Honda “Customer Experience Compared”.

I arrived for a maintenance and service booking at Honda Northcliff done by phone two days earlier. A first time customer previously with Honda Umhlanga.

I was in no rush but mildly annoyed by Google Maps showing the entrance on Beyers Naude but I’d found my way around the back entrance easily enough.

I’d waited for a few minutes for the person at the service desks to complete a difficult phone call.

We greeted and from that point; Firstly: I apologize for interrupting and inconveniencing your service desk person shuffling through paperwork while half heartedly paying a bit of attention to me. People have bad days so I said finish what you’re doing and I’ll wait, I wanted the person to be focused as I needed to explain a technical issue on the car.

Secondly, there was no record of the booking on the system I’d done by phone two days earlier.

Thirdly other members of staff simply butted in mid conversation. That’s just poor manners never mind total disrespect to a customer...

Fourthly the person attending to me was still multitasking with some other distraction which simply made me loose interest in going any further as the person was making it rather obvious I was not really welcome.

I’m not one to shout and scream, be condescending or rude because that just ruins my day. I simply said I’m not happy and I’ll go to another dealership.

There was no effort to retain me or rescue the situation and a college to the right made no attempt to smooth the situation or assist and simply stayed focused on the computer screen and looked the other way.

Customer Experience is everything these days and I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse customer experience ever in a commercial business entity regardless of how other issues may be causing a bad day..

I don’t even want an apology, I’ll simply forget Honda Northcliff exists when I press submit on this review.

Read on...

I drove directly to Honda Sandton and without them expecting me I was seated with a cup of coffee within 20 minutes of arriving, this after explaining a the technical problem and resubmitting all my details plus a driver to take me home was there 20 minutes later.

My customer experience score: Honda Northcliff 0/10 Honda Sandton 20/10

Goodbye Honda Northcliff, Hello Honda Sandton.

PS Honda Umhlanga “Rocks” as well as Honda Sandton does.