Tales from the Service Desk

It's considered common knowledge that consumers would rather take their cars to an independent shop for repairs than the more-expensive dealership. But is it true?

I've been wanting to ask this since we showed last week that consumer trust in dealership service departments is high. Other QOTDs took precedent. But now I have my chance.

Do you trust your dealerships service department?

Today we showed you that CarChex got put on the hook by the FTC for deceptive practices. The extended-warranty peddler faces a large settlement.

This one spoke to my past, brief life as a service writer. For those who don't know, service writers often use the term "customer states" followed by the customer's description of the problem.

Like so: "Customer states there is a creaking noise when turning left at under 15 mph."

If you’ve ever had your car serviced at a dealership, you’ve probably received a survey about the experience, either via snail mail or phone. Or perhaps online. This is especially likely if the work was done under warranty.

You’ve probably thrown out/ignored this survey. What you probably don’t know is that doing so may have cost your service advisor money and/or got him in hot water with the boss.

I certainly learned that one the hard way during my time as a service writer.

It was a bright summer day when our regular customer, a woman in her 30s or 40s who had a haircut that we’d now deem a “Karen”, was leaving the dealer with her brood after a routine service, probably an oil change and tire rotation.