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[Cortezdtv]

Ted speaks wisely of the need for skilled Technical Support.
He's also spot on with his comment about start up companies not putting enough emphasis in developing and staffing a competent support division.
For whatever (odd) reason management decisions seem to be made that put more resources into R&D and fewer resources into actually supporting the customers who are confronted with issues. Somewhat understandable for a startup but, IMO, still flawed logic.
Customer Satisfaction is everything. If product issues aren't addressed quickly and decisively you get irate customers. And in this day and age of fast internet communication the word gets out.

Coming from 25+ years of technical support (telecom and IT/Cisco systems) I know well that keeping the customers happy, the product working and providing feedback back to engineering on the issues is a very critical role for any/every company.

The most difficult functions of CS are learning tact to handle displeased customers, knowing the product enough to quickly troubleshoot the problem and providing constant feedback to the customers (and engineering) about the status of the issues.
Communication really is key. I've handled many problems that took a long time to isolate and resolve. For the most part everyone stayed calm as long as regular status updates were provided.

Being a stockholder in Zero I truly do hope they work diligently on improving their Customer Support Team. I believe this will only happen if more resources are provided to grow the CS Team in both technical expertise as well as head count.

Wow!!!

I have this feeling I have met you before on one of my numerous trips to zero

Pm me your name?



I couldn't agree with what you said more! Having watched so many local people, friends; friends of friends work at zero and say similar things.....
It all leads back to one thing

The main investors aren't bike people
Aren't even ev people

They are a headge fund that's especially good at getting investors money, not necessarily creating a high level of return!!! Look at everything invus owns, none of which are real profitable, they just trudge along..... So does zero



To compare them to a real company look at Ducati owned by vw.  They see their objective and go for it, they have customer service and a system for it, all coming from the very top.... Invus lolly gags around.  So do ALL of their company's. To me it's a shame because they have no real driving force behind the company!

[Cortezdtv]

Ducati factory.  Yes much bigger.... But per person more people that work at Ducati own one and ride it to work....   They have policies for giving used and demo bikes to their best employees, not sell them to the public....

For instance

Ducati parking lot. Tons of bikes





Zero parking lot.... Not a single bike..... Embarrassing




Yes not super accurate but if you go to Ducati monday there is going to be 20+ bikes easily of people who rode there.... At zero there will be less than 5... I'm sure 2 will be the cs bikes sitting outside the cs entrance like they always do, like a display at a dealership, but they only sell bikes there... No service at the factory.....

[CrashCash]

So as of a couple weeks ago, they were replacing a wiring harness. I went in today and discovered it's the ENTIRE wiring harness. The tech's spent a couple days so far pulling the old one out. I saw the new one laying on a table.

But before that, Zero called back and said "don't replace the wiring harness, replace this electrical module" which they had to wait for, and then that didn't work, so they're going ahead with the new harness.

And sure, Ducati can afford to give their employees nearly free used bikes. They've got enough bucks to pour down the drain on their MotoGP bike that was killing rider careers until a couple weeks ago when it finally started winning races again. Plus Ducati has the advantage of ICE where you can listen to it and go, "oh bad plug" or "the timing is off" - you flip the switch on an EV and it just doesn't go. That's the only symptom, and like a dead PC, it could be **anything**

Zero is still the student in college scraping the $3 for a McDonald's burger so he can eat today, where Ducati was 75 years ago. I'm hoping in a year or two as sales increase they can afford more tech staff.

Their salesforce portal is mostly a tool for ordering parts, filing service tickets, and a repository for PDFs like "how to install [$FOO]" but nothing approaching a coherent service manual or troubleshooting guide.

While I was in there, I showed the service manager a couple tricks for getting around in the app that he didn't know.

Oh and the service manager said "you know, he's got to be careful replacing that harness, there is still power in that battery" and I said, "yeah LOTS AND LOTS, look at the thumb size cables going to the sevcon there..."

"the sev---what?"

"er, that's the motor controller, made by sevcon"

"sevcon?"

So I told him who Sevcon are, and what other stuff uses them. Sigh.

I pointed out the charger sitting under the frame. He didn't know that either. Double sigh.

[CrashCash]

Whelp! Dat wuz it! The tech replaced the wiring harness (about 6 days faster than I would have done) and it's back in the air.

The tech spent 22 hours working on it, all told, and it was 80 days in the shop. The last time I rode it according to my logs was Feb 22nd, so it has been exactly 3 months.

I rode the hell out of it and put it on the charger, and it charges too. Of course the final ride home was in a pretty good rain, 'cuz FLORIDA SUNSHINE, doncha ya know.

It isn't entirely silent any more, all the way home you could hear "IT WORKS, IT WORKS" noises.

[firepower]

hope they extend your warranty by 3 months. Or did you have loaner bike?.

[CrashCash]

No, unfortunately all the bikes they could have loaned me had been crashed on test drives. I just rode my FJR.

I did worry when I first saw the line of dead Zeros before I knew that. Now I see why they don't normally do test drives. Damn. What the hell do these people do? Re-enact "Fast & Furious" apparently.

I rode it from SE Orlando to Sanford and back doing 65 on the expressway and I still had 13% so the new power tank is definitely working. I took the opportunity to figure out how to hook up the Elcons I bought 3 months ago from Hollywood Electrics. At first it looked like the siderack bracket blocked the connector, but it actually helps you blind-navigate in once you're familiar with things.

I rode at 65 for an hour and the motor was just warm to the touch. That's serious efficiency.

[CrashCash]

Oh and FYI, it cost $3800 to fix. that was $1800 in parts and $2000 in labor. Under warranty of course, but that 22hrs of labor was a chunk of change.

[Erasmo]

I did worry when I first saw the line of dead Zeros before I knew that. Now I see why they don't normally do test drives. Damn. What the hell do these people do? Re-enact "Fast & Furious" apparently.

Underestimate the instatorque, ''Oh a sport mode, lets see what will happen when I throttle fully''