CRM Joke

Share the knowledge

CRM. Customer Relationship Management. Case study on lighter side: IT Humor / joke. But with serious lesson to learn.

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

“Every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, car won't start”. After sales service is provided by the service division, which uses ERP to track complains.

Email was received by the service division: “I have purchased your car. When I go to office it works fine. But, when I go to buy vanilla ice-cream the car does not start”. This was entered in the 'helpdesk' module in the enterprise software.

Obviously such complain was ignored by the service engineer. However, the helpdesk software used for tracking, automatically escalated to the president. Who read the complete email as follows: “I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start”. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds”.

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about this crazy complain, but sent an engineer. to check it out anyway. The field engineer went with laptop and diagnostic software, etc., who was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start. The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor. Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "vapor lock". It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Moral of the story: Never underestimate Clients' Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem! This is a real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive.

DNS ERP Help-Desk module, takes care of each ‘instance’ received from customer. http://www.dnserp.com/helpdesk1.htm

Related links

Social Media Blog

Blogger

ERP Blog

WordPress

Digital Nervous System - DNS - IT enabled business management solutions

Find DNS on

Follow @followERP

Click to connect to Prof. Jyoti Zaveri on LinkedIn Facebook Google+