clyde Member 71 Member For: 21y 10m 8d Location: Sydney Posted 30/08/03 11:37 PM Author Share Posted 30/08/03 11:37 PM Following on from my letter to the president of Ford Aust, I have recieved a reply. Geoff Polites has sent me a letter on his presonal stationary, it took him only 6 days to reply. The answers to my questions are as follow:Q · Why do Ford continue to show television adds featuring the XR6 Turbo when they are not able to deliver cars to those who have already ordered them?A - the XR6 was used in the TV ads to promote the entire BA range because it is a great looking car. (True but then explain the radio adds which are just for the XR6T)Q· Why does a large metropolitan dealer like Power Ford Castle Hill have such a small allocation of these cars? Is Power Ford lying to me about the circumstances of the delay, if not why was I originally told that because of their size they get a large allocation of vehicles and now they tell me that Ford has cut that allocation to a trickle.A - Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah ( standard operating bulsh*t)Q· Does anyone at Ford monitor the web. Sites such as www.fordforums.com and www.fordxr6turbo.com are great sources of information about public reaction to your service and products. At the moment product wise the public loves Ford but service wise there are a lot of disgruntled customers.A - GP tells me that not only do they monitor the sites but he personally contributes on occasions. Wonder what name he uses)Q· Why is it that when I ask questions on the above mentioned web sites that I find out that some people who have ordered similar cars to mine have had them delivered in a third of the time?A - GP didn't really answer this question. Just some more Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Q· A consensus of opinion seems to be that because these vehicles are in short supply dealers will get cars quicker for non fleet buyers because they earn more money out of the deal. It has been suggested that I may have been shuffled to the back of the list because I am a fleet buyer. Does this happen? What can Ford do about this if it is true?A - Each dealer has absolute discretion as to which customers and in what sequence they supply. (I take that as a yes it happens and no we don't care)Q· Can Ford give me a build date for my car? The dealer told me he can’t. I am frightened that if I ring him again I might not get the car until 2004 as every time I speak to them it gets pushed back a further month."A - Ford interviened and gave me a SIDO with an early Sept build. The sales manager at the dealer was a bit shocked when he rang to tell me that Ford had allocated an extra car for Sept and it was to be given to me.In the letter GP also said that most of the delays for XR6T were related to Ford's capacity to produce the engines. This probably means FPV's incapacity to do their bit.Anyway I was impressed that GP resonded and not just hand it to a sales and marketing person. Most of the letter was just standard response stuff but it seems to have struck a cord as they are supplying me with a car in sept instaed of nov. I have checked and my car is being built as we speak and should be at the dealers around 15th Sept.I can't wait. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEN 24T Gandalf the Grey, Maiar of Manwë and Varda, Team HgAg/Sneaky Member 7,371 Member For: 21y 7m 20d Gender: Male Location: The Shire, Middle Earth Posted 31/08/03 02:01 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 02:01 AM Way to go, Clyde ... Most of us take the time to whinge and complain, but few of us take the time to do anything about it. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plonky The Bionic Man - half man-half titanium Member 1,766 Member For: 21y 10m 10d Location: Dodge Scat Pack Posted 31/08/03 03:27 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 03:27 AM I agree with you Clyde about the discretion on the dealer to supply vehicles.Power Ford is part of the Retail Joint Venture in NSW and is basically owned by Ford Australia. (A basic description but this is essentially what the RJV is)I had a bas*ard of a time trying to get the Cobra and my best mate is a Dealer Principal of a Ford franchise. He said if the RJV dealers can't get a car, no one can.When it came to the Mustang Cobra even RJV dealers have been put over a barrel by some Ford franchisees because they had the stock of Mustangs and would only part with stock under their conditions (which really meant that if I wanted a particular colour and interior it was up to me to deal with the franchisee and I couldn't get the deal I wanted)At the end of the day I got what I wanted and absolutely love it! I'm happy with the dealer I got it from and today is the first day I've had the Dodge out of the garage since buying the Cobra.I can understand all sides of the argument (both supplier and consumer) but I applaud you for dealing with Mr Polites direct.It has certainly paid off for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest P'cisT Guests Posted 31/08/03 03:30 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 03:30 AM Q· Does anyone at Ford monitor the web. Sites such as www.fordforums.com and www.fordxr6turbo.com are great sources of information about public reaction to your service and products. At the moment product wise the public loves Ford but service wise there are a lot of disgruntled customers.A - GP tells me that not only do they monitor the sites but he personally contributes on occasions. Wonder what name he uses) Great to see you got a response at least.I'm not sure with this forum (although I reckon he does), but I know over at fordforums, Geoff