7 weeks and counting now.
My dealer checks the shipping log every day and there is still no indication of a delivery date for my replacement rear wheel.
I spoke to Streetbike, our main UK dealer. I bought my bike from them and have nothing but great things to say about their attitude and customer service. In fact, I'll be very surprised if I ever come across a better dealership. However, they too report serious difficulties getting parts from Zero with little or no information available to them.
Somehow it seems that Zero themselves don't know if they've shipped a part!
As usual, Streetbike went above and beyond all of my expectations. I was asked to drop them a line detailing the issues I've had. That was then sent onto Zero's European HQ and we received this reply:
We from team Holland want to sincerely apologize for this parts problem. We feel as frustrated as you and your customers but unfortunately there is nothing more that we can do from our end in Europe.
As long as the parts are just not shipped from the US, they cannot be forwarded by 3pl.
Our after sales guys keep on hammering the importance of getting parts in and for now we can only hope that things will improve.
We would take a plane to SV to get the parts if that would help, but all we can say to you and many other dealers is: SORRY (and I know this is not the answer you want to hear nor the answer that we want to give).
***********
I don't know what to make of this sentence:
"As long as the parts are just not shipped from the US, they cannot be forwarded by 3pl."
At first I wondered if parts where not necessarily coming from the US. However, I think the "just" simply means that the bottleneck is at Scott's Valley. The parts just aren't leaving the factory.
So what does that mean?
1. They have such a backlog that whoever is responsible for shipping parts is taking weeks to get round to new orders?
2. They don't have a spare wheel in stock?
3. They are using a method of shipping that takes many weeks in order to save money?
4. They are deliberately understaffing their customer service department to save money?
One example I was given was that it took four weeks to ship a BMS board. Despite repeated attempts, nobody could find out how long it would take for the item to arrive. The customer was kept in the dark. I presume a BMS board is simply a circuit board. I would expect it is significantly smaller than a PC motherboard. Apparently these things cost 900 GBP! I'm sure I could order a $100 motherboard from the USA and have it arrive within a few days at a reasonable cost. Don't tell me Zero don't stock spare BMS boards... please(?)
So the only conclusion I can make from all off this is that Zero's Customer Service department is utterly incompetent. Not only that, but senior management have allowed this incompetence to continue for years, as far as I can tell. I'm sure there are lots of excuses, but we don't want to hear them.
Zero need to get their act together and very quickly. I think it probably needs new management and new staff. The current incumbents have been getting it wrong for longer than is acceptable. Something as important as this should work well from the outset.
After all this, I wish I kept my Honda NC750 SD. Or even the VFR 1200FD and its sky high running costs. But then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of riding my Zero. I hope, by some magic, that my bike is back on the road soon.
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Topic: Zero Customer Service (Read 11112 times)