Oil Change Customer from Hell or Hoax; You Decide

Evacuation, "E-Vac" Oil System for Oil Changing

How do most mobile oil change companies remove the used motor oil from the crank case? Well they "Evacuate it" or in the industry we call it "E-VAC" and this means we suck it out of the dip stick tube with a thin tube which is pushed into the crankcase. Many wonder will this get all the oil out? The answer is not all the oil. In many cases there will be some oil left, not much, but 100% is difficult even using the oil plug on the bottom of the pan.

Since it will not get all the oil out some consumers wonder; will mobile oil change companies be putting less oil in? This is the wrong question because even places like Jiffy Lube or Wal-Mart cannot get all the oil out and if you did your oil change yourself same thing. A properly used "E-vac" system gets nearly all the oil out. How do I know this? Well when we take the oil out if we loosen the oil pan drain plug we barely get a drop out after evacuation technique. If a consumer has a problem with 'E-vac' systems it is because no one has educated him correctly or he is unaware of the process. Most mobile oil change companies will remove the oil he old fashioned way if the customer requests it, thru the oil plug on the bottom of the pan. Oil change companies whether mobile or fixed are service companies and service is what we must do for the consumer.

I remember one gentleman requesting this and I had told him if that is what he wants, we will do it his way. So this gentleman said; "Well yes I would prefer that." So I said fine no problem let the operator know and it will be done by your request, "You can have it your way." I felt like a Burger King commercial, but what the heck, we claim we give good service so why not? Then the gentleman said; "Well I have two cars one is a Diesel Mercedes 300D and it takes 7.4 quarts of oil, so you are not going to charge me more are you?"

Well it does take 2 quarts more than most cars. So the price would be $2.00 per quart extra. Our cost at the time was $1.79 per quart most likely considering this guy would want some special oil, with oil prices up motor oil is also up a bit. Then he said; "I want Synthetic Oil." The conversation got lively then since he wanted the lowest price and synthetic and then a special job. I tried to explain to him on a Diesel Mercedes that the "E-VAC" system would take more oil out than draining through the oil pan plug. In the Mercedes 2.5L Diesel draining from the plug would remove 7.4 quarts including the oil in the filter, meanwhile the "E-VAC Systems" will remove 8.25 quarts. "OH," he said?"well then use the E-VAC thing, but I do not want to pay for the difference in oil between the 7.4 and 8.25 quarts." I am thinking to myself, this guy probably wants a free oil change. I said "Okay Sir, what is the other car?" He said "It is a Lincoln Marquis and I want the oil to be drained from the plug, but it is lowered with 16 inch rims and sits only three inches off the ground and I do not want you to jack it up, also the skid plate is bent and I am not sure you can get to the plug?"

At this point I am thinking this guy is so full of it, I cannot believe it. You cannot jack that car anyway it has self levelers and you have to turn the system off, meanwhile he said he would leave the car hood open for us? Usually in this case we would drive the car up on ramps. But how could we without the keys? Besides the "E-VAC" system would do the job fine anyway. After explaining this to the guy, he asked if we had a guarantee if the cars motor blew up after we worked on it? This whole time I am being cordial but thinking to my self I will be glad when this year is over. After having this belligerent customer harass me for ten minutes.

We asked him, can I schedule your cars for service. He said no, I just wanted to hear if you knew what you are talking about and he hung up. Now mind you, I was personally answering the phone and the only person that did not know what he was talking about was he himself. He must have been a competitor or something, there must be 100's of oil change companies in the Dallas Fort Worth area, but it just seems like a real waste of time for someone to be spending their holidays calling competitors?

If he was a real potential he was for sure the 'customer from hell' with a ten gallon hat and probably no cattle or two cars. When dealing with hard to deal with customers in the automobile business, remember be nice and cordial, you can complain to yourself later, no sense in making enemies. Think about it.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Customer Service Information:

