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Final Mercedes Tale
Oct 20, 2008 Random Thoughts View Comments
To put a final point on the Mercedes story. I contacted the owner of the Mercedes Dealership in Austin one last time. Harvey Dyer contended that they fixed my car the first time and although it wasn’t the fix that I brought the car in for, the fix needed to happen. And he claims that because they did the ’second’ fix (the one I brought the car in for) at no charge, they were out a lot of money and he didn’t want my business.
Collaboration Management: Ensuring Necessary Buy-in From Communications Partners
Jul 25, 2008 Decisioning & Change Management View Comments
As CPAs, your job involves several forms of communication. You need to─
- Get agreement from clients, colleagues and partners.
- Need to negotiate with departments of finance, CFOs and the IRS.
- Ensure you understand, and are understood by, all people you communicate with.
Failure to do any of these is costly, financially and personally. Read More..
Continuing Saga of Mercedes Benz
Jun 5, 2008 Random Thoughts View Comments
After 3 days with no contact from anyone (? – why wouldn’t they give me updates?), I got a call from the Montvale NJ Customer Service folks (Patricia Rosatto – 201 573 – 0600 x78737) to tell me my car was ready. When I asked why no one had contacted me, as I was in distress that they were doing nothing unless I paid them more money (last I heard, and with no call back from dealership owner Harvey Dyer after he took initial data from me the week prior), she replied that she had been in contact during the repairs (really??? Cool! News to me!? Why didn’t they tell me they were working on it and alleviate the stress?), and they had wanted to wait until it was done to contact me. Great customer service. In any event, she said they fixed the car and they were absorbing the cost (as well they should) but they couldn’t guarantee that the problem (or others) wouldn’t happen again. Great.
Mercedes Benz: Continuing Saga Of Horrid Customer Service And A Broken Car. Installment #2
Jun 3, 2008 Random Thoughts View Comments
Since my last blog (see below), there has been slight movement in customer service response. But only slight, and what it took for me to get that tiny level of service from them is mind boggling.
I originally attempted to speak with the customer service department at the Mercedes Benz Headquarters in Montvale NJ. All I ended up getting was a company mouth (Mariano) who would only refer back to the dealership and would do nothing on my behalf (his words) because they were an autonomous franchise and didn’t answer to anyone in Headquarters (?!). Not to mention that he refused to hand me over to a supervisor as “Supervisors aren’t allowed to take calls from customers (amazing).”
I then called my dealership and spoke with the owner, Harvey Dyer, who said nothing while I railed on about my problem. He ended the call by saying “I’ll look into it” and hung up. That was the last time I heard from Harvey. I guess if he hires the sort of people here in Austin that would say/do what is being done, he must have the same outlook: money first, customer last ,and no need to speak with an unhappy customer.
Folks: do NOT buy a car from this dealership.
Mercedes Benz Is Not A Brand
May 30, 2008 Random Thoughts View Comments
Sadly, I’m finding out the hard way that Mercedes Benz does not stand behind their product. And, indeed, are quite abusive and dismissive of customers. Indeed, I would never purchase a Mercedes again.
Years ago, I lived on a ranch with no paved roads. An SUV was imperative. Since moving to Austin, I no longer need the car, but it was getting older and had very very low mileage, and I figured it could last for years because it was a Mercedes.
I purchased the SUV (ML320) the year it first came out and the first year Mercedes set up shop in the States. Given the two firsts, it proved to be a bad bad decision: The car turned out to be a lemon.
Decision Making: How, Exactly, Do We Decide?
Apr 18, 2008 Decisioning & Change Management View Comments
BASIC THEORIES:
- Information does not teach someone how to make a decision.
- Decision-making follows a specific, unconscious process.
- Decisions are neither haphazard, irrational, emotional, or faulty.
- Decisions are based on conscious or unconscious values-based criteria, generated from historic beliefs, that created and maintain the current internal, underlying system of rules, roles, relationships.
WHAT DO DECISIONS DO?
Whether in the field of sales, negotiations, change management, or just getting a three year old to clean her room, nothing will change without a decision being made. And, decisions correspond to the unconscious, values-based norms of a person’s (or group’s) internal, beliefs-based criteria.
Historically, we have assumed that offering good data can influence a decision. We have built industries on this assumption: sales, marketing, advertising, training, coaching, PR, politics, teaching. Indeed, even the foundation of Decision Sciences is information: the testing of what a person decides given X input, regardless of what internal criteria is involved that would influence the behavior. Read More..
