2009 July, 19th

Phil Butler

Yesterday’s update on automobile customer service here in Germany, as a part of a series, again dealt with our own experiences with Mercedes-Benz Hess GmbH. Today, we wanted to update readers, and to provide a sort of comparative example of customer service via none other than Ford Motor Company in Germany. Certainly, any such comparison cannot be totally conclusive in comparing the spectrum of automobile services across Germany, or the world for that matter, but considering the two brands, it is an interesting diversion. Hess Mercedes’ actions so far, compared with similar functions offered by the Ford dealer here in Schweich, Autohaus Klaus Steffgen, reveal at least several examples of how “to”, and “not to” provide customer service to automobile customers.

The Story So Far

For a recap, my partner and I bought a Mercedes A190 from Hess Mercedes in Trier, not far from the town we live in, Schweich, where as it happens, Mihaela had previously purchased a used Ford Ka. The situation with regard to Hess and the A Class is by now widely understood via our series on this episode. But, for the newcomer, our dealings with Hess turned to the negative when management at their downtown Trier office effectively “blew us off”, or otherwise showed very mediocre skill and effort with regard to customer service. Not what anyone would expect from the top Mercedes dealership in the area of Germany. Parts one, two and three outlined and updated most of the events leading up to the current situation with Hess, for those interested in following. As a positive note, our recent dealings with Hess, through an excellent representative there, Herr Holst, have been much more “upbeat” as far as communication are concerned. However, the situation with Hess is as of this writing, unresolved.

Comparing Ford to Mercedes is a little like comparing a Timex watch to a Rolex, but in our recent experiences the Rolex, regardless of its impact on the consumer psyche with regard to excellence, has fallen way short by comparison. As I mentioned, Miheala bought a Ford Ka from Autohaus Steffgen in 2006 for a little over 5000 Euro. In her experience, and subsequently mine, in terms of trouble free driving, the Ka is a far superior vehicle in every respect, and here is why.

The original used care warranty we had with the Ka covered ever single issue (in our experience) from routine maintenance to repairs for faulty systems (which has not boiled down to much really). While under warranty, we never paid for even the most serious or trivial repair on this Ford vehicle, and what is even more surprising is that the car has never failed to satisfy in any regard. As for service after warranty, we have some interesting facts to relate. For out and out customer service, suffice it to say we never received anything but prompt, friendly and professional service from the dealership in our small village.

Our last incident with the Ford Ka involved ironically, a flat tire (ironic because we had two with the A Class). I took the vehicle to Autohaus Steffgen and the head mechanic promptly identified what I needed done (in English I might add), took notes, and then proceeded to do the following in the same day.

• Replace a headlight which had gone out
• Replace a brake light which had burned out
• Replace a backup light which had burned out
• Replace a windshield washer motor which fialed to function
• Do a multi-point inspection on needed systems
• Advised me as to a minor coolant leak
• Installed two new Goodyear top of the line front tires (to compensate for the one flat)
• On his own initiative, install two used tires so that the rears would be in better shape (at no charge)
• Provided me with a detailed report of all work done, and noted issues

All the above work, including the two new tires was performed for just over 200 Euros, and the car was ready later in the day. Someone may argue that the Hess dealership service department might be busier, but this is not the case. Given that Mercedes sales are down over 6 percent, and the fact that we have yet to see an overworked person in our visits there, I cn vouch for the fact that Steffgen is at least as busy comparatively. As for Hess, a comparative issue happened after we had only had their car for a month or so, when both front tires went flat sitting in our driveway. In that scenario I called our salesperson only to be asked how we could deliver the car there. The solution was for me to personally deliver either the car or the tires to be replaced.

Sometimes You Get More Than You Pay For – Sometimes Not

In the end, even though Hess’ service foreman suggested he would get the tires for us for free, the sales manager only offered the tires at their cost, which was around 170 Euro I believe. I still had to pick up and hand mount the tires myself in the end. In talking with Herr Holst in this latest circus of customer service, he suggested himself that this price was too much. So, there it is in a nutshell, some Hess personnel actually understand client service, while others have less ambitious ideas of dealing with the people who actually pay their salaries. I can only speculate as to why this is the case, but I actually do have a pretty good idea.

Ford, though not a apparently as prestigious a brand, would appear to have the edge in these cases as far as both quality of service and reliability of their models. Of course this is an isolated case, but we are efforting finding others examples as I type this. Who would ever consider that a low end Ford product could ever surpass a low end Mercedes one in reliability? Even if this is not a fair comparison with regard to all Ka’s and A Class vehicles, just the apparent differentiation in customer services and pricing show something. Hess wants 550 Euro, less their generous offer of splitting the cost, for replacing a part I have yet to be told what it is or does, and which probably should be under our warranty in the first place.

