A Customer Service Story

My wife has a Tesla Model 3 and just loves it. On the way home from the barn yesterday, she was zipping through the backroads, took a corner too tight, and blew the passenger rear tire. It was a total “curbie” that ripped a hole into the sidewall. Ouch.

I went immediately to assess the situation and work with her to get the tire repaired. Tesla has “roadside assistance” that comes with the vehicle and you use the Tesla app to request help. In theory, this is very slick. In practice, not so much.

After two attempts (and over 30 minutes) to get someone to respond, I was connected with a rep from Tesla. We went back and forth via text message to secure a tow truck to get the vehicle to my preferred tire repair shop.

Finally, after an hour of screwing around, I received the text message that accompanies this post. As you can see, Tesla couldn’t (or wouldn’t) arrange a tow for us.

What???

Arranging a tow for a blown tire is probably the easiest thing a “roadside assistance” team has to do. As a case in point, after we were blown off by the Tesla rep, we made one phone call to a local towing company and they were there within 20 minutes. Clearly, Tesla didn’t put much, if any, effort into finding a tow truck for us.

Worse yet, after leaving us on the side of the road with no assistance and wasting an hour of our time, they recommended we reach out to AAA and ended their communication with a soul crushing “I hope you have a great day” and a condescending smiley face. Wow.

The point of this tale is this. If you manage a customer service team, add this story to the list of examples you use on how NOT to treat your customers. Linda and I are not overly demanding and understand that customer service agents are routinely treated with disrespect by the entitled or uninformed. Linda used to manage a customer service service team and knows how difficult the job can be. We usually cut reps slack whenever we can, but this is clearly a case of poor training and poor processes.

Secondary point: If you manage a product design team or are a product owner, make sure your offering does what it says on the tin. It wasn't called "Roadside 'we'll help you if it's convenient for us'..."

And finally a message for Tesla: We love your cars but hate your service. With competition heating up in the market for EVs, Tesla needs to up their service-after-the-sale game. Flippant, disingenuous interactions with customers is a sure-fire way to damage a company’s reputation and long-term sustainability.

Have a great rest of your weekend! :)
[tongue firmly in cheek]

Andy