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I've already posted quite a bit about this in another section, but this thread is about the post-sales customer care that I've received from Citroen as a whole. It includes three different dealers who have all been useless (two of them outright lying to me). I just want everyone to be aware of what to expect if something goes wrong that is not deemed to be important by them with a brand new car.
I've actually copied the email that was sent to the Managing Director, Linda Jackson. I sent this as the dealer couldn't give me answers, and a regional support manager at the contact centre for Citroen UK had been unable to resolve the issue and give me answers. I've removed certain parts to keep myself anonymous (using square brackets). I will update as and when (or I should say if) I receive any replies.
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Dear Linda Jackson,
I would like to draw your attention to the appalling customer services that I have received since buying a brand new Citroen DS3 (Orla Kiely) on the [end of] May, 2011. This complaint spans three different Citroen dealers and also the contact centre. I have tried resolving this with a regional manager to no avail and would like to escalate it to you personally.
Since buying the car, I have had a persistent problem with the iPod connectivity, to the extent that it has been unusable since the day of purchase. To try to resolve this issue, I took the car back to the original dealer (Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham) on the day of purchase. They informed me that as it would need to be explored in depth, that I should take it to my local Citroen dealer and they would resolve the issue under warranty. As I had travelled from the North East to collect the car and was travelling home the following day, this was understandable.
The following week I took the car into Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland. They booked the car in for the 6th June, and on this day informed me that there were two possible outcomes; a loose connection which would be fixed on the day, or a faulty radio unit which would take two weeks for a new one to be delivered and fitted. At this time they had never seen the problem before. A few days later they called me and stated that it was a fault with the radio unit, but that nothing could be done to fix it as they were waiting for a recall from Citroen. The reason that they gave for this was that in the time I had taken my car in (6th June), another had come in with exactly the same problem, and they tried replacing the radio unit with no success. This confused me as they stated it would take two weeks to test this with my car, and when confronted about this the service manager refused to give me an answer, telling me ‘tough, you’ll have to wait for the recall’. When I asked how long this would be, I was told indefinitely. It has later been confirmed to me that there has never been a recall in the pipeline. This leads me to the conclusion that they:
a) outright lied about having another car in with the same problem, and;
b) outright lied about there being a recall
Because of this, I then contacted the original dealer (Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham) in an attempt to find a resolution. Numerous phone calls and emails were ignored, and when I finally spoke to the individual that sold me the car (Ross Crayton), he told me that there was nothing he could do about it, and never returned any future telephone calls.
I finally contacted Citroen UK directly (via the contact centre) to raise this complaint. The fact that I was lied to was ignored, and I was told to take the car (at my own expense in both time and money) to another garage much further away (Wingrove Motors, Newcastle). The car was booked in on the 11th July for them to inspect it and to assess the problem. They had the information from the Sunderland dealership regarding the problem, but understandably stated that they wanted to confirm this themselves. They had the car in the full day, and called to confirm that they had identified the problem and that a new radio unit needed to be fitted. At the same time the car was booked in again for the 1st August (3 weeks later) to have this done.
On the afternoon of the 1st August, I received a telephone stating that they had fitted a radio unit and that is successfully resolved the problem. When I asked if I could collect the car, they then informed me that they then had to take this new radio unit back out of the car and replace it with my non-working unit. When I queried this, they stated that each radio unit only works in the car it was first installed in. I understand each has a unique code, but in order to test the radio unit (and have it working in my car), they will have had to change it so that it only worked with my car. Essentially, they lied to me (saying it wouldn’t work once I drove the car away), presumably as they had taken the radio unit out of a showroom model and did not want to be left with a faulty unit in one of their cars. Instead they would be much happier having a customer driving around with a faulty unit than one sitting idle in a showroom.
Obviously aggrieved by this, I asked how long it would take for a new radio unit to arrive. I was told normal time was 2 weeks, but sometimes it may take up to 6 weeks. Please note the exact dates that I have given above; it has now been over 10 weeks since they ordered the unit, and when I spoke to them they told me that I will have to wait indefinitely as they could not give me an estimated time.
