I had the worst customer service experience of recent memory last week. This is saying something, as I have had some horrible customer service experiences with Knaack (idiot big company truckers), T-Mobile (idiot Southerners), the DMV (idiot prisoners), American Family (idiot beancounters), Dell (idiot Indians), and SkiPro (idiot Arizona snowboarding posers). But as bad as each of these were, they all were sorta trying to help and be reasonable — they just were incompetent or rulebound. Today, however, the idiot was able and willfully difficult as a matter of policy, based on an utter disinterest in the well-being of both the customer, and if he was clever enough to realize it, in his company too.

The new old truck did not have a CD magazine for its player. The parts run about $20 on Ebay, maybe $45 new online. I didn’t know what the part number was, and had to pretzelize myself to take out the CD player from behind the back seat of the truck to read model. I dug online for awhile, but no luck, for typically obscure OEM parts. So I called Ford.

Ford’s phone rep did not have parts information, so directed me to either their accessory website or a dealer. Website did not go back to ’02, so I called Earnhardt Ford. Get that – EARNHARDT FORD!. I have gone there about half a dozen times over the years, and always found them kinda big and slow, but generally helpful. Ford has always seemed like that – dire warnings of recalls that then take weeks to schedule with the dealer, keys that cost hundreds of dollars to replace, inventory searches that could only be done 1-by-1…getting a mount for the carseat in the Ranger was an amazing act of TPS reporting, as it took 3 trips and no one knew how to install it even though the manual clearly stated it could be done and I should see a technician. They also, in 2006, would not take a credit card number over the phone to order a part.   After all that, no one could figure out how it worked. Only with the kind help of one of their technicians was I able to make sense of it, and she graciously waved the install fee figuring…it was something a company like Ford should do for their customers especially since the manual said the truck supported it.

Well that clusterfuck did not hold a candle to today.

I called EARNHARDT FORD and spoke to the parts dept, explained what I was looking for, and told it was in stock and would be $170.   I said wuh wuh, I don’t want to buy it new, just need the part number to put a used part in a used truck.   The asshole Jim said, and I quote “I’m here to make money.”

I was shocked.   Seriously.   Where to begin with the insanity here – that I can’t get a replacement part number, that he wants to have a 1000% markup on a part requiring no labor, that I can buy a damn nice car stereo for that money and why wouldn’t i instead of sinking the same money into a 7-yr old unit, or the utter disregard for customer service and rewarding brand loyalty?   It was truly amazing.   His attitude that he was doing me a favor just incensed me – you wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for your customer base!   So I hung up on him, after telling him I was hanging up to call his manager.   The manager was at least reasonable and gave me the part number (the wrong part number, since the player in my truck was from the Taurus, not the F150 as per asshole Jim’s manual), then mumbled about how they don’t support non-certified work, don’t want their customers buying the wrong things on ebay blah blah blah.   How pissed am I gonna be for $20 on ebay??   A lot less pissed than paying $170 for the wrong part from you dumbfucks cause Jim is too busy being a dick to listen to the customer (which i would never buy for that price anyway)!!   He sheepishly acknowledged that his employee should not have said what he said to me, but couldn’t bring himself to admit that bullshit like that is simply unacceptable in today’s market.   I thanked him — genuinely and politely — for his help and for taking the time to speak with me, then let him know that I have never had anything even close to this runaround form Acura or Toyota or Saturn, or any other manufacturer in any other industry I can remember, and that it would affect any future decision to purchase a Ford or vote for an auto industry bailout.

This is not one rogue employee.   All my previous Ford customer service moments suggest that something like this is possible.   Its corporate culture, and its pathetic.   Byron related a similar experience when buying a car and being pushed by the salesman towards financing, since it made more money for the company, even though he specifically said he would not finance. I wish Congress had the balls to let these fat out-of-touch companies and their lazy entitled union jackoffs go down.   Let them declare bankruptcy so complacent morons sitting on their seniority (Jim was an old asshole) get thrown out on their asses, so a desperation for customers infuses all aspects of their service like it has most other companies.   Our HOA in Mexico recently bought out 17 union employees who had gone on strike for the 3rd time in 2 years, and everyone I talked to including the Mexicans at our management company and the fish vendors in Old Port said it was the right thing to do.   But our elected officials are struggling with this decision?   These giant car companies are doomed – the unions, the management sluggishness, and the culture that they have created is finally coming home to roost.   Let em die, stop making the people pay for a private sector dirty bomb, and let the transformation begin.