nissanvirgin
Member
- Joined
- May 22, 2011
- Messages
- 9
Have been waiting for my Leaf and reading the Nissan apologists on this board, and finally had enough of both. Just want to say what I think should be obvious to anybody who has ever bought any large-ticket depreciable item before:
1. Not getting an item on time is not a no-cost matter to the customer. The customer has put off alternative purchases, maybe even sold an earlier car. In my case, I gave a car to relatives in March, and was counting on getting the Leaf in April, using Zipcar for the occasional need. I was okay with this for 1-2 months, but delivery date for my red Leaf is now July, so let's just be realistic and call it August, so I will have to manage car-less for 4 more months than intended. This is something the apologists choose to ignore.
2. Time is money because car values depreciate. I like to either buy at the beginning of the model year or get a big discount at the end of the model year. We all know a Jan Leaf and an Aug Leaf have the same resale value, but the Jan Leaf gives you 7 more months of utility, so the Jan Leaf is worth more. With the Leaf I will be paying MSRP in August. By August when I get my Leaf, other manufacturers will already be rolling out 2012 models. Heck the 2012 Leaf might be out in just 1-2 more months. That's why we all reserved at the first chance. We wanted a 2011 Leaf, and we wanted most of 2011 to use it. This is something the apologists choose to ignore.
3. Time is even more money in this case because of the $5000 CA tax credit expiring. This wouldn't be an issue if Nissan would just fill their orders in order, but they haven't been doing so. In my case I will lose out because the RAQ never came and by the time I realized it wasn't coming I had gone from maybe the top fourth of orders to the last fourth, because the vast majority of us had reserved around the same time and had gotten RAQ emails around the same time. Others might miss out on the $5000 credit by fewer than the number of people who reserved in late Jan-early Feb but got their cars already. For people who miss out on a tax credit due to Nissan's mistakes, Nissan should do something to compensate.
4. Some of us are locked in to the Leaf. Some of us have paid thousands to install chargers which may not work with other EVs, so the advice of apologists to just go elsewhere is not useful advice.
5. Nissan was screwing up even before the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami. They never sent me my RAQ email. They lied to me that that wouldn't have an effect on my delivery date (it sure did). They lied to others about orders being placed out of line. One can imagine that CS may say things to appease the customers, but the situation was as it was only because HQ hired nincompoops to manage the order flow on the most important car launch in the company's history, and because HQ didn't choose to issue clear directions to CS once the problems became known. That HQ doesn't own up to their problems is bad enough. That they allow their employees, either implicitly or explicitly, to use the earthquake and tsunami to cover up their preexisting mistakes is truly reprehensible.
I do not like to be a complainer. I like to be a problem-solver. So I will suggest how Nissan could have addressed, and maybe could still address, the problem at the customer relations level. If you say you are going to deliver by a certain time, and don't, you owe your customer at least an explanation and a big apology. You might consider discounts to those who have been skipped over to make up for the loss of the CA car credit. You might consider cheap rental cars for those spending unexpected time without cars, even if your reservation agreement never promised specific dates. You might want to tell people when the 2012s will come out so they know whether to just skip 2011 and go to 2012. You might want to actually lower the price of late deliveries by a small amount as a token of apology. If you think your customer has no other choices and therefore don't want to assist them monetarily, that's your prerogative. You may be right that the customer will continue to wait, but you can be sure they will remember how they were treated and will be much more reluctant to buy anything else from you.
Somebody elsewhere said this demonstrates that Nissan's management is second-rate. I wholeheartedly agree. First-rate management would do something to placate its first customers for a high-profile launch product. Nissan management has done nothing, although by now it should know how much dissatisfaction there is among the reservation holders. (If it doesn't then it would be unbelievably incompetent as well.) It should want the early adopters, who will be visible to family, friends, co-workers, and media, to be enthusiastic ambassadors for the car. It should not want these people to reply to the question of "should I buy one" by saying, "consider any other EV first because I do not trust Nissan to get your order right, or fix problems quickly, or to not have overpromised on the warranty." Especially considering that by the time we get our cars and are asked this question, the Mitsubishi i and the Ford Focus EVs will be available for ordering.
