Based on this mechanical experience and a trivial response from Volkswagen I can not recommend purchasing any of their vehicles, instead explore other brands where ‘customer satisfaction’ forms more of the business strategy. I have previously owned VW’s in Europe and enjoyed positive experiences with Aftercare but the US division seems to adopt the “American Airlines” philosophy to customer service, perhaps they will share in the same success.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to detail an account of what I believe is a serious breakdown of Volkswagen after care service that was not only highly inconvenient, but could have led to a dangerous, potentially fatal situation whilst driving my vehicle.

I purchased my vehicle new, and for the 10,000-mile standard service I took the vehicle to ‘Chaplin’s Volkswagen Bellevue’ in Washington State on Saturday, February 11th. The staff at the service department were friendly and completed they service in about 60 minutes. I left the dealership feeling encouraged by the customer service which I had experienced; this I believed was the VW brand quality into which I had purchased.

The following Monday morning I went to my car at 6am to drive to the airport for a 9am business flight. However, as I approached the vehicle I observed a large pool of liquid flowing through the parking garage from underneath the vehicle, coupled with a strong smell of oil. I opened the engine compartment and verified the oil level in the engine; the level barely registered as the oil had somehow leaked out of the engine.

Clearly the vehicle was inoperable in this state and had I not been so observant, I would have driven the car as normal some 30 miles to the airport in rush hour traffic. The vehicle would not have made this distance and would have failed on the freeway, perhaps in an outer lane whilst overtaking or another potentially dangerous location. I dread to think the consequences of how this situation could have ended and the resultant repercussions to Volkswagen and the dealership in question.

I was left with no option but to call several taxi companies to arrange for transportation to the airport so that I would not miss my flight. This resulted in over $140 in taxi fees to and from the airport. I contacted the dealership and they offered to tow the vehicle and correct their mistake. However, this was not possible as I was leaving the premises and the vehicle was located in a secured parking garage; due to it being early morning no building staff were accessible to leave the keys.

The reason I purchased a brand new vehicle and in particular a “Volkswagen” is so that I do not ever have to deal with vehicle failures. I am consistently diligent about servicing and maintaining my vehicles and would expect that VW service professionals are mechanical experts and have high levels of personal responsibility coupled with a commitment to safety and customer satisfaction. This clearly was not the case at this dealership as my experience has proven.

On my return the following week, I contacted the dealership once again. They informed me that they could not tow the car and I must contact VW Assistance who would arrange for the car to be taken to the dealership. I called VW Assistance on Monday, February 20th at approximately 8am and spoke to perhaps the rudest and most unhelpful person to whom I have ever spoken. This individual had no interest in helping me or any concern for the situation. He repeatedly asked for the “height clearance” of the garage in which the car was located. I explained in detail that I do not have this information and that the building staff were not available. Refusing to acknowledge my response he continually repeated the question and refused to send a towing vehicle until he had this information. I explained that as a matter of precaution he should “assume” the lowest possible height level of a functioning garage, so should this be 7ft then he should assume 7ft. A perfectly logical strategy would ensure that an appropriate towing vehicle was dispatched to the premises.

However, after explaining this multiple times I was forced to abandon my efforts and terminate the call, at one point he even started arguing with me. I called VW Assistance one again and spoke to another representative, this time she accepted my explanation and arranged for towing. However, once the tow truck arrived he was unable to tow the vehicle since he “was not informed” about the 7ft height restriction by VW thus wasting his time and more of mine. I again called the dealership who gave me the phone number of a local towing company who I had to call and arrange for pick-up. I’m not sure why I had to arrange this, but clearly the dealership was too busy. The vehicle was towed at 11am and had taken a total of 4 hours to arrange, time that I had to take off from work to resolve and then navigate local bus schedules so that I could get to work.

The dealership called me to explain that the VW technician had “over tightened” the oil plug which had “crushed” the rubber seal thus causing the oil to leak out of the engine. No apology was made regarding this error, one which is technically unfathomable how such an error could have occurred; the oil would have began leaking immediately and basic quality control would have noticed the fault. The vehicle was returned back to me at my place of work around 4pm; this sounds positive yet the ‘low fuel warning light’ was illuminated and there were black marks on the seats and door. I was flabbergasted that despite the utter inconvenience VW had not even bothered to add some fuel and clean the car before returning it to me. This would have been the very least that could have been done in light of this mistake and in attempt to reengage an otherwise dissolutioned customer.

If this chain of events is analyzed in context, one has to think that “anyone” who is calling Volkswagen Assistance is clearly in need of “assistance” and would require a helpful and affable individual with whom to speak with. If this is how VW operates their after sales business, then it is nothing short of shameful and a disgrace to the consumer car industry. This is my second VW and will probably be my last, not due to the technical build quality of the vehicle but to a loss of trust in aftercare service demonstrated by the incompetence of this dealership and VW Assistance.

Purchasing a car is an important decision and after sales service is critical to brand loyalty and evangelizing the consumer. Failure to operate on this belief and utilize ineffective processes to resolve these customer situations coupled with a severe lack of technical, safety and quality control is wholly unacceptable. A responsible manufacturer committed to customer care would initialize an investigation to understand exactly how this happened and ensure that it does not occur again.

