Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

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The article I read said "(1) tesla fucked up a customer's order, then (2) tesla fucked up fixing it ten times in a row at many different levels of the organisation despite the fact a fix should have been easy, then (3) the customer insisted on an explanation and someone at tesla was honest"

I'm confused as to why you think (3) is the problem here - it seems to me that (1) and (2) are the root cause - (3) is just an embarrassing repercussion.

I mean, the customer knows there's nobody enforcing ownership or accountability for reported issues when they contact ten different people and can't get the problem resolved. It's not like inscrutable customer service would have hidden the fact the car hadn't been provided.

I think GP assumed that (1) and (2) being problems is obvious, and so pointed out that (3) is a problem too, even if less obvious.

A support rep's main job is to put the customer at ease. The more details the customer has to contend with the more stressed out they are.

The best action here would be explain that there was an internal process issue at Tesla, apologize and then make an offer to reconcile the error.

edit: wording

It only reduces the customer's stress to hear "don't worry about it sir, I'll take care of it" if that statement is credible. If I'm being told that and I know it's bullshit, my stress level is increased, not decreased.

Once the customer is on their third call to customer service, the credibility is already lost. Unless the customer will have their car in a single digit number of days, refusing to be honest with them isn't going to help.

Customer service's job is also to make the company not look bad. If you're fully honest about something as ridiculous as the CEO not letting you have your car, and then proceeding to not answer your calls because no one knew what to do, that makes the company look terrible.

If you share that kind of knowledge, the customer might end up writing a blog post showing how incompetent the company is, and that blog post might make front page of Hacker News.

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