Rich Barak

Honda of Lincoln responded

Our intention is not to disrespect any of our customers. We are here to help and always glad to help you when you need. We have been here for you since 2019 and I believe my staff has provided you with exceptional service. Mistakes do happen and we are not above making a mistake. However, we do admit them and always try to make them better. What frustrates me is that since we have been working together since 2019, it would have been nice for us to visit in person and not through social media. Because of your feedback Dave and I, and my staff have talked about this and what could have been done differently to make you feel not disrespected and inconvenienced. As far as the keys left in the car, we do that multiple times per day as requested by our customers and they appreciate that we will deliver the car back to them. Dave did not tell you that you absolutely had to do that, it was just presented as an option to try and help and make it convenient for you. Our intention and the intention of Honda is to provide our customers with safe vehicles. We can't hold your vehicle, but Honda would like us to, if at all possible, in the best interest of your safety. Again, if that was not presented in that manner I apologize. We will always be here to help you if you need, however it appears by the tone of your second response all you want to do is place blame on us and tell us that you will be taking your services elsewhere. If you want to sit down and talk in person, I would be glad to visit with you. Take care and thank you for allowing us the opportunity, we have appreciated it. Jeff Williams Honda of Lincoln Service Manager

Mtran responded

Hi Jeff, As you can see, my son should have never been called anyway due to the fact that he had no reason to be included in the conversation between me and my service. But fine okay I’ll let that go. Thank you for acknowledging your mistake. Two, I understand that the shuttle may have left at 7:20 and you had a busy morning as I was told but it would have been nice to convey an estimate of what time you would have come so that we could have prepared as this inconvenience as I waited until 9am just to have been called that “you felt bad that you cannot come to pick me up” which resort me to have to contact my employer about being late to work again twice in the same week. In regard to the charge, it seems there was some miscommunication. I do have to apologize as I was already upset so when he asked for me to pay with my credit card over the phone (which honestly I found unsafe) I was confused as to what I was paying for exactly and what the rush was because I had not even received my car back. While an online portal is convenient as you know I was at work so access to a computer is not possible and as someone who is not tech savvy I would have preferred to pay him face to face. As I stated paying for something before even receiving my car keys back was not what I preferred. When you say you did not refuse to give me my vehicle back. You told me that you could not return the vehicle to me due to it being unsafe to drive. Please reinterpret what that means. As I believed it meant that you were refusing to return my car to me when I asked you I wanted my car returned. How could I have turned that conversation so that you would return my car, for future notes. I then intern was told you could drive me to work, unknowingly you did not know I worked in Omaha so you retracted your offer. Which fair Omaha is far. I do have another car which yes is convenient. But I can not drive two cars at once. I do need someone to drive me to and from my car. As I see it was never asked I guess you assumed that I could ask someone else to help me when you take my car away for two days at short notice. My review is 100% accurate in my recollection of the situation and how I interpreted it. As you can see there seems to be misunderstandings on both sides. In regards to always being polite, I would like to mention if that was the case there would not be this review. I understand you feel disrespected as I too felt very disrespected as a customer at your dealership. I tagged the service staff as I believe those were the ones who were attending to my car. And as this is a customer service complaint, I believed the service department is where a poor review should be directed. Thanks for calling me but I do work and unfortunately I cannot pick up my phone during working hours as I believe is normal I work until 6pm. Outside my working hours you are closed so I did not try to call you back. Again, I do see why you are upset about me marking your staff members. I received poor service, and I marked the service department as that’s what I believed was correct. It may not have been everyone who helped me at that time but for an employee at your dealership to disrespect me as a paying loyal customer I believe this is fair. I felt very disrespected, probably the same way you’re feeling right now. If you’re saying that this is all misguided then I would not have posted a review solely out of anger. As I had my time waisted as well as me having to explain to my employer why I contacted them twice this week last minute saying I would be late. Of all the disrespect I feel that I am on the larger scale. I had talked to many people I know before posting this review and many say that it is quite a ridiculous situation. As you can see it took a post to receive a response before you even acknowledged me as a customer. This is not to mention leaving out the most important part was leaving my car with the keys inside of them, on my drive way for hours not knowing when I would be home. Thank god no one was in the mood to steal cars that night. Again, Jeff, I see now that your department may not be at fault but I failed to understand who to blame as a member of your team does represent your whole team as a Honda employee. But on that note thank you for your response and solidifying the disrespect from your dealership. Again thank you for acknowledging a lost of a loyal customer as I will be taking my services elsewhere. Please have a fine day.

Mtran responded

If your intentions were not to disrespect me in anyway you wouldn’t have said my review was inaccurate right off the bat before even opting for discussion. Nor would you have asserted yourself by saying that I have disrespected your staff while I was so clearly voicing that I was being disrespected at your dealership. It may sound to you that I’m just blaming you after reading my review but I’m just letting people know what I experienced at your dealership which is what reviews are for. If there was an exceptionally good experience, I would have posted a positive review. But since this was an exceptionally bad experience here we are. I do believe that if a customer willingly took the time out of their day to write a lengthy review there must be some merit to it as I do not believe the service I was provided was acceptable for a happy customer. I am happy that you are acknowledging that there was a mistake and that you have reviewed it internally. I can only hope this does not ever happen to a customer ever again. I agree mistakes do happen everyone has their bad days, I am not immune to that as well since I just recently had a really bad day because of my car and still had to go to work and be friendly. Regardless, I don’t feel that because someone on your team had a bad day it would give them a right to disrespect a customer so blatantly but I digress. Thank you for clearly explaining that since my only option of getting my car back Friday because you did not have time to pick me up after waiting for you for 2 hours, was to return my car while leaving my keys in it. I do believe I had to request that option or else this whole scenario would have to been repeated Monday morning, where I might or might not be late for work again and you may have or may not have had time to pick me up. Which means I would not have had my car for 4 days instead of the 2. I myself did make the assumption that my keys would be placed in a hidden spot outside of my car and I would have been informed of the hidden spot. Seeing as I have a start button car, if the keys remained inside the car, the car would remain unlocked. On top of being able to drive off with the car. But again this was my assumption so I see this was my mistake when I agreed. I do want to say, you are making the assumption that this is my first bad experience. I can tell you this was not my first bad experience if it was there wouldn’t be a review, I had already had a few but they were not this bad. This was just the tipping point and the most exceptionally worst. As a customer since I bought my car from Honda I thought the best place to keep going to have it serviced would be the Honda dealership I bought the car from regardless of occasional bad experiences here and there which is why I have been a loyal paying customer for 4 years. I do hear you telling me you want to talk face to face and not through social media but as you can see based on our back and forth, you haven’t made me feel very comfortable or welcomed as a customer to come back for an open conversation about the mistakes that happened. Which is completely fine, I do not want to keep repeating my concerns. As you have made it seem like I am to blaming you for my bad experience, because my tone as a frustrated customer, I can only accept because it’s true. So yes, I do not have any interest in returning to your services for a discussion and I do hope this may implement some changes in the way you deal with customers. On a brighter note, as I do want to end this discussion. I do have to thank you as well for your services throughout my 4 years at Honda. I really appreciate the work you guys have done for my car so far so thank you. I hope you have a fine day.