Sincerely

James P. Richardson

Canned Response from a VW “Customer CARE Advocate” translates to … Sorry to hear you are considering leaving the brand and wont be spending another $31,000 on a new vehicle but hope you are “otherwise enjoying the unique driving experience your Tiguan was built to provide.” Would that “unique” experience be the heated seats or the oil slick effect?

Dear Mr. Richardson:

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your experience with our Roadside Assistance and Chaplin’s Bellevue Volkswagen.  I understand you wish to share your dissatisfaction with us, and I appreciate the chance to assist you in any way possible.

We at Volkswagen are continuously striving to assist our dealers and roadside assistance providers in delivering complete customer satisfaction, and we work with them to maintain our high service standards.  Please be assured that the information you shared better enables us to evaluate not only our dealers’ service activities, but the service provided by our Roadside Assistance as well, and I am thankful you took the time to bring this concern to my attention.  I have documented the details of your experience internally, so we may have a record of it.

It is our goal to assist our customers whenever possible, and I will be sure to forward your complaint on to the Management Staff at Roadside Assistance and at Chaplin’s Bellevue Volkswagen for further review.  They will be in the best position to coach their personnel and work to provide you with the level of service you deserve and expect.

With you being a multi-Volkswagen owner, we recognize your loyalty to our brand, and we take your concerns seriously.  I apologize for the inconvenience this entire matter has caused you, and I am sorry to learn this encounter has caused you to consider leaving our brand.  I hope you are otherwise enjoying the unique driving experience your Tiguan was built to provide.

As a member of the Volkswagen family, your comments and concerns are important to me, and I hope in the future we are able to restore your faith in our brand.  Should you need future assistance, please know our Customer CARE Center is available Monday through Friday 8 AM to 6 PM, local time, at (800) 822-8987.  You are also always welcome to e-mail us again from the “Contact Us” page on www.vw.com.

In addition, you will soon be receiving a Volkswagen Customer Care satisfaction survey.  Please take a few moments to complete this.  Your feedback is important for it will allow us to serve you more effectively in the future.

Sincerely,

Courtney F.

Customer CARE Advocate

Howard Schultz was born into a poor family and he isn’t and never was an academic in the traditional sense, “He excelled at sports”. Yet Schultz has gone on to create and lead one of the worlds most successful sustainable companies. Starbucks is what I like to call a “real” company in that it produces tangible value and wealth and it does it on a global scale.

I have visited stores in many countries and product consistency is astounding, but more so is their unique ability to tailor the service and experience to the local culture. For example, in Singapore Muslim female employees are free to adorn their Hijab and afford time for necessary prayer. This adaptability to facilitate individual expression is a common thread amongst the world’s most successful companies.

What inspires and motivates me personally is not really the coffee or “product” in a traditional sense, but the lives that are positively impacted by the company. From daily customers, countless serendipitous rendezvous and each of the 170,000 employees and their families who can exist because of the solid foundation and provided benefits. What could we achieve as a nation and a global community if this “sharing success” philosophy was taken seriously by others?

In a previous life of toil for one “digital marketing agency” which suffered from a constant identity crisis, I observed as management guilefully collected millions from brands desperate to wheedle the world into believing they were “great!”. Sadly, it’s never anything more than pretty pictures and “buzzy” malarkey, they care nothing for their customers and employees, it’s only ever about lowering costs and maximising profits.

With all of the hype around new-age technology startup’s and social media I think it’s worth taking a step back to reflect on how brick and mortar companies can adapt and grow with “people” at their core and benefit localities across a global plane. Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook may be flavour of the month but do they provide income and benefits for 170,000 people thus affording them opportunity to participate in their own economies and maintain the economic cycle? Not last time I checked.

Starbucks is proof that there can be a balance between profit and continuous internal health of a company, specifically for its employees. I have been personally touched many times by Starbucks employees who consistently reach above and beyond to provide the very best service.

I rarely go to Starbucks just for coffee, I go for the experience. Perhaps its my fresh hot tea already waiting at the counter, the Barista singing “Happy Birthday” and asking about my day or just the lively camaraderie and energy you can “feel” from the moment you enter the store.

The impact that can be made as a large entity is tenfold to what can be as a singleton. Power in numbers, the power of one, collective intelligence, whatever you choose to call it, the result is the same, change and forward movement woven through a thread of electric passion.

Thank you Starbucks for giving us hope that free-market capitalism can work for everyone.

The Internet has organically developed into a single pervasive meritocratic medium facilitating global productivity and transaction on a massive scale, and now the behemoth telcos spit out their dummies like a thrashing toddler.

This is synonymous with constructing a brand new high street packed with shops, banks, niche specialty stores, travel agents and others all touting for business except each person is only allowed a maximum of 60 minutes in the street. How does this restriction change use of this space? Observation of human behavior shows that when faced with limits people create a plan thus maximizing their gain and reward from participating in such an environment. So instead of the myriad of technological advancement such as real-time media streaming, Netflix, on-line gaming and others you have “lets do the basics and then turn off the lights”.