1. Not getting an item on time is not a no-cost matter to the customer. The customer has put off alternative purchases, maybe even sold an earlier car. In my case, I gave a car to relatives in March, and was counting on getting the Leaf in April, using Zipcar for the occasional need. I was okay with this for 1-2 months, but delivery date for my red Leaf is now July, so let's just be realistic and call it August, so I will have to manage car-less for 4 more months than intended. This is something the apologists choose to ignore.
2. Time is money because car values depreciate. I like to either buy at the beginning of the model year or get a big discount at the end of the model year. We all know a Jan Leaf and an Aug Leaf have the same resale value, but the Jan Leaf gives you 7 more months of utility, so the Jan Leaf is worth more. With the Leaf I will be paying MSRP in August. By August when I get my Leaf, other manufacturers will already be rolling out 2012 models. Heck the 2012 Leaf might be out in just 1-2 more months. That's why we all reserved at the first chance. We wanted a 2011 Leaf, and we wanted most of 2011 to use it. This is something the apologists choose to ignore.
3. Time is even more money in this case because of the $5000 CA tax credit expiring. This wouldn't be an issue if Nissan would just fill their orders in order, but they haven't been doing so. In my case I will lose out because the RAQ never came and by the time I realized it wasn't coming I had gone from maybe the top fourth of orders to the last fourth, because the vast majority of us had reserved around the same time and had gotten RAQ emails around the same time. Others might miss out on the $5000 credit by fewer than the number of people who reserved in late Jan-early Feb but got their cars already. For people who miss out on a tax credit due to Nissan's mistakes, Nissan should do something to compensate.
4. Some of us are locked in to the Leaf. Some of us have paid thousands to install chargers which may not work with other EVs, so the advice of apologists to just go elsewhere is not useful advice.
5. Nissan was screwing up even before the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami. They never sent me my RAQ email. They lied to me that that wouldn't have an effect on my delivery date (it sure did). They lied to others about orders being placed out of line. One can imagine that CS may say things to appease the customers, but the situation was as it was only because HQ hired nincompoops to manage the order flow on the most important car launch in the company's history, and because HQ didn't choose to issue clear directions to CS once the problems became known. That HQ doesn't own up to their problems is bad enough. That they allow their employees, either implicitly or explicitly, to use the earthquake and tsunami to cover up their preexisting mistakes is truly reprehensible.
I do not like to be a complainer. I like to be a problem-solver. So I will suggest how Nissan could have addressed, and maybe could still address, the problem at the customer relations level. If you say you are going to deliver by a certain time, and don't, you owe your customer at least an explanation and a big apology. You might consider discounts to those who have been skipped over to make up for the loss of the CA car credit. You might consider cheap rental cars for those spending unexpected time without cars, even if your reservation agreement never promised specific dates. You might want to tell people when the 2012s will come out so they know whether to just skip 2011 and go to 2012. You might want to actually lower the price of late deliveries by a small amount as a token of apology. If you think your customer has no other choices and therefore don't want to assist them monetarily, that's your prerogative. You may be right that the customer will continue to wait, but you can be sure they will remember how they were treated and will be much more reluctant to buy anything else from you.
Somebody elsewhere said this demonstrates that Nissan's management is second-rate. I wholeheartedly agree. First-rate management would do something to placate its first customers for a high-profile launch product. Nissan management has done nothing, although by now it should know how much dissatisfaction there is among the reservation holders. (If it doesn't then it would be unbelievably incompetent as well.) It should want the early adopters, who will be visible to family, friends, co-workers, and media, to be enthusiastic ambassadors for the car. It should not want these people to reply to the question of "should I buy one" by saying, "consider any other EV first because I do not trust Nissan to get your order right, or fix problems quickly, or to not have overpromised on the warranty." Especially considering that by the time we get our cars and are asked this question, the Mitsubishi i and the Ford Focus EVs will be available for ordering.
The irony is that if you go into that line the people in the long lines go faster and those in the long lines are still in the same order