Related Articles

What Every Manager Should Know About How to Win the Loyalty of Customers
Dr. Michael LeBoeuf, in his cassette album entitled, Win Customers and Keep Them for Life presents twelve principles that will transform the workplace into a customer-driven, highly motivational team.
Responding to Complaints
It's possible that in the course of your business dealings, you may (just may) have to deal with a complaint from a customer or client ..
Communicating Value
Abstract: People buy for their reasons, not yours. This article covers the key elements that prospects want to hear you talk about.
Clients - What They Want from You
A growing number of individuals are finding themselves called to help others and go on to fulfil this call by training to become a practitioner in one of the healing arts.The range of conventional, traditional, holistic, complementary and alternative therapies is extensive with new thoughts on old themes being introduced almost daily.
Making The Most Of Newsletters
Newsletters can be wonderful tools for communicating with your customers or prospects. Because of their format, they're often infused with more credibility than traditional brochures.
Whats The Customer Service Buzz About Your Business?
If you're a regular reader of my column you know that my number one pet peeve is bad customer service. Nothing chaps my backside more than paying hard-earned money for a product or service only to have the provider of said product or service become apathetic, obnoxious or just downright rude after the transactional smoke has cleared.
Over Delivering Provides Big Results
Over promising is a problem only when you under deliver. There are a number of ways that you can overdeliver to your customers or prospects, and as a result create a win-win situation for you both.
Outsourcing: The Unspoken Costs
Outsourcing seems to be the new-new thing and approximately 50% of our major corporations are doing it. What are the costs? The benefits? And what skills need to be managed in order to make it work optimally?Let's get a clear understanding of what we mean by outsourcing: it's the shifting of easily codified jobs - such as help desk support, call centers, system maintenance, and programming jobs - to countries that can manage them more cheaply.
A White Paper: Profiting with Kindness
In 2002, there wasn't much interest for Kindness in business, and some business people would question, "What does kindness have to do with business, anyway?" Is this a for real question or just to prove a point? Or perhaps they couldn't figure out what being kind really had to do with business. Or perhaps the word was a jargon word, an unfamiliar language.
Handling Angry Clients
What do you do when your client gets mad at you? How do you handle this? An angry client can be one of the biggest time and energy drains on a sales person. What you should specifically do will obviously depend on what the client is angry about.
Call Center Software - Your Tool of Choice in Customer Relations
The call center represents your first line of communication with customers and potential customers. Whether you choose to outsource this service or to establish an in-company call center, this is one area in which quality is paramount and cannot be compromised.
It's Customer Service Stupid: Delivering Customer Service Training That Sticks
"Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense."This Ralph Waldo Emerson quote opens one of the most impressive works on customer service: Michael LeBoeuf's book How To Win Customers and Keep Them For Life.
The Death of the Loyal Customer
One of my classes in management focused on the repeat customer. The course stressed the importance of the repeat customer to the financial welfare of the business.
First Contact: The Source of Customer Loyalty
With customers being smarter, more cost conscious, more product knowledgeable and more demanding, improving customer service has become a major focus within many businesses. In Customer Satisfaction is Worthless; Customer Loyalty is Priceless, author Jeffrey Gitomer contends the real solution is shifting the paradigm away from customer service to customer loyalty.
Retail Store U-Scan Machines: Self-Serve or Voluntary Part Time Job?
Do many of us realize that we are working an unpaid part time job for the grocery stores and some home appliance stores? We are ringing up our own goods, are not getting any price discount for doing so and are saving these retailers money.Each self-serve lane contains two to three self-serve scanners.
Are You Putting Technology Before Your Customers?
Which is more important the technology or the customer?The one thing about the online world you can be sure of is change.It seems like every day there is a new technology being addedwhich will make the internet more accessible.
Empowering Customer Service Vital
It never fails to amaze me how many companies have employees who are empowered to offer former customers wonderful incentives to lure them back, yet their customer service representatives have the ability to offer virtually nothing to convince an unhappy customer to stay.Powerless, these CSRs often actually ignore customers' requests and declarations of their intent to leave, even encouraging them to seek out another company!They often repeat the few phrases they're allowed to say over and over again, further infuriating the customers.
What Every Employee Should Know About How to Win the Loyalty of Customers
Dr. Michael LeBoeuf, in his cassette album entitled, Win Customers and Keep Them for Life presents twelve principles that will transform the workplace into a customer-driven, highly motivational team.
Handling Customer Complaints
Even the best business will receive an occasional customer complaint. Knowing how to resolve these complaints will help you gain loyal customers who will then refer others to your business.
Customer Service: Why Bears Make Bad Customers
Every business owner should have a picture of his or her ideal customer. When I picture my ideal customer, I see a business owner struggling to find time for all that needs to be done, someone passionate about what they do, someone striving to find answers to make their business run better.