I then contacted the Citroen contact centre yesterday lunchtime (10th October) and spoke to Caz, who told me that he would chase it up immediately and call me back before the end of the day. This phone call never materialised, and by 2pm today (11th October) when I phoned him back he had yet to chase it up. When I asked him for a printed (or pdf) copy of the complaints procedure, I was told that one does not exist. Given my [line of work is] complaints and experiences, this shocked me that a large multinational company does not have a complaints procedure in writing available to customers. This must (and evidently does from my experience) breed a certain culture of lying and hiding the truth from customers who are often powerless to do anything.
It is for these reasons that I want to escalate the complaint to the highest level. Dealing with a regional support manager has proven to be a fruitless endeavour, and I have now had the car for almost 5 months and a simple issue of replacing a radio unit has yet to be resolved by three individual dealers. I have summarised my complaints below.
1. Lied to twice by the service manager at Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland
2. Refusal to carry out warranty work on my car at Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland
3. Ignored by Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham
4. Lied to by the service manager at Wingrove Motors, Newcastle
5. Taking what will be a minimum of 5 months to simply replace a faulty radio unit
6. No contact at all from Wingrove Motors, Newcastle regarding delays in replacing the radio unit (2 weeks is now 10 weeks)
7. Phone calls and information that I am promised not materialising (Citroen UK Contact Centre)
I understand that maybe one or a maximum of two errors or lapses are understandable (points 5, 6 and 7). However deliberate acts by individuals (points 1, 2, 3, 4) are certainly not, and coupled with the other points indicate that there both active and latent failures within the organisation, including the ‘customer-orientated’ culture that deems it acceptable to lie to customers in the hope that they do not know anything better. Given your position as Managing Director I assume that you know the implications that so many of these issues can have with your company, and I hope that you will begin addressing these. I look forward to receiving your reply.
Yours sincerely,
[Forename Surname]
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Dear Mr [Surname]
Thank you for writing to let me know about the service you ve had from Citroën.
I ve asked Ramandeep Goraya, one of our regional support managers, to look into it for me he s the best person to deal with this.
We ll try to take care of this for you as quickly and fairly as possible and as soon as we hear anything we ll be back in touch with you. This should be in the next week or so.
If you d like to talk to us in the meantime, our contact centre team will be happy to help. You can call them on 0844 463 3500 - don t forget to have your case number handy when you do.
Yours sincerely
Linda Jackson
Managing Director
I've actually copied the email that was sent to the Managing Director, Linda Jackson. I sent this as the dealer couldn't give me answers, and a regional support manager at the contact centre for Citroen UK had been unable to resolve the issue and give me answers. I've removed certain parts to keep myself anonymous (using square brackets). I will update as and when (or I should say if) I receive any replies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Linda Jackson,
I would like to draw your attention to the appalling customer services that I have received since buying a brand new Citroen DS3 (Orla Kiely) on the [end of] May, 2011. This complaint spans three different Citroen dealers and also the contact centre. I have tried resolving this with a regional manager to no avail and would like to escalate it to you personally.
Since buying the car, I have had a persistent problem with the iPod connectivity, to the extent that it has been unusable since the day of purchase. To try to resolve this issue, I took the car back to the original dealer (Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham) on the day of purchase. They informed me that as it would need to be explored in depth, that I should take it to my local Citroen dealer and they would resolve the issue under warranty. As I had travelled from the North East to collect the car and was travelling home the following day, this was understandable.
The following week I took the car into Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland. They booked the car in for the 6th June, and on this day informed me that there were two possible outcomes; a loose connection which would be fixed on the day, or a faulty radio unit which would take two weeks for a new one to be delivered and fitted. At this time they had never seen the problem before. A few days later they called me and stated that it was a fault with the radio unit, but that nothing could be done to fix it as they were waiting for a recall from Citroen. The reason that they gave for this was that in the time I had taken my car in (6th June), another had come in with exactly the same problem, and they tried replacing the radio unit with no success. This confused me as they stated it would take two weeks to test this with my car, and when confronted about this the service manager refused to give me an answer, telling me ‘tough, you’ll have to wait for the recall’. When I asked how long this would be, I was told indefinitely. It has later been confirmed to me that there has never been a recall in the pipeline. This leads me to the conclusion that they:
a) outright lied about having another car in with the same problem, and;
b) outright lied about there being a recall
Because of this, I then contacted the original dealer (Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham) in an attempt to find a resolution. Numerous phone calls and emails were ignored, and when I finally spoke to the individual that sold me the car (Ross Crayton), he told me that there was nothing he could do about it, and never returned any future telephone calls.
