Here is an article about several motorists with roadside assistance plans who learned the hard way that stated, implied or presumed promises aren't always met. They all seem a little surprised. It got me wondering why they hadn't checked with real people in their community, online and otherwise, about these programs and about the best providers. Maybe, I thought, there is nothing in the blogosphere on this topic. Silly me.

I did an advanced query using Google Blog Search and found dozens of sources. Here's one, for example, called TrustMyMechanic, that advises motorists to consider skipping the coverage altogether, and explains why. Here's another, called sticker's blog, by a lover of Corvettes, who mentions the eight month lag time between car purchase and the arrival of the promised roadside assistance card. Probe a bit on the Internet and anyone can start to get a pretty good idea of the best providers of anything and why.

Short of that, most people who find themselves disappointed by services purchased but not delivered as anticipated will have to find solace the old fashioned way… listening to public relations people apologizing and sounding, in my opinion, as if they are hearing about the problem for the very first time. Take, for example, the response driver Siva Pillay got from Peugeot after his most disappointing incident:

Peugeot's public relations manager Lee Luck said it was "unacceptable" that Pillay had not been contacted until the next day. She said they had switched to a new contractor TRM 11 days before Pillay's experience.

"The previous company gave inaccurate figures on the numbers of call-outs, which meant that initially there were not enough people to respond to our customers a concern that has already been rectified," she said.

In other words, it was someone else's fault? Sorry about that, but it has been fixed now? I guess that's better than no response at all. But I think more and more people will start finding more and more credible online sources of information from independent third parties sick of hearing public relations excuses after the fact. Bonded by a mutual disdain for a lack of corporate transparency and other virtues, consumers will go onoline first to see more clearly.

Share This