Noteworthy Customer Service

Everyone loves great customer service, especially me. It's an integrity issue and it's one of my pet peeves.

I've had my Accord for more than a decade. Recently, the factory installed GPS nav system was on the fritz. Honda offered to repair my system for a couple thousand dollars, which is steep considering it's merely the GPS DVD that needed to be fixed.

Following a recommendation from a local business, I brought my car into La Jolla Audio. I'm happy to say that everything the rep, Gary, at the shop told me was wrong.

First, he told me it would cost $800 if he could repair it in the shop. But, if he had to send out the DVD it would cost closer to $1,000. After spending the day trouble shooting it, he told me that he'd have to send it out; but it would still only cost $800 because the repair prices had dropped.

Second, he told me that it typically takes at least two weeks to repair the DVD player. He was also wrong about that. Six days later, he called me back to say that he'd received the repaired DVD player and it was ready to be installed.

As soon as I hung up the phone I drove over to La Jolla Audio. He told me that it would take about an hour to install and program the repaired unit. It turns out that was wrong, too – it only took 45 minutes. Very refreshing.

I could have done the work myself for about $300, but it was worth it to have an expert do it. It might be easy to reason that his process was planned, but that wasn't the case.  He gave me his best estimates not based on the soonest the repairs could be made, but rather the average, with a couple possible delays thrown. That's the hallmark of excellent customer service.