OT Customer Service or lack of it.

That just sucks, Bill. So what she claims is the Corporation washes its hand and then lets the francisee deal with it. Looks like a total cluster-f*ck. I am sorry, but glad that you warned the rest of us.

-- So why don't we just shoot these bastards?

They really do offer nothing in terms of customer service. Here is what it says at their website:

Customer Service You Can Count On

At Meineke, our goal is to provide every customer with quality parts, a friendly, professional staff, and expert workmanship - all at a reasonable cost. That's the reason customers rely on Meineke to protect their cars and trucks year after year. To ensure your satisfaction, Meineke offers one of the most comprehensive warranties available on the road today. We invite you to visit your local Meineke shop and see how we stand above the rest when it comes to serving your automotive needs.

Boss: "Five percent of our customers account for 90% of the complaints." Dilbert: "That's the five percent who actually use our product."

I thought George Foreman was in charge of customer complaints. Sue the bastards.

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Myth

Those 'great results' are nothing more than good programming. To understand how it works you need to see the complaints they DON'T tell you about.

It's all about Show Biz, not consumer advocacy. They only pick complaints that are safe & easy; the ones having good 'media values.' They avoid all hard-ball issues, especially those involving large corporations, any potential advertiser and anyone having deep pockets.

Printed media uses a slightly different ploy. It takes only a few strokes of the editor's blue pencil to turn a thoughtful, well written letter into the shrill yammering of an idiot.

-Bob Hoover

It's unlikely he will get to the Chair. Such a tactic is called "Penetrating the Corporate Veil", and rarely succeeds.

Dennis Wrote: I thought George Foreman was in charge of customer complaints. Sue the

bastards.

And heres George

"Bill Berckman" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... | Remember that thread (that turned out to be long) about my problems | with getting Meineke to fix my E brake on my Escort Wagon that I paid | for. Still never did get any satisfaction. I e mailed Meineke about a | month or so ago and never heard anything back, so I decided to call | them today. Of course the number for customer service was not toll | free. I called an got put on hold for a minute or so. The background | noise on the phone was promoting Meineke's guaranteed satisfaction | service. The lady finally got on the phone and said that I was pretty | much out of luck about getting any help from them because the Meineke | store is a franchise and she said that I would have to take the | franchise owners to small claims court. I am like you are the | franchisor, so can't you do anything. Answer was no. So I guess that | I am like Mick Jaggar and can't get no satisfaction from Meineke. I | even told them they could either fixt it, or give me my money back. No | dice on either. Small claims court is only $20 to file, but I would | have to take a half a day off of work to do that. Oh well I guess I | will just have to bend over. If you are ever in Cincinnati and need | brake work, don't stop at Meineke Center # 1672 at 9339 Princeton | Glendale Rd unless you have a big jar of vasoline.

Sorry to hear about your problem. First off, I have no financial interest in Meineke and I don't recall ever having done business with them, but on a few occasions I have gotten results with franchisee problem. Some things to remember: 1. EVERYONE has a boss. If you start asking for the name and number of the person's boss when you aren't getting the results you need, it is entirely likely that the "customer service" person will start providing it. I suggest you call another franchisee, explain what happened, and ask for the name of the district manager. If the other store is unwilling/unable to take care of you (many of them will jump all over that one to make you happy) they will be more than happy to point you up the ladder. If a franchisee gets enough complaints, the parent company will yank their license hard and fast because one outlet reflects on ALL the outlets, and that's a very bad thing. YOU are their paycheck, and if you have gone as high as you can go, remember that you are still their paycheck and that makes you ultimately the final boss. Skip talking to flunkies who have no stake in the outcome. Find the folks with names on their desks to help you. Failing that, move on to next point as you move up the ladder. 2. All businesses understand that it takes a very long time to create a single loyal customer, but mere seconds to lose hundreds, and most folks work hard to not let that happen. Damage to a company's reputation due to word of mouth, just like this, is a horrible thing that no one with a brain wants to have to deal with. The papers are full of stories about large companies screwing up en masse, but they never report the daily things that happen. If you inform the folks you are talking to that you have spent some time passing on your discontent to newsgroups full of customers, that tends to make them unhappy, because more than five or ten former or never-to-be customers exist at that time, but hundreds, possibly thousands. This is your leverage. 3. Let yourself get mad on the phone, but don't ever lose your cool. It goes a long way, but make sure you document who you talk to, when you talk to them, and what was discussed. If you get good results of any kind, make sure you pass that as well up the chain. That is useful because it shows you are a reasonable person, one who can recognize and reward good behavior as well as not tolerate bad. 4. Points done. I keep these things in mind when I start on the phone, and it never hurts to pursue more than one direction at the same time. I started calling one time while I was _still in_ the store, and more than one customer walked out after hearing the person/owner start yelling at me after overhearing my conversation, and the person I was on the phone with heard it too. I couldn't have been more thrilled. I walked out with a smile, and with a few customers, too. It was a shipping store, and while my business was through FedEx for Nintendo, I also called UPS and a couple other shippers. They were most interested! The Nintendo guy, who overheard the yelling, was writing up the incident report even as I finished the conversation with him, so the store got at least three unhappy bosses who were going to take it up with the franchisee for me and their customers. Over the years I've gotten coupons and checks, managers drooling to help me correct their wrong, and other stuff. Make lots of noise, and you WILL get a suitable response!

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"Yes, Virginia. There IS a Santa Claus." :-)

The whole point is that with a properly managed company the customer should never need to '...make a lot of noise.' Good firms welcome complaints as a form of feedback and accept the cost of facilitating them. Bad Firms, which today are in the majority, follow the Short-Term, Bottom Line school of management as taught by all of the nation's leading business schools, which uses statistics to show that any effort to deal with customer complaints in a fair and honest fashion will have a negative impact on the short-term return on investment. Indeed, it is even argued that the mere existance of a 'Complaint Department' by any name is de juri evidence the company or its product is less than perfect and in doing so, opens the door to questions of product liability and mismanagement.

So ixnay on the Complaint Department. It is vanished down the rat-hole of 'Customer Service' to be dealt with by a computer generated form letter signed by a person that does not exist inviting you to call a special telephone number that locks the dissatisfied customer into an endless loop of computer generated apologetic letters but does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue.

The public's response to this brand of management is best seen in the growing body of consumer-protection legislation at both the state and federal level.

-Bob Hoover

The proof of this may be seen in the