Delivery service or drop off?

If Tesla is delivering cars to new owners without providing a proper orientation to the operation of the vehicle, that is a very poor customer experience.

Personally, I think people are expecting too much. Since when a delivery service will spend one hour to go over the item that is being delivered? They are just drivers who drive big Lorries across hundreds of miles to deliver several cars a day, it is pretty understandable that they don't have the time or the knowledge to educate each customer. And by the way, usually it is the customer who need to go to the dealer or SC to pick something like a new car up and it is their responsibility to learn about how to drive it away. And yet tesla offers door to door delivery, and still people complain about 'bad experience'?

Plus there is YouTube and there is the car manual.

It's hard to image that people who order the car haven't spent hours watching the Tesla website videos to learn everything about how it operates while they're waiting for it. I guess this means it really has gone mainstream.

I agree this isn't a great experience from what has been described, however, I also think as consumers, we each make our own decisions, and sometimes have to live with the good and bad of what we ask for. Most great companies have their preferred ways of providing service to their clients; Some will go out of their way when they can to accommodate a specific customer request (like perhaps shipping a car to a remote customer?) -- but at least for me, unless the company specifically told me my experience would still be the same, I wouldn't expect