Got a negative review trying to help out

[alfredauto]

Well the other day I had a guy come in with a printout from autozone in hand, wants me to put in his alternator. "We don't install customer's parts, please let us diagnose..." blah blah you know the normal routine. So anyway the guy was in a bind, not going to make it another 100yards, pleads with me so we (against our good judgement) put in the $99 AZ alternator which was the correct frame type but the wrong amperage for the vehicle. No money to do it right, no dollars for diag, help a guy out, just try it, come on man I'm dying here story. "Understand, there is absolutely no warranty" Yes, sir, I'm grateful your helping me. All done and it's still not charging (their homemade wiring issues if I was to guess.), the belt and tensioner were cooked, battery is no good, the guy has zero money for any additional parts or labor. "Leave the vehicle until we can fix it please" NOPE! His wife got involved and now I'm a scam artist now on every review site there is. She was screaming at me on the phone until I had to hang up. 

The moral of this story is if a customer won't let you do your job properly, let them be mad and go somewhere else. Rip the band-aid off fast. I hate to be that guy that says no I can't help you but sometimes it's mandatory. 

[Truett]

I feel this, done that been there.

[HarrytheCarGeek]

3 hours ago, alfredauto said:

Well the other day I had a guy come in with a printout from autozone in hand, wants me to put in his alternator. "We don't install customer's parts, please let us diagnose..." blah blah you know the normal routine. So anyway the guy was in a bind, not going to make it another 100yards, pleads with me so we (against our good judgement) put in the $99 AZ alternator which was the correct frame type but the wrong amperage for the vehicle. No money to do it right, no dollars for diag, help a guy out, just try it, come on man I'm dying here story. "Understand, there is absolutely no warranty" Yes, sir, I'm grateful your helping me. All done and it's still not charging (their homemade wiring issues if I was to guess.), the belt and tensioner were cooked, battery is no good, the guy has zero money for any additional parts or labor. "Leave the vehicle until we can fix it please" NOPE! His wife got involved and now I'm a scam artist now on every review site there is. She was screaming at me on the phone until I had to hang up. 

The moral of this story is if a customer won't let you do your job properly, let them be mad and go somewhere else. Rip the band-aid off fast. I hate to be that guy that says no I can't help you but sometimes it's mandatory. 

lol, the thing is you knew this would happen, or better said, you suspected this would most likely happen, yet you chose to go ahead and put yourself through it. Isn't life grand?

[GeeZ]

Yes, every shop has had this happen. My guess, they had more money but not for you. No good deed goes unpunished.

[xrac]

45 minutes ago, GeeZ said:

Yes, every shop has had this happen. My guess, they had more money but not for you. No good deed goes unpunished.

You took the words right out of my mouth. 

[JustTheBest]

alfredauto,

I used to solve this problem with a simple question. "Do you go to McDonald's and bring your own burger patty?"

I know it sounds smart - but nothing is worse than dealing with the "noise" you get. Besides, you're never, ever, ever going to with one of those - so I learnt that (as much as it pains you to walk away from the job) there ain't no job to begin with. 

Hope this helps!

Matthew Lee
"The Car Count Fixer"

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[AndersonAuto]

This is why recorded phone calls are fantastic. In KS I don't have to get their permission or notify them that they're being recorded. Then if this situation comes up, I simply offer to attach a recording of their phone call to my response to the bad review. Or they can take it down. I would never actually attach the phone call, but it's a pretty good bluff.

I've also used it to head off a bad review before it happened. When the wife comes unglued because "it's doing the exact same thing" (mercedes that wouldn't come out of park, now dies going down the road apparently is exactly the same thing) I simply emailed her the recorded phone calls where her husband never mentioned anything about a dying problem, and apologized for our confusion. 

[J.P. GLENN]

Make sure that you respond/reply to all of those negative reviews. It really does minimize their impact to future customers more than you would expect.  Our only negative review is FALSE, and just by responding to it and asking them to contact us so that we can make it right has actually helped us attract new customers.  New customers comment on seeing that review all the time and how it made them feel MORE comfortable to bring their car in.  Keep it short and try not to be negative in the reply.  

 

On 9/30/2017 at 4:50 PM, alfredauto said:

The moral of this story is if a customer won't let you do your job properly, let them be mad and go somewhere else. Rip the band-aid off fast. I hate to be that guy that says no I can't help you but sometimes it's mandatory. 

100% agree. Words to live by for any S/A