Thursday, June 4, 2009

Customer Satisfaction

My husband used to work for a car dealership in town where he was paid on commission only. They frequently messed up his paycheck, sometimes by as little as a hundred, but often closer to a thousand or more. Each time he'd jump through the hoops to request the shorted money and it always took at least a week to get the money he was owed. This annoyed me and infuriated me to no end as they always acted as if it was no big deal and we could just wait until they got around to it.

Last week, we bought a mini-van from this dealership. We wrote out a check for the down payment. I had some incredibly intense second thoughts about this purchase and we ultimately ended up returning the car the next morning. They assured us they cancelled payment on the check; we trusted this to be true.

Well, last night I discovered that they had indeed cashed the check two days ago. This morning my husband called to inform them of the error. They were very apologetic and assured us they would cut a check today. Sure enough we got a call telling us that the check would be ready this afternoon. I made the comment that this was the fastest that they had ever corrected an error in the almost three years my husband worked there. Apparently, according to them, customer satisfaction is more important than employee satisfaction.

Interesting.

2 comments:

Joanne said...

That's happened to us a few times over the years with my husband's check. So annoying, because you know, those checks pay the mortgage. Yes, we can withdraw from the bank and make up the difference until then, but we shouldn't have to. And I'll bet if the company is late in receiving funds due them, they'd expect a late charge!

Joanne said...

P.S. I think I'd have returned the van too! Good move!