The German definition of customer service?

[Torsten]

Hi everybody,

As I mentioned earlier I sold my old Xsara a couple of weeks ago and tomorrow is the big day: We are fetching our new Passat from Wolfsburg. Now, VW definitely makes good cars but here in Germany they have a funny definition of "customer service". What they do is the following: If you purchase a new VW, they invite you collect your car direct from the factory.

They show you around the plant and the museum and you can even take a meal at their restaurant. But before you can drive away, they make you purchase a first aid kit! Yes, a new VW doesn't include a first aid kit although German laws require you to have one in your car any time. Fortunately enough our car dealer gave us a new first aid kit as a gift so tomorrow we won't have to invest another EUR 15 to collect the car we have already paid for. I mean, how can you sell a car that costs almost as much as a small house without including a first aid kit? This is ridiculous but it's also a German reality.

What about you? Do car manufactures equip their new cars with first aid kits or do they make you buy them separately too?
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[Alan]

Hi Torsten,

Just a couple of points I'd like to offer although they're not entirely relevant. I recall visiting the Volkswagen centre in Wolfsburg in 1955. I was so impressed with the way the mechanics dealt with my friend's car as we watched it go round the service area that I have never forgotten the occasion. And wasn't that the birthplace of G E Lessing? Well that's my nostalgia done and dusted for today. A point about buying a car, though. This was a secondhand car that I recently almost bought. I'm after an automatic and saw one advertised on a reputable internet site. We eventually reached the garage around five, were shown the car and sat in it to check out the condition. I then asked if I could take it for a test drive and was told that would be difficult because there was a lot of traffic on the road as it was rush hour but I could most certainly take it for a test drive if I bought it! Six weeks later I see that the car in question is still up for sale - I wonder if the traffic has eased a bit since.

Alan
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[Torsten]

Hi Alan,

It seems the Germans are not alone when it comes to the way customers are being treated. As for the VW Wolfsburg centre, it definitely is an amazing site and you can spend an entire day there wondering about and taking in all the sights around you. Also, I'm really tickled pink about my new Passat, the VW engineers have created a really fine piece of machinery.

While visiting the Autostadt as a great experience, you still can feel that the Germans put more emphasis on technical details and discipline than on friendliness and fun. Everything today went like clockwork but I hardly saw anyone of the staff smile. You always feel as if you, the customer should apologize for making a purchase and buying a service....
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[Jamie (K)]

I have an almost sexual attraction to Volkswagens because of the tight way they handle. I had two V-dubs, Golfs, in fact, but I stopped buying from that company, because both were such poor-quality cars. They were designed to drive well, and for ease of service, but they were manufactured poorly.

The first one -- built in Wolfsburg -- had a terrible electrical system that needed constant repair and even left me stranded on the highway a time or two. It also had the hydraulic brake lines routed under the floor mats under the driver and front passenger's feet. This meant they were constantly exposed to water and road salt in the winter and quickly corroded and leaked fluid. My mechanic cussed about this, because he had seen it so many times. The second Golf was built in Pennsylvania, and in most ways it was better than the one from Wolfsburg. A lot of the annoyances in the first Golf had been designed out of it, but it had some kind of crazy experimental fuel system that stalled out a lot and needed very frequent, repeated repair after the second year. VW didn't even stock the parts, so it always stayed in the shop for a LOOOOOOOONG time. Both Golfs leaked a lot of oil out of the pan after a couple of years. But, gosh, were they fun to drive!

Now I'm driving a good ol' American Ford, and it's far more robust and reliable than either Golf was. The "Big Three" American auto makers (as of this week, all of them are American again!) used to make terrible cars, but they have improved their quality so much over the past couple of decades that Ford and General Motors cars in the US now beat VW for quality and reliability, although nobody beats Honda and Toyota.

Anyway, VW has seen its sales sink very low in the US, mainly because they stopped caring about the customer's needs. They've taken a big hit, considering how popular they used to be here. Their problems have been written up in the US business press a bit, and what they amount to is what Americans think of as "typical German arrogance." The attitude of the VW management, engineers and designers was basically, "We're the car people, and we know what a good car is. If Americans want something else, it means they can't recognize a good car when they see it, so it's their problem." (I think of this as the Aldi approach to customer service -- we know what you should have, and if you need something better, you've got a problem.) This attitude on the part of VW staff was undoubtedly fed by the general German belief that Americans are inherently stupid.

Sometimes various experts and consultants tried to tell the VW honchos what the problem for them was in the US, and they just trivialized it. For example, many Americans (like me) practically have to live in their cars. We often have to eat in them, and I sometimes even have to take naps in mine. Often, while traveling from one job location to another, I have to eat lunch. I've got a pint of milk in the console, some bread or beef jerky on the passenger's seat, some gum in the dashboard to clean my teeth, and off I go. I also have a big cup in front of the gearshift to throw my trash into. I could not do this in a typical V-dub. And if you think I live in my car, you should see some working mothers! Most Americans drive around like this. When this was pointed out to VW executives and engineers, they replied, "We design our cars for driving, not for drinking coffee!" Case closed. Market share lost. It sounds so German to us.

Recently, however, VW has smartened up and begun sending teams to the US to ride around with Americans all day, so that they can see how we use our cars.

Torsten, in my state no first aid kit is required in a car. All gas stations and department stores sell automotive first aid kids, but in a real accident, a first aid kit isn't much help, and you need to wait for the ambulance. As for having to buy the kit at the factory, you can take solace in the fact that one way or another you'd have to pay for it anyway.

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

I'm driving a VW Beetle at the moment. There are built-in cupholders in front of the gearshift. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any travel mug that will actually fit into these cupholders -- there isn't enough clearance above them for even a small travel mug. And the very fact that a driver has to reach over the shift in order to place a cup in or remove a cup from the cupholder was an incredibly bad design decision all by itself. The cupholders in a VW Bug are completely useless as cupholders.

[Jamie (K)]

[Yankee]

My Beetle has the vase, too. (It's an older "new" Beetle.)
The cupholders would be really awkward to use even if there were enough open space above them for actual use.

Maybe VW has improved the cupholder design in the meantime. I haven't looked at the new ones yet...

Here is a picture of how my VW looks inside: