Thursday, October 2, 2008

My Land Rover Battle

Twitter friends! Please help me to demonstrate the power of social media in my fight against Land Rover and Fields BMW. This could be a really cool social media experiment!

Here is the background on my battle.

My wife and I dropped our 2002 Freelander off to diagnose a "check engine" light warning. When we picked up the car, my wife noticed the following new issues.

* The locks on all the doors no longer work
* The back window won't go down
* The built-in security system no longer functions.

When we informed Land Rover about this situation, they had the following response

* These types of things happen to cars
* Nothing they did would have caused this
* That it is possible the problem existed when we brought it in (not true)
* That it is just bad luck on our part

Their service manage refuses to help and let us know that we'll need to pay them to get it fixed.

My wife is in tears over this customer service nightmare.

Some people say I should call the local news channel. I say no. I say use Social Media to spark action!

Please help me in my fight by doing the following few things

* Posting a link to my blog post somewhere
* Retweeting my call to action
* Talking or leaving a message for the Fields BMW service manager. Let them know that consumers have power and they should take care of their customers. Let her know that this is a campaign on the behalf of Jeremy Hilton. Please be polite when you call.
* Twitter me with a list of the actions you took @jeremyhilton

Fields BMW customer service manager - Tina / 407.695.xxxx

Thank you so much!

UPDATE - We won our battle!

Social Media Wins!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty damn surprised by this. A brand like that should be exceeding your service expectations (I know Audi always did for me). What's sad is that kind of attitude in the service department will impact sales. I've heard some people say as much with VW.

Usually, these companies have a corporate reporting place. I'd certainly tell them your opinion.

You and Rashell are good people. Sorry this happened.

-Ross

Christopher Neetz said...

Who would have guessed that with 'German Engineering' you get 'German Customer Service'.

orangejack said...

Courtesy Toyota is no better. In 2006 they wanted to rip us off: http://rob.orangejack.com/2006/10/06/courtesy-toyota-is-a-fraud/

Anonymous said...

Yo Jerms, this is total bullcrap. They didn't even offer to investigate to find the cause of the failure. Did they at least check fuses?

Here's my blog post in support of your cause:

http://artric.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/fields-bmw-has-tried-to-screw-the-wrong-customer/

Webfugitive said...

I had a similar experience back in Saint Louis, but in my situation - the heated seats stopped working after they serviced it on an unrelated issue.

On a side note, I would modify the title to say Fields BMW somewhere in there ... :-)

Best of luck,

Anthony Richardson

Anonymous said...

Retweeted your tweet. Tweeted the phone number. Stumbled your post. Called the number. Posted on my blog.
http://www.mydandelionpatch.com/2008/10/02/awful-customer-service-at-fields-bmw/

And may I add, those people are rude and arrogant.

Anonymous said...

Retweeted... then I called... she barely let me finish saying my piece before she told me that she had referred the issue to her attorney, said, "STOP CALLING ME!" and hung up. I guess they don't want to hear from their customers or make them happy. Effing creep car salesmen!

Good luck getting it sorted!

Chrisshizzle

Jeremy Hilton said...

Thank you so much for your support!

I've talked to a few people who called on my behalf.

Based on conversations I've had, your calls have made an impact. They're still not ready to listen, but they are annoyed by the attention.

Keep it up Central Florida!

Jeremy Hilton said...

OrangeJack

Sorry to hear about your experience. It seems as though companies think that it's ok to push us around.

The only way we can send a message is to band together and let OUR voice be heard.

Corporate bullies - enough is enough!

Jeremy Hilton said...

Marisa.

I read your blog post and wow...you are right on!

Thanks for the support and be sure to call me in for your next cause!

Jeremy

Anonymous said...

Hi, I love Land rover.. This customer service is abysmal though.. these people need to be taught a social media lesson.. Do you have an email so people over here in the UK can contact this company too?

Jeremy Hilton said...

Documentally,

My message has reached the UK! The beauty of social media.

Unfortunately, I don't have an email, but here is a link to their contact form. Let 'em know what you think and that you support me and My Land Rover Battle.

http://www.landroverorlando.com/contact-form.htm

Thanks so much!

Jeremy

Jeremy Hilton said...

Victory! Social Media Wins!

So a few days ago, my wife received a call from Mr Fields directly. She explained the situation, noting the poor customer service we suffered through. From what she tells me, Mr Fields was not too happy with his staff. In fact, he couldn't believe some of the things that we were told.

Thankfully his disgust translated into action. He told us to bring our car back and that his staff would diagnose the problem at no charge. We did just that this morning.

Good news, the issue apparently was very minor and Land Rover fixed on the spot at no charge.

The problem was fixed by simply resetting something, which I'm sure amounted to about 30 minutes of work. If only his staff hadn't have been so short-sighted and just taken 30 minutes out of their day.

30 minutes that would have made us happy.
30 minutes that would have prevented my social media campaign.
30 minutes to prevent a decent amount of negative chatter about his brand.
30 minutes to have possibly made a sale.

That's right. Made a sale.

You see, my wife and I went out and purchased a new SUV that week and Land Rover would have been an option. I liked our car and had been eyeing the LR2 for some time. But no, two knuckleheads at Fields killed any brand loyalty because they just didn't care enough to spend 30 minutes on us.

Thank you to everyone who twittered, blogged and called on my behalf. Without you, I don't think this would have been a success.

BTW - Tina wouldn't even talk to us.

Anonymous said...

Jeez if you would have expended this energy on world hunger instead of you BMW the world would be a better place.

I am glad however that your $70,00 car is working properly

Viva la revolucion!

 
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