Hi all –
I’m new to this forum, and my main reason for wanting to join it was to tell you all about the amazingly good customer service I’ve recently experienced from Fiat…it’s a bit of a long story, so bear with me while I try to ‘cut a long story short’
I have a 5 month-old Grande Punto 1.3 multijet, which I’ve owned from new and have been generally very pleased with indeed. It’s beautiful to look at, fun to drive and brilliantly economical. I do a lot of driving, so it’s important to me to have a decent car. Last week though my GP let me down…
The clutch went whilst I was in the ‘fast lane’ in a traffic jam on the M25/M1 interchange. As I’m sure you can all imagine I wasn’t exactly a happy camper. I called out the AA (through the Fiat AA Assurance warranty thing), who arrived fairly quickly and helped my partner and I off the motorway and towed us to the nearest Fiat dealership (Hemel Hempstead) to see if the problem could be fixed quickly.
At the garage, the AA bloke effectively abandoned us, without waiting to see if the car would be fixed within a ‘reasonable time.’ As it turned out, the technician at the dealership figured out that the slave cylinder had gone, and they wouldn’t be able to fix it for a few days as they didn’t have the parts in stock. The AA then refused to tow my car to my local dealership and I had to fight tooth and nail with them to get a hire car for 48hours (under the terms of the AA Assurance cover, the car should have been towed to any location in the UK of my choosing, and I should have been given the hire car). :bang:
Anyway – I’m supposed to be cutting the long story short, aren’t I? Everyone at the dealership in Hemel Hempstead was exceptionally helpful, calling the AA for me etc. The next morning (from home, about 90 miles away from Hemel Hempstead) I called Fiat UK customer relations to complain about the service that I’d had from the AA and to find out how best to get my car back to me, fixed and with the least amount of hassle possible. They were fantastic. They arranged for the car to be towed to my local fiat dealership (in Nuneaton), who were brilliant, friendly, efficient and thorough with their repairs. Fiat UK promised to reimburse me my out of pocket expenses on the hire car, and to generally make life as easy as possible for me. I was kept well informed of what was going on, and everyone was very polite and apologetic.
Yesterday I picked up my (fixed) grande punto (boy was I glad to get it back after having a Peugeot 307 for a few days!), and this morning I received a phone call from Fiat in Italy apologising for the inconvenience caused to me!
Now, my point in posting this is that all too often it is the ‘bad things’ that get publicised and good work from companies often goes unmentioned and unnoted. Yes, there was a problem with my clutch, yes it was irritating, but the service I’ve received from Fiat far outweighs the inconvenience of a small, faulty part. So, whilst I would give the AA a massive thumbs down (and I’ll certainly never be paying for breakdown assistance from them!) I think that Fiat UK need a massive pat on the back for their exceptional customer service.
Thank you Fiat, and well done!
I’m new to this forum, and my main reason for wanting to join it was to tell you all about the amazingly good customer service I’ve recently experienced from Fiat…it’s a bit of a long story, so bear with me while I try to ‘cut a long story short’
I have a 5 month-old Grande Punto 1.3 multijet, which I’ve owned from new and have been generally very pleased with indeed. It’s beautiful to look at, fun to drive and brilliantly economical. I do a lot of driving, so it’s important to me to have a decent car. Last week though my GP let me down…
The clutch went whilst I was in the ‘fast lane’ in a traffic jam on the M25/M1 interchange. As I’m sure you can all imagine I wasn’t exactly a happy camper. I called out the AA (through the Fiat AA Assurance warranty thing), who arrived fairly quickly and helped my partner and I off the motorway and towed us to the nearest Fiat dealership (Hemel Hempstead) to see if the problem could be fixed quickly.
At the garage, the AA bloke effectively abandoned us, without waiting to see if the car would be fixed within a ‘reasonable time.’ As it turned out, the technician at the dealership figured out that the slave cylinder had gone, and they wouldn’t be able to fix it for a few days as they didn’t have the parts in stock. The AA then refused to tow my car to my local dealership and I had to fight tooth and nail with them to get a hire car for 48hours (under the terms of the AA Assurance cover, the car should have been towed to any location in the UK of my choosing, and I should have been given the hire car). :bang:
Anyway – I’m supposed to be cutting the long story short, aren’t I? Everyone at the dealership in Hemel Hempstead was exceptionally helpful, calling the AA for me etc. The next morning (from home, about 90 miles away from Hemel Hempstead) I called Fiat UK customer relations to complain about the service that I’d had from the AA and to find out how best to get my car back to me, fixed and with the least amount of hassle possible. They were fantastic. They arranged for the car to be towed to my local fiat dealership (in Nuneaton), who were brilliant, friendly, efficient and thorough with their repairs. Fiat UK promised to reimburse me my out of pocket expenses on the hire car, and to generally make life as easy as possible for me. I was kept well informed of what was going on, and everyone was very polite and apologetic.
Yesterday I picked up my (fixed) grande punto (boy was I glad to get it back after having a Peugeot 307 for a few days!), and this morning I received a phone call from Fiat in Italy apologising for the inconvenience caused to me!
Now, my point in posting this is that all too often it is the ‘bad things’ that get publicised and good work from companies often goes unmentioned and unnoted. Yes, there was a problem with my clutch, yes it was irritating, but the service I’ve received from Fiat far outweighs the inconvenience of a small, faulty part. So, whilst I would give the AA a massive thumbs down (and I’ll certainly never be paying for breakdown assistance from them!) I think that Fiat UK need a massive pat on the back for their exceptional customer service.
Thank you Fiat, and well done!