OK, my car failed the smog check. I had an appointment for today at 8am with ATA Auto Repair (and the place where it failed said it should be repairable, as it failed because of a timing problem).

But, if you don't show up at the appointed time, you WILL lose customers.

I pull in at 7:55am (Five minutes til).

I call 15 minutes after 8:00am (no call back).

I call again after 30 minutes (no call back).

I call Truck Tech (another local Auto Repair diagnosis and repair shop), make an appointment for 8:00am Friday (someone picked up the phone there, yay!) and then pulled out of ATA Auto Repair for the first and last time (somewhere around 45 minutes, and still no call back over an hour later).

That does sound fair, right? Or should I have waited 1.5, 2, 3, 4 hours to drop off the keys somewhere? I'm not being mean, in my mind. In my mind that's very bad service. Anyway, I had to rant... I was hoping to get at least the diagnosis done today.

 

I'd agree with you on the appointment thing... If you set an appointment and showed up and no one was there (were they open even? did you walk in?) then that's there problem... If you miss an appointment at some medical offices they still charge you, if you don't show up people get pissed so I think it's only fair that if you did what you could, waited almost an hour and no one ever bothered to help you then apparently they are so busy that they don't need your business.... good for them, they are busy enough to throw away money.... I hate that... Now if you just sat in the parking lot and staired through the window at them and called then that's a different story *L*

 

Nope - they were supposed to open at 8am and had an appointment with me. I called because I thought maybe I parked on the wrong side of the Auto Shop (their signs are getting repainted so navigation was crap, too!). No one responded or picked up the phone, so I left a message saying "Hey, I need help, I think I'm in the back but I'm not sure!".

Finally gave up and called Truck Tech. I was hoping to get at least the diagnosis done, so I waited a long time in case whoever opens was stuck in traffic or whatever and was just late to come and open the shop. No luck.

Still no call so I'm glad I'm not still waiting over there. I guess it was legit enough to leave, two hours of waiting would have been ridiculous.

 

In some offices 15 minutes late on your part makes you liable for charges so I'd say waiting 45 minutes was more than enough... People are getting horrible about customer service... I've had some MAJOR issues with it in the last 6 months, people don't return calls....

 

They finally called back... I might call them to let them know why I chose business elsewhere, but honestly... Uhm, yeah.

They don't offer to be liable for charges after 15 minutes + tardiness, but it would have been nice