Great customer service....NOT

Called a local "big truck dealership" around 10 AM this morning to get pricing and availability on doing all the brakes on his truck. Understand this is a road tractor so between brake shoes, drums, hub seals, etc your talking better than $1000 for all of the parts. When I started on the teardown I discovered a bigger mess than I had anticipated, so I needed a couple more parts I hadn't included in the list the first time around.

So call two, to include the extra parts, was placed. Since this call was several hours after the first I asked about the other parts. I was told that he was extreemly busy, that I was 4th in line, and he would get back with me when he got done with the others, and had time to get my stuff figured out.

In the meantime I had to make a trip to town to get a new Budd wheel socket after my old Proto split in half while trying to remove the inner half of the nut on the third tandem. Once back I completed tearing down the rears, and then got the front sripped down too. I also came in and sat down long enough to go through a 312 CAT parts book and get a list of parts needed for anoher customers machine. By this time it was just after 5 and still no call back from the dealership's parts guy.

I don't know wether I'm just that fast, the parts guy is that slow, or wether the other 4 in front of me wanted every part to do a complete resto on their 1940 X-model so the parts guy had to make a trip to the factory and dig into their antique parts archives or what. Ultimately given that I never got a call back, I guess they are just so busy when a little man, like me calls in with planns to place a 'small' $1000 plus order, it just isn't that important.

Funny thing, I even told the guy when I called the second time that I needed to know something on the parts ASAP. I had actually wanted to pick eveything up today, so I could start back together, with everything on hand, in the morning... if they had it all in stock. If not I also needed to know since the nearest big truck supplier is in the complete opposite direction of the dealership. I had hoped to go ahead in that direction today and get those parts, since I already had to go that way to get my new Budd socket, and not have to make a second trip that direction tomorrow.

I had called the dealership mainly so I could make one trip for everything, and also so I didn't have to tear everything down and take parts to match up. Since I got no call back today, now I've now got everything torn down so that's not such a big deal. I guess, given that my money isn't wanted bad enough by the dealership, I'll just take my parts with me to one of the parts places tomorrow and match them up. Hopefully I can find one place with everything, but, if not, I'll do whatever I need to do to not have to call the dealership for anything........Man I love good customer service..........Just wish I could afford to not call my customers back when they wanted to spend what is going to amount to around $1500 with me........

Why don't you print this letter and send it to the owner of the dealership? How do these places stay in business? I had a similar experience, standing around at a truck shop in Cleveland for four hours, waiting for them to prep a Fuller 9-speed. I always need to pack a lunch to go to that place. I ripped the card out of my rolodex when I got back. If I needed a part and Trans Carrier was the only ones who had it, I'd wait and order it somewhere else. I was sooooo glad when Adelman's bought that dump. Finally... real truck parts salesmen...

Welcome to the real world where the dealers don't want us doing this stuff LOL.
They hope by messing us around and not having parts our customers get mad and our shop fails so our customers go to them for new.
I work self employed Ag here. Got A Belarus Tractor here needs 2 funny sized O rings have to be genuine as a non standard size. 2 Weeks wait for them, got a bale picker needs hyd motor bearings, special size outta stock 2 weeks. That guy also has a $20.000 grain auger sitting in my yard the motor dumped the fly wheel, I guess the new one didn't ship today so means outta stock guess freakin what 2 weeks.
Had an argument with Case IH dealership over parts and said I was the only jobber guy in buying parts If they didn't want my orders i'd go same as the rest. Well I guess they want my orders. Guy invites me round the counter to look at the screen to make sure it's all ordered right and I am happy. I wish the rest of these guys would wise up and be like AL.
I guess your not the only one with problems LOL Hope tomorrows a better day for you
Regards Robert

We had an office that was getting a large oak baseboard, oak doors and wide oak casing. Called our locally owned lumber yard to come measure for the trim load. When I get there, the trim is all on site. Painter wants to stain and laquer the baseboard for sure before I install. Did not have time to figure out how much I needed, so told the painter to get it ALL done, as two of us were going to be installing it the next day. As it turns out, we had twice the baseboard then we needed. Now, it is not returnable, AND nobody can use it, because it is stained! Never did figure out how that happened.

Don't feel too bad... I have a hard time getting the parts I need from the local JD dealership. And I work there!

I gave up on waiting for people who say they will call back with info. I wait a reasonable time and place another call. Usually they are free to talk the second time but probably never would hear from them otherwise.

Our Universities are graduating MBAs that can't freakin count to 30 (like our County Administrator). They also run businesses, since you don't have the MBA you're not smart enough to understand THEY'RE SAVING MONEY ON LABOR COST! Yes they've got a little graph going and they figure out if they eliminate all parts sales they can save $35-40,000 a year in labor costs. With the fantastic internet and freight companies soon we'll all be logging on to web sites, ordering our own parts and having them shipped right to our door right from the manufacturer's or distributor's warehouse, no need for dealers anymore!!! Just wait until they get a hold of the new truck sales floor and apply their education to the sales floor! Same logic they applied at GM "you know the Oldsmobile 88 and Pontiac Bonneville cost us more money to make than a Chevy Caprice, let's start using the same engines and transmissions between the Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet so we can save money in production costs" so they make all the B bodies with the same engine and transmission, make 'em all just like Chevy's -guess what now they don't have to make Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles, think of all the money they're saving!! So what if their market share goes from 60+% to 30% or less. Somehow I can't understand how MBAs can't grasp the profit thing, they must of all went to OU (external_link University).

Lately I find a lot of places are short staffed and they are really busy or there's just one guy that knows anything. If he's busy or away, nobody else has a clue. Also when waiting for a phone call is the time it won't ring.

You're lucky you still got a job if that was our local "organisation" of a dealership you would be unemployed buying parts there. they would think your moon lighting and fire you even if it was for your own stuff.
A guy got canned for helping his father with a tractor on his farm a few weeks ago when it broke down. it wasn't even green :-(
Regards Robert

I agree completely. Funny how companies used to be able to have ordinary parts in their books like bolts, pipe fittings, etc with dimensions and a part number followed by a note stating that the part could be 'obtained locally", and still make money selling parts. While I understand the necessity to have part numers for everything just think how much they could save on the design and build of so many products if they'd simply use existing parts/technology instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with everything that hits the market anymore.

I remember a man told me years ago, "They only make so many kinds of parts, it just depends on how you put them togeher as to what they do." While that statement may not be 100% accurate, it does hit the mark at least 99.9999999999999999% of the time.

Fortunately I work for myself so that's not a problem. In fact my customers actually appreciate the fact that I buy parts anywhere but the dealership when ever it's feasible and/or cost effective.

If I were the guy that got fired I'd have been at a lawyers office the next morning. It would have taken some sort of really complexly written, and screwed up contract between that guy and his employeer for them to have had any right at all to terminate him for working on a piece of equipment, or family, without compensation. Heck if they can pull crap like that he just needs to wait til the next time his old supervisor (or the guys in the shop) changes the oil in a car, or better yet takes it to a local oil change shop to get it done. If the contact was the same for everyone the guy needs to use his free time between jobs to get documentation and get the whole company fired...........or himself rehired. Barring that between the local news and papers, the numerous 'social networking' sites out there, etc, etc, it would be so easy to create huge wave of bad publicity that would cost them big time. Heck word of mouth, especially the bad kind, is worth 10 times as much as any advertising the company could do. It works, I know that for a fact. Some years back a company screwed one of my customers out of several thousand dollars by refusing to cover their warranty on a botched pump rebuild they did. I told the guy if they didn't make things right I would cost them the money, and then some. At the time they were placing alot of big ads in the various construction related magazines so their name was out there. Within a year I had talked to half a dozen people who were planning to send pumps to them, who sent them elsewhere after talking to me. I figure their $4000 screw job on my customer wound up costing them more than $20,000 in lost repairs, just in that one year. No telling what it cost them from then until now. The way I see it you might not be able to shut their doors, but you can sure give a company a BIG slap in the face and a chunk out of their profits if you have a mind to.

[i:654c4848f0]"If I were the guy that got fired I'd have been at a lawyers office the next morning. It would have taken some sort of really complexly written, and screwed up contract between that guy and his employeer for them to have had any right at all to terminate him for working on a piece of equipment, or family, without compensation. "[/i:654c4848f0]

Three of the last four places I worked clearly stated on the application that the job was "At Will" employment, and they could let you go at any time for any reason or no reason at all. Appears to be a common thing at least in my state.

