual service.

Here was their chance to make me a customer for life and an advocate for their brand. So what did they do?

Thy kept me waiting outside for twenty minutes (I was on time by the way) while they shuffled cars from the workshop to the forecourt, and, I kid you not, went off to buy milk and a newspaper. Then, when they rang at lunchtime, they said it wasn’t anything to do with them and the best they could do was put a screw in it. They had no explanation of how it could have happened, even though they were the only people ever to have been under the bonnet with tools. I asked them how much the part that they had broken would cost to replace. £35.

£35! Just £35 (which is the retail price not what it actually costs them) and I’m onside, on message, on brief, telling everyone how great they are. But they blew it. Argued with me on the phone. Kept me waiting. Told me I had to be back for it before 5:30 or I wouldn’t see it again until after they’ve fetched the milk and newspaper on Monday morning. Argued with me on the forecourt when I expressed my displeasure at the botch job they’d done (screwed it shut with a self-tapper!). So now, instead of word-of-mouth, they get word-of-bad-mouth from me.

The moral of this story? Problems happen. How you deal with them can make all the difference to your business. Needless to say I won’t be buying another Renault.

Chalky