Bad Dealers

Oh my buhay site is far from fixed.  I am slowly cleaning-up those alleged broken links which are mostly old posts beginning from April 2011 when I started blogging.

I have deleted dozens of unimportant posts.  Some I am still saving in the private section till I find the photos that disappeared.

I found this Bad Dealers while going over the old posts.  It was published on August 17, 2011.  I thought this is still relevant today so I moved it to current post.

Thank you for reading.

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BAD DEALERS

For some reason,  most people have a very bad impression on casas or authorized car service centers.  They think that casas are here to rip them off of their money.   Maybe in the past,  they had bad encounters which made them conclude that we are all bad.  WE, because we are a car dealer, and we,  repair vehicles.  But we,  are not bad.  Cheating our customers are not in our short, medium and long term business plans.

Please allow me to give you an insight from the other side of the fence.

We carry established and global brands,  like Ford and Mazda, and we adhere to their strict quality standards.  Our technicians are trained to give the best service given the situation. Our people’s service and competence are not 100% excellent, though we strive to be perfect.  However,  it is humanly impossible to fix thousands of vehicles with 100% full satisfaction rating.

We are like doctors.  You have ubo and sipon,  doc gives you a prescription.  Then he tells you “balik ka after one week’ tingnan natin kung wala na yan”.  After a week,  your ubo disappears but here comes lagnat.   You go back to the doctor and tell him meekly “Doc hindi nawala, mabigat pa rin ang katawan ko at masakit ang kasu-kasuan, para ‘kong lalagnatin”.

How come,  you don’t go back to the doctor screaming at him,  cursing and accusing him of misdiagnosis,  of  incompetence, trial and error, refund your money, etc. etc.  You simply accept that hindi ka gumaling.  Actually,  hindi ka nya napagaling.  Doctor looks at his PIMS guide as to what appropriate medicine he could prescribe.   You don’t accuse him “ay hindi alam ang ginagawa,  nanghuhula,  may codigo pa”.  Even if your health situation worsens,  you go back to the doctor still and give your trust.  He just keeps on subjecting you to new tests to find out what’s wrong with your body and gives you new round of medicines hoping he hits the nail on the head.

In a service repair shop,  the situation is basically the same,  but the reaction of customers are extremes.   Three months after the vehicle has been serviced,  and it encounters trouble,  customer’s reaction would be “Ay bakit?  ka se-service lang nyan 3 months ago, bakit hindi nakita ang sakit?”    After coming from the doctor and getting sick again after two months, your tummy ached,  you don’t say “ay bakit,  kagagaling lang ako ng doctor,  bakit hindi pa tiningnan ang tyan ko?”  Kung kotse yan,  customer would say “lemon yan”.

You might say,  iba kasi tao yun.  Cars, just like people,  have hundreds of body parts, connected and interacting with each other.  They also react given certain situations and conditions.  When a car is brought to us,  we limit our diagnosis to the customer’s complain.  We don’t subject the vehicle to thorough checking.  We don’t say  “Oh Mazda 6, since you are already here,  we might as well check your this and that”.  That would take a long time and a big expense for both our company and customer.

The new vehicles now have digital sensors which more or less tell us what’s wrong wth the vehicle and points to a manufacturer’s manual that suggests to the repair people what to look for or what to fix.

On Repair Cost Estimates:

It is but natural for big car dealers to charge a little bit more for the service.  This is very basic.  We pay rent, taxes,  electric bills, telephone expenses,  salaries and wages, SSS, Pag-ibig and etc..

The parts replacement estimates are based on the manufacturer’s guidelines.  We do not replace parts that are in good condition.   Customers can always tell the repair shop not to replace certain parts YET if they are still good.  Service centers must explain to the customers the pros and cons of non-replacement of certain parts.

Customers always think that parts are charged to them but casas never replaced them.  I think the basic issue is TRUST.  If a customer has a pre-conceived notion that we will cheat him,  no matter what we do to give him the best service achievable,  he wouldn’t be satisfied.  Lagi s’yang may duda. He would always be in doubt.

We operate our establishments very simply.  We do business honestly,  we don’t exploit our employees, we are very fair.  We are sincere in our dealings with our customers.  We want them to come back and to keep on patronizing our establishments.  We treat them as friends.

We are here for the long-haul.  We hope to survive the challenges of the global economic chaos.  With all humility and candor, we hope to pass on  how little our businesses are to our children, if they are interested in this business.  We do not teach our children how to cheat others, because we don’t.