I finally contacted Citroen UK directly (via the contact centre) to raise this complaint. The fact that I was lied to was ignored, and I was told to take the car (at my own expense in both time and money) to another garage much further away (Wingrove Motors, Newcastle). The car was booked in on the 11th July for them to inspect it and to assess the problem. They had the information from the Sunderland dealership regarding the problem, but understandably stated that they wanted to confirm this themselves. They had the car in the full day, and called to confirm that they had identified the problem and that a new radio unit needed to be fitted. At the same time the car was booked in again for the 1st August (3 weeks later) to have this done.
On the afternoon of the 1st August, I received a telephone stating that they had fitted a radio unit and that is successfully resolved the problem. When I asked if I could collect the car, they then informed me that they then had to take this new radio unit back out of the car and replace it with my non-working unit. When I queried this, they stated that each radio unit only works in the car it was first installed in. I understand each has a unique code, but in order to test the radio unit (and have it working in my car), they will have had to change it so that it only worked with my car. Essentially, they lied to me (saying it wouldn’t work once I drove the car away), presumably as they had taken the radio unit out of a showroom model and did not want to be left with a faulty unit in one of their cars. Instead they would be much happier having a customer driving around with a faulty unit than one sitting idle in a showroom.
Obviously aggrieved by this, I asked how long it would take for a new radio unit to arrive. I was told normal time was 2 weeks, but sometimes it may take up to 6 weeks. Please note the exact dates that I have given above; it has now been over 10 weeks since they ordered the unit, and when I spoke to them they told me that I will have to wait indefinitely as they could not give me an estimated time.
I then contacted the Citroen contact centre yesterday lunchtime (10th October) and spoke to Caz, who told me that he would chase it up immediately and call me back before the end of the day. This phone call never materialised, and by 2pm today (11th October) when I phoned him back he had yet to chase it up. When I asked him for a printed (or pdf) copy of the complaints procedure, I was told that one does not exist. Given my [line of work is] complaints and experiences, this shocked me that a large multinational company does not have a complaints procedure in writing available to customers. This must (and evidently does from my experience) breed a certain culture of lying and hiding the truth from customers who are often powerless to do anything.
It is for these reasons that I want to escalate the complaint to the highest level. Dealing with a regional support manager has proven to be a fruitless endeavour, and I have now had the car for almost 5 months and a simple issue of replacing a radio unit has yet to be resolved by three individual dealers. I have summarised my complaints below.
1. Lied to twice by the service manager at Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland
2. Refusal to carry out warranty work on my car at Town Centre Citroen, Sunderland
3. Ignored by Bristol Street Motors, Nottingham
4. Lied to by the service manager at Wingrove Motors, Newcastle
5. Taking what will be a minimum of 5 months to simply replace a faulty radio unit
6. No contact at all from Wingrove Motors, Newcastle regarding delays in replacing the radio unit (2 weeks is now 10 weeks)
7. Phone calls and information that I am promised not materialising (Citroen UK Contact Centre)
I understand that maybe one or a maximum of two errors or lapses are understandable (points 5, 6 and 7). However deliberate acts by individuals (points 1, 2, 3, 4) are certainly not, and coupled with the other points indicate that there both active and latent failures within the organisation, including the ‘customer-orientated’ culture that deems it acceptable to lie to customers in the hope that they do not know anything better. Given your position as Managing Director I assume that you know the implications that so many of these issues can have with your company, and I hope that you will begin addressing these. I look forward to receiving your reply.
Yours sincerely,
[Forename Surname]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr [Surname]
Thank you for writing to let me know about the service you ve had from Citroën.
I ve asked Ramandeep Goraya, one of our regional support managers, to look into it for me he s the best person to deal with this.
We ll try to take care of this for you as quickly and fairly as possible and as soon as we hear anything we ll be back in touch with you. This should be in the next week or so.
If you d like to talk to us in the meantime, our contact centre team will be happy to help. You can call them on 0844 463 3500 - don t forget to have your case number handy when you do.
Yours sincerely
Linda Jackson
Managing Director
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