Currently the global economy is in the tank and the very people (the middle class) who make up the users of 99% of these services are going to be forced with limits. Inherently this is bad for growth, innovation, and advancement as a species, no single entity will benefit from this. Maybe limiting the amount we drive combustion engines could be more fitting.

The lack of creativity of these “business leaders” doesn’t surprise me. They couldn’t possibly dream up a new exciting business model that would prevent draconian data caps yet provide revenue streams for further capital investment; that would be called “innovation”, isn’t this French? Like cheating in an exam, if you “really” have to look at the person next to you since you’re clueless for answers take a look at Singapore, hint type “Singapore fiber network” into Google and do some R&D!

Meanwhile I’m off to start building my own satellite, perhaps its the only way to stream my nightly version of the news.

I have always been fascinated by innovative engineering  and the application of technology upon the tough, serious problems that have plagued our society from the very beginning of human existence. From the Wright Brothers first Aircraft in 1903 to the immense towering wind turbines that now span vast areas of our land and coastal areas harnessing natural planetary resources to generate clean sustainable energy that we can use to build new economies, smarter cities and a better standard of living.

I believe that we are on the cusp of a new era in technological innovation, critical if we want to grow our economies, maintain stability and reduce poverty on a global scale. This revolution involves developing an interwoven global fabric of autonomous intelligence into all of our essential infrastructure; ultimately, the amalgamation of physical hardware, sensors, software and decision making capabilities through a myriad of abstraction layers that will fundamentally change the way we interact with the tangible world.

Prior to the global financial crisis of 2008, developed nations have limped along, conveniently masking pressing issues and applying “band aid” solutions to aging, crumbling infrastructure. However we no longer have a choice, this economic downturn has firmly shifted priorities back to the foundation of society, just look at the UK and Europe leading the way with infrastructure capital spending. This remains a true global economic disaster and every nation is scrambling to shed excess as its citizens wait patiently on the sidelines attempting to make sense of what exactly comes next? What will the global stage look like in the next 5 years, where will the opportunities be and what kind of skills will be needed to be a productive, contributory member of society?

The urgency to innovate and enhance our existing systems in core functional areas of Energy, Industry, Communications and Health-care that has never been greater, and until now has never been truly economically or technologically viable. Surmountable benefits such as improved safety, greater efficiency, cost savings, enhanced quality of life and a positive impact on climate change for future generations. Facing rapid population growth, notably in developing nations governments and global enterprises are faced with providing for ever increasing demand on public services, laying the infrastructure for an economy that can grow and serve its people is vital.

There are no boundaries to the limits of such dynamic, “intelligent systems”, we already possess the processing power and the engineering expertise, now its about making the case for innovation, navigating politics and getting on with the work. We have a global workforce in a state of flux, redundant from their past work and seeking new training, desperate to contribute something to the world and to provide for their families. Some of the worlds largest and most respected conglomerates GE and Siemens are already investing heavily in R&D, furthering their technology and promoting innovative solutions to hard problems such as transport infrastructure, energy, building automation and cutting edge health-care. This video from a recently opened Siemens plant in Fort Madison, Iowa highlights the positive self perpetuating cycle that is initiated by investing in innovation, people and local environment. Employees are passionate about working on something bigger than themselves, being at the cutting edge of technological innovation and engineering the future.

This call to action is akin to the enormous effort undertaken to construct the National Power Grid. This sprawling lattice of humming cable has undeniably facilitated the rise of large powerhouse economies such as the UK, US and Europe and the subsequent lifestyles that are entirely reliant on this unlimited supply of energy. It is now time to redeploy our best minds to move to the next stage, an elevated 21st century layer on which we can develop dynamic, sophisticated and self sustaining intelligent systems. A distributed far reaching network, from energy generation through to devices that are able to manage themselves, report data and have awareness of other objects and the ability to communicate over a standard protocol. Development of this layer is necessary to elevate humanity, we have already constructed a global communication and power network which allows individuals and organisations to produce and contribute from even the most remote locations.

This is an exciting time ahead, and I feel optimistic and confident that autonomous intelligence is the necessary tool for tackling some of the worlds toughest issues such as climate change, increasing poverty and domestic inequality in developed nations, rapidly increasing traffic congestion and an antiquated energy generation and distribution network. We also have developing countries such as China, India, Malaysia that are growing rapidly and placing ever greater demand on limited resources coupled with exponential worldwide population growth and all of these individuals want a greater quality of life than previous generations.

Finally, as an Engineer, I wanted to host this blog on my own server running an Ubuntu 10.10 installation. However due to the extremely unreliable power supply from the grid (average 2-3 power cycles per week) I resorted to dedicated hosting. I find this disappointing that residing in the worlds richest and largest economy in a new urban development does not provide consistent power; perhaps as a nation we’re just focused on the wrong things?

… Lets start building a smarter, more prosperous world for all of its inhabitants, and lets use technology to do it!