The fourth job was a U.S. Government contractor position, and per most government boondoggles, once you were in, you owned the job for as long as you wanted it. Unless they cancelled the entire contract, which they did...

Same here in Michigan. It is a "At Will" state. They don't have to give you any reason to let you go.

Wisbaker, do you just make this up as you go.

Probably the parts guy was doing what few of 'em will do; serving the guy standing at the counter with money in his hand. Have never understood anyone who would answer the phone and talk to someone who may...or may not....eventually buy something when there are people in line STANDING RIGHT THERE who are GONNA BUY if they ever get waited on.

Back in my younger days I had a somewhat hopped up 65 Mustang. I used Valvoline 10-50 racing oil in it. Went in to an auto parts store one day to get a case and there was a guy standing at the counter leafing through his BMW owner's manual. He needed a head light. As he continued to leaf through the manual, I suggested he try the index.

He looked over at me and sneered "I have an MBA, I know how to read a book". The young man behind the counter just looked at me.

I smiled and asked for the oil. The young man brought out the case, I paid for it and started to walk out.

The yuppie was still trying to find out what headlight he needed. He glanced over, saw the racing oil and said "oh, are you going racing?"

As I walked out, I said, "yeah, and I don't need a book to tell me how to do it either."

Welcome to the future. It could be several things but unless this is a mom and pop shop and son is covering the parts counter then I doubt loafing is a reason. The parts department is a great way to squeeze the payroll dollar and get by with less. A couple of the dealers here have new faces at the counter and I would guess trimming the payroll is a big reason. Fewer dealers means less sources for parts locally and putting up with slow service. I should point out the service is good at the places I deal with.

No I don't make it up I've worked at enough businesses that'll spend $10,000 to save $2,000 that I have a firm grasp of bureaucracies and their weakness. I strongly feel that to many of our business decisions are made by people that don't have a firm grasp on the product or service they are delivering. And working industrial maintenance I've had too many occasions where I have to explain 5 guys can't work on 7 things at the same time and that makes me the bad guy.

In so much of our country today decisions are made not by fact but by power and how the person with the power "feels" and we often get bit when the math, physics or even human nature intervenes and the event doesn't come out as planned. Unfortunately one of the skills people in power develop is the ability to blame someone else when their grand scheme doesn't pan out.

While in College I completed several courses in Science, biology, physics and economics. From day one the tenants of science is that the experiment is repeatable and that the explanation or hypothesis conforms to the results of the experiment and it's derivatives ALL the time. Some of the garbage that is passed off as science wouldn't/shouldn't get passed a freshman science class. Some of the stuff passed off in our media as fact wouldn't make it 30 seconds in a court room before being discredited.

I lived in Greece for a year back in the 1980's, one of the things that amazed me about the Greeks is the average Greek had an uncanny ability to understand BS and see through it in their media, when reading a newspaper article they'd also consider the bias the newspaper might have. They also had a better idea of what a Drachma was worth, had a better understanding of the basics of business and economics and how things worked. Most of the time if I went into a Greek store the clerk understood his job was to sell me something and create a relationship that would make me to want to come back to the store the next time I needed something, don't see that here in America, in so many retail stores the clerk's attitude is very much go away and don't bother me. As others have eluded to we don't get much service. Business theory in so much of corporate America is cost based meaning they examine cost and make decisions on cost. As opposed to say the Greeks that looked more at revenue and that more revenue is good and managed the business by controlling their margins.

Hi I get what you are saying on parts and using non genuine. I do it when I can too, like most equipment there are parts that have to come from my equipment dealers, as jobber stuff is not around for it. or in some cases it"s $200 cheaper than jobber. found this with some Case Ih and a lot of massey parts if a guy looks in to it enough.

On the guy getting fired it seems a standard thing In Manitoba Canada, Same thing happened to another guy near Winnipeg that I knew. Most dealers round seem to have it covered that you can"t have a life with fixin a tractor or ag machine out side there shop.
From what I understand you can do what you like with a car or truck in your spare time.
This was probably the best thing to happen to the guy, a guy that worked in the same shop transfer'd to another branch as he could not work in that shop. The formans a Bs'er and some of the others I don't have the time for either as they are no better than the foreman, and go to the same church.
Depending on the church visited round here says alot about how genuine a guy is but we won't go any further with that discussion lol.
Regards Robert

Problem is, that kind of thinking came along LONG before external_link came to the forefront.