Removing road blocks to customer care
Saul Frank knows when he’s being given the run-around with customer care. And he would never do the same to his customers.
“I’ve been in business a long time and it’s just not the way you treat people,” he says.
The director of popular Perth store Camera Electronic is appalled at the way Hyundai has handled an engine fault with his daughter’s first car.
Like the many other Hyundai owners who have asked Handle My Complaint to follow up major issues with their vehicles, Saul has been frustrated by Hyundai’s lack of customer care.
“The communication is shocking; it’s all up to the customer to do the chasing,” he says. “But because it’s a big corporate and not a small business like ours, they get away with it.”
The one bright light has been the response from Handle My Complaint. They are now handling his case.
“Handle My Complaint seems to be the only one that really advocates for the customer,” he says. “I spoke to Consumer Protection, and they said I had a case and they emailed me. But I just felt like Handle My Complaint was going to be stronger; they are more focused on the actual issue at hand.”
Car rattle the start of engine trouble
Saul bought a 2012 Hyundai i35 Highlander auto from a family member in October last year. With 95,000km on the odometer, the car had been regularly serviced and well-maintained.
"It was a good deal, so we decided to get it for my daughter, and my wife would use it while Emma was learning to drive,” he says.
Saul had the car checked by his mechanic and serviced at the time of purchase and there were no issues. In July, he took the car back to his mechanic after hearing an odd engine rattle. It cost $200 to open the engine to see if they could find the source of the noise.
“They said it had metal filings in the bottom of the engine. But the inside of the engine was perfectly clean and all other parts perfect,” he says. “They couldn’t explain what had happened.”
Saul then took it to another mechanic through his insurer, who confirmed the initial report.
“I was so stressed and didn’t know what to do and was checking the price of engines. It was anything from $4500 to $9500 to replace,” he says.
Handle My Complaint provides crucial information
Then his uncle called him; he’d just seen the A Current Affair’s segment about the Hyundai owners Handle My Complaint has been helping. Saul’s mechanic also texted him after seeing the show, in which Hyundai owners talked about their cars bursting into flames or suddenly losing power on busy roads. Some were cars that Hyundai had recalled a few years ago for that very issue or that had seen them subject to huge fines in the United States.
“He said ‘this all makes perfect sense, me and all the boys at the workshop couldn’t figure it out. But this is exactly your issue’,” Saul says.
“He told me they would probably deny it but to take it to a dealer and don’t take no for an answer.”
When Saul searched online for A Current Affair, the show’s website led him to Handle My Complaint. It was here he found crucial information – a link to the Federal Government website with a list of VIN numbers for Hyundai models that had been recalled. His was among them. Surely, they had to help now?
But there was no joy there, either. The local service centre looked up the VIN and said the car had already been done in November 2019. And as they couldn’t see the specifics of the government’s 2020 recall update, they couldn't help. He should go back to Hyundai.
More run-around by customer care
When Hyundai finally agreed he could get the local dealer to examine the car and send in a report, things were looking up. But a few weeks later, the dealer advised that Hyundai had rejected his claim but hadn’t provided any details. All Hyundai would tell him was that the car was too old, his case had gone to senior management, and it was denied.
Around this time, Saul decided to take the issue to Handle My Complaint. His initial skepticism about the consumer platform was allayed after he did more research and spoke to founder and CEO Jo Ucukalo. He could see her desire to help consumers was genuine.
A few days after Jo passed on Saul’s detailed report to Hyundai, he received an email from another person at Hyundai to say the manufacturer was looking into the case.
Saul rang Hyundai customer care towards the end of September to find out the status of his case. He was told someone would be in touch with him in four to six business days. Saul said that wasn’t good enough.
“He said ‘if you want an answer this second, then it’s denied’. I said ‘but you just told me it wasn’t denied’. And he said ‘well, yes, but if you’re insisting on an answer today, it’s denied’,” he recalls.
As a seasoned business operator, Saul can’t believe how badly the issue has been handled. There wasn’t even an offer to do anything about an engine problem that clearly wasn’t the customer’s fault.
Looking after customers makes good business sense
He describes a recent incident at Camera Electronic, where a customer brought in a scooter for repair but didn’t have proof of purchase. However, as he was able to tell them the person who had sold it to him, they were able to look up her date of purchase and agreed to the repair. Unfortunately, staff then accidentally contacted the original owner to advise her that the work was going to take some time and she could have a credit if she preferred. She took the credit.
“And then the customer came in asking ‘where’s my scooter’! I could have forced him to go through the lawyers over three or four grand, but it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do,” Saul says.
The father of three is adamant it also made good business sense to look after the customer, even if it costs Camera Electronic money in the short term.
“This scooter owner’s going to tell all his mates I did the right thing, and I found out he’s into motocross, and we’ve just started selling electric dirt bikes, so he might buy one of those as well,” he says.
“I’ve personally been serving the public for 25 years to the point that when something goes wrong, you’ve got to make the customer happy. That’s our philosophy.
"Whereas after this experience with Hyundai, why would I ever buy another Hyundai or tell anyone else to do the same. It’s crazy.”
Big companies should be held to same standards with customer care
Saul borrowed a car for his wife to get to work and teach their daughter to drive. But as the months dragged on with no resolution, he was finally forced to buy another car – needless to say, not a Hyundai.
“They’ve just washed their hands of any wrongdoing and don’t even tell me anything; it’s just not acceptable,” he says.
“And to think it’s a young girl’s first car; she works hairdressing and saved her money and we put in half. It’s not fair.”
Saul understands why customers get so frustrated that they give up on complaints. But, even without the fact that it was his daughter’s first car, he would still have kept pushing Hyundai.
“Because what they are doing is wrong,” he says. “We get held to account under Australian Consumer Law - they should too.”
He was impressed that Handle My Complaint got in touch with him so quickly to see what they could do. “Jo was on holiday and the phone kept dropping out, so she called me from another number and we had a long chat,” he says. “I am really happy with the process so far and hope we’ll get a fair result.”
So if you need help in dealing with a customer service runaround, lodge a complaint with us. We’re here to help you handle it.