If Hess does not come up with a sensible and fair resolution to this situation, we are honestly thinking of going to Autohaus Steffgen and trying to get another Ford Ka or similar product. We bought the Mercedes because of the suggested reliability, and the perceived appropriateness as a family vehicle. This brings to light yet another issue – safety. I mentioned that I was a test driver, and lab technician for Tenneco Automotive in their research and development arm back in the 80’s. During that time, I learned a little about lateral stability and other dynamics of car handling. To be honest, I have washed most of the technical stuff these last twenty years, but the “feeling” and “sense” of these stability issues becomes hard wired into the senses no matter how long it has been. The essence of this in short is, my assessment of these two vehicles with regard to the Ka versus the A190 is as follows.

• The A190 is unstable at moderate to high speeds, exhibiting a great deal of over-steer and yawl
• The A190, while powerful, actually has a very bad power to handling ration – it is too powerful for such instability
• The A190 aslo exhibits what I would terms “torque steer”, where rapid acceleration requires undue steering compensation
• The A190 has less leg room than the Ka, which essentially inhibits the driver’s handling capability
• Visibility for the A190 is inferior the Ka from my perspective

In all, from a semi-expert perspective, and considering my wife might drive the A190 (which she will not as she fears it), the A190 is not something one would want to turn over to anyone but the most experienced driver. Even with an experienced driver, an emergency handling situation would be geometrically more dangerous than the Ka or most other compact cars on the market. Selling someone a car like this, without even an appropriate test drive (which is what happened at Hess), is tantamount to lieing to the customer. For an around town vehicle, the A190 would suffice, but on the open road, with family in tow, no one should ever consider it a primary family vehicle. This is what we asked the initial sales person, he know what we were looking for.

Conclusion To Part Four

Car sales are down. The end result of a failed economy or not, what causes businesses to fail is bad practices. I cannot predict the success or failure of Hess or Autohaus Steffgen either, but what I can predict is which dealer I would trust at this juncture. Trusting the Mercedes name and reputation, has until this moment, proven to be a bad purchasing decision. Mercedes, or Ford for that matter, are inextricably tied to the dealers who take care of their current and future customers. Since being in Germany I have been astounded at the kind, officious, and to be honest drastically superior attitudes of Germans as opposed to many people in the United States. The businesses here in the little village where we live, and most of those in the larger town of Trier, where we visit weekly, are dedicated to their customers obviously. The Karl Marx Strasse personnel we experienced did not exemplify the average German person or business employee. Those at Autohaus Steffgen have always been supremely nice and helpful.

That being said, there are any number of reasons why we may have not been treated as we should have. In a way, we are reacting rather dramatically too. But, given our experiences here, and considering our own PR business, expecting more than crappy attitudes and bad business practices is, well, reasonable. Some have suggested that our treatment had something to do with us being foreigners, but as to this we can only suspect. Personally, and since we have heard several stories about the “Karl Marx Strasse attitude” (even from their own employees), it is apparent that some there are just arrogant and lazy. A sometimes systematic symptom of the successes of someone like Adolph Hess and his company no doubt. Perhaps also, a symptom of a company with no competition in the Mercedes sales for a region? Whatever the causes, and whatever the outcome (and we are prepared for all of those), I think Hess Mercedes is addressing all the wrong questions here.

Rather than look at us as adversaries, or to try and pinch the last possible worth out of a Pfennig, Hess management should be looking at the long term, their brand, and into how a win-win situation can be arrived at. For one thing, investigating the Internet, and asking something like; “How can this story have a happy ending?” Happy for them, might be saving 1000 Euro, while losing an opportunity to grow their business. Just how they can do this, well, that is withing the realm of the Web, and our area of expertise. It is amazing to me that someone there has not considered that we may be their best friends ever in this regard. In any even, we just wanted to plug a really good German car dealership, show people a funny comparison, and suggest still further to Hess and Mercedes, that the customer comes first – before the business take off. This has never been more true than in these unstable economic times.

• 2009/09/09 -- Mercedes S Class On Sale In China, But How About Mercedes Service?
• 2009/07/22 -- Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2010, Hess Mercedes, the E Class, and Customer Service
• 2009/07/18 -- Germany’s Mercedes-Benz Hess GmbH, Part Three
• 2009/07/17 -- Mercedes-Benz Hess GmbH Customer Support Test, Part Two

About the Author

Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

See All Posts by This Author