Polites does visit the forums and contributes under his own name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondie Firm Member Donating Members 2,924 Member For: 22y 3m 18d Location: Adelaide Hills Posted 31/08/03 06:14 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 06:14 AM To add to what P'cisT said, GP does post on FF occasionally under his own name, as does David Flint and a few other FPV employees. Last post l seen from GP a few weeks back was in response to a thread discussing painted engine bays on XRs/FPV's and how what a cost cutting measure it was that this wasnt done. He responded by saying that beginning on 1/1/04 this will become standard once some plant upgrades are complete. Its info like this you would never get out of a dealer.Now that this site has been endorsed by Ford hopefully we will see more participation from Ford themselves as there is a huge amount of available feedback available on this site for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeke zeke Member 792 Member For: 21y 7m 29d Location: Adelaide Posted 31/08/03 06:58 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 06:58 AM Klipsch speaker company in the US actually provides the user forum for their products and doesn't censor negative comments. They respond promptly to concerns and provide a lot of consumer info that is not available anywhere else. They also organise factory tours etc. On one of them, the participants were even entertained at the home of the company founder, who was in his mid 90's at the time! It all does an enormous amount to inspire brand loyalty for a product that tends to be bought by entusiasts.It would be great if Ford would take a leaf out of their book. eg how much would it cost to have a company rep participating in the website discussions, chasing up info, part numbers, concerns, queries and correcting any misinformation posted? Any new info could be posted at the same time as it's released to the press and stuff that's too trivial for the press to pick up on would still be of interest to many of the enthusiasts who access this site.A lot of the info that Ford releases to dealers seems to be ignored. Much of it is hardly top secret and it would be great if it was accessable to anyone who wanted to read it. EG, people in the know, like fordtech65 often post snippets of info suggesting that people mention them when talking to technicians. So the info gets to us in a round about sort of way - be nice to have it direct from the manufacturer, even if they only release the stuff they are happy to provide to the customer.Also, wouldn't it be great to have access to online parts lists? It's a pain to have to ask the dealer spare parts people to look up anything out of the ordinary. (thinking here of the bits involved in organising my rear seat armrest - simple questions like "is the basic rear seat frame common to all models ie the same part number" just gets blank looks) The customer could then just go in to the spare parts dept with a list of parts to order and it would save time and hassle. Again, none of the info is top secret. When I had a 1967 Jaguar, I had a complete parts list as well as a workshop manual. I suggest it would cost bugger all to implement some of these ideas and would reap enormous benefits in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty. After all, what works for Camry buyers will be different to what performance Ford owners want!Some day someone will wake up to this and really set themselves apart from the other car manufacturers. A bit of the old-fashioned personal approach, just using high tech to achieve it in today's world at minimal cost in the overall scheme of things.Yeah, I know I'm dreaming, but there's no law against that!Regardszeke(Must have too much time on my hands - or trying to avoid starting that work report) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEN 24T Gandalf the Grey, Maiar of Manwë and Varda, Team HgAg/Sneaky Member 7,371 Member For: 21y 7m 20d Gender: Male Location: The Shire, Middle Earth Posted 31/08/03 08:20 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 08:20 AM Zeke, all of what you describe above is implemented by my company ... not in the detail, but in the essence. We call it "Fabled Service" and the concept is quite simple ...Exceed the customers expectations and when the bar is raised, exceed it again! Trust me, it pays huge dividends ... it's a shame most service-related companies are too short-sighted to see prize. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XRSICKT Member 1,032 Member For: 21y 10m 4d Gender: Male Location: Sydney Posted 31/08/03 11:36 AM Share Posted 31/08/03 11:36 AM Following on from my letter to the president of Ford Aust, I have recieved a reply. Geoff Polites has sent me a letter on his presonal stationary, it took him only 6 days to reply.Q· Does anyone at Ford monitor the web. Sites such as www.fordforums.com and www.fordxr6turbo.com are great sources of information about public reaction to your service and products. At the moment product wise the public loves Ford but service wise there are a lot of disgruntled customers.A - GP tells me that not only do they monitor the sites but he personally contributes on occasions. Wonder what name he uses)Told you he'd reply,he usualy goes into forums as himself believe it or not, I've seen him around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TURBO4LT Member 1,533 Member For: 21y 6m 1d Gender: Male Location: NSW Posted 02/09/03 04:25 AM Share Posted 02/09/03 04:25 AM Hang in there its worth the wait , I only had 6 weeks to wait that was in Wollongong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now