The customer from hell

Once upon a time, not so long ago, car buyers in the Philippines were one of the most powerless and unrepresented groups in the world. Aside from having limited brands and models to choose from, many delivered the kind of service that you looked forward to as much as a dental appointment. You could complain, sure, but it was always a case of: where else were you going to go?

Yet as limited as our options were, I think the main reason that there was no sense of urgency for these dealerships to invest in good customer service back then wasn’t so much that we lacked choices, but voices, which led to some horror stories from unscrupulous service advisors who felt they could get away with murder because nobody could hear our screams.

Today, thanks to the incredible popularity of social media, we now have both. But as awesome as this newfound voice is––giving us an unprecedented amount of choice as consumers as well as top-shelf customer service initiatives––sadly, it seems to have given birth to a new breed of terrorist: the customer from hell. Allow me to introduce him/her to you.

The customer from hell, or CFH, as he or she is referred to internally, has been around since the dawn of consumerism. But thanks to social media, he or she now has a louder voice and a bigger soapbox to stand on.

The CFH may appear quite normal at first but can usually be identified quickly by their warped sense of entitlement. For reasons known only to them and the royalty they believe they were born into, they think that the world owes them a favor and can find fault in perfection so long as there’s something in it for them. They prey on reputable brands who they know will go out of their way to please them, and extort them into an endless cycle of compensation.

Their complaints usually range from mysterious gear-shifting patterns to strange noises that only they can hear in places they can never quite point out. This of course then leads to a customer service fiasco that, once everyone with an email address, a Facebook and/or Twitter account has been notified of their disappointment, can be miraculously rectified by a free set of brake pads, concert tickets, tires or GC’s for their next scheduled service.

And the worst part is, as their antics become amplified through the Internet, not only do they feel empowered, but they tend to attract other people who feel they can also throw their cyber-weight around to score a freebie here and there.

Take the CFH who complained about a rattle in his 7-seater diesel SUV. He brought it in and raised hell. Conveniently though, just like a dog that refuses to perform once there’s a crowd, this mysterious rattle wouldn’t appear during the test drives with the service advisor. The owner claims that the rattle could only be heard when he enters his exclusive village, and only once he opens his window and places his head outside while driving. Seriously. Needless to say, he wouldn’t stop bursting in to the dealership and causing a scene until his used SUV was replaced with a brand new five-door hatchback he had been eyeing.  The dealer eventually bought his SUV back just to shut him up, but refused to sell him another car.

Another guy writes to me complaining about his new car and how there were strange, unacceptable noises coming from the engine. After putting his dealer through hell, he had his engine looked at by the head office and they changed many expensive parts just to appease him. A few days later, he insisted that the noise was still there. I offered to take a look at it myself and even convinced a completely independent engineer to look at it for him for free. He thanked me but said he was too busy to take me up on my offer––yet he manages to find the time to continue to extort his dealer.

There was another guy who freaked out at the dealership after his brand new car broke down suddenly. He cursed and yelled and threatened to tell everyone he knows that his car is a lemon until they sent their tow truck out to bring the car back. They did, of course, no questions asked. Once safely at the dealership, the sophisticated diagnostic machines confirmed what anyone with a pair of eyes and a bit of common sense would have. It had run out of fuel.

Currently, there’s a CFH of another reputable brand who had already managed to bully his way into a sweetheart deal once before, that is on the verge of having a harassment case filed against him by the manufacturer after he continues to use his position in media to intimidate and besmirch the company’s good name.

And the list goes on.

There’s the CFH who formally complained about finding tiny stones in between his tire tread (the dealership’s parking lot was that crushed gravel type), one who complained about the color of the uniforms of the mechanics, one that accused the dealership of stealing (some, not all) of the freon from their air-conditioning, as well the CFH who accused the dealer of swapping his full tank of V-Power for a full tank of regular unleaded.

Yet regardless of how varied their complaints may be, they have one thing in common. They yell, they curse, they belittle the staff, they cause a scene and then turn to social media or journalists for some extra muscle just to extort a freebie of some sort.

So, while I’m not saying that the dealers are never at fault, here’s a little piece of advice for any aspiring CFH. Follow the process like everyone else. Talk to your dealer. You may find that they are just as keen as you to get to the bottom of a legitimate problem. And if not, there’s always DTI mediation. Save the theatrics for those noon time shows where the host gives you money for the saddest sob story, because while all decent companies will do all they can to help their customers and protect their reputations, the extent of their willingness depends largely on how its handled. And once you start belittling their staff and publicly dragging their name into disrepute, they will simply invest all the energy and attention that they reserved for addressing your problem to defending their brand. The pendulum swings both ways.

It may be tempting at first to turn to social media for your very public rant, but just know that while many companies will do almost anything to avoid bad PR, they also feel they have more to lose by feeding the beast. One can only imagine what kind of a first-class CFH you would have to be for a reputable brand to go to the extreme lengths of filing a case against you just to leave them alone, or a dealer to buy back your car and refuse to sell you a new one; but in the end, once all avenues and solutions have been exhausted, nobody wants to feed the customer from hell.

For comments and suggestions you can contact the author on Twitter @jdeakin72.