We all hear a lot of stories about less than stellar Audi dealership experiences and I have even had a few myself, but this situation was quite the opposite. I was driving from Lexington, Kentucky to Plymouth, Michigan last week and found myself 300 miles from home driving towards a set of dark looking clouds in the sky with only one hour left to make it to my best friends wedding rehearsal…a wedding that I would be best man in. While driving, my driver’s side window became stuck in the down position and began making a very awful grinding noise when asked to move up or down. I began to panic a bit. I knew rain was forecasted and I also knew there was no option but to drive on and then park this car in the open parking lot of the church the wedding rehearsal would be held at.
While driving, I contacted Aimee at Audi of America who put me into contact with an Audi dealership in Birmingham Michigan, Fred Lavery Audi. I spoke with an Audi technician named Ketan and explained to him my situation. He quickly put me in contact with the service manager Rick Holder who had but one thing to say to me, "... we are going to do everything we can to help you. Just let us know the exact address of the wedding rehearsal and I’ll have some one there to meet you with a car even if it is my own car.” Keep in mind that it is already five o’clock in the evening and I’m sure the service crew would like to go home. I also came to find out that this dealership was a full forty five minutes from the place the wedding rehearsal was to be held. This did not seem to bother them and at six o’clock, a tremendously helpful technician named Ketan arrived at the rehearsal and handed me the keys to his personal SUV and told me he’d be calling me later that night even if it took them until midnight to get me back on the road.
True to their word, at around ten o’clock at night I received word that my window regulator needed replacement and although the part was not available within the region they had secured my window in the safe and up position and would show me how to keep it that way for the duration of my trip. The advised me that one of the window cables was wrapped around the regulator so if I had tried to push the window up on my own with any more force it only would have broken it more. They actually apologized for not being able to locate the window regulator. All I could think was to thank them. At ten thirty at night, Ketan once again had made the forty five minute drive to my new location in Detroit and returned my car to me with a well secured window safe to make the rest of my trip. What makes this story even more touching is that once I returned home and spoke with my dealership in Kentucky who quickly stated they would be ordering the part overnight air, they also advised me that the dealership in Michigan was unable to even be compensated for their hard work because they had not been able to locate the part to replace on my car and therefore could not open a warranty repair for my car.
My sincerest gratitude to the service personnel at Fred Lavery Audi in Birmingham, Michigan. My only concern with remaining a customer of the Audi name has been in the uncertain customer service sometimes encountered. This fine dealership helped to alleviate that as has the service of the new dealership that was recently erected in Lexington, Kentucky. My message to Audi of America as to the question of whether training your dealerships to be more customer oriented pays off is the following: This week I placed an order for a new 2006 Audi to replace my 2003 one. Please continue this new tradition in service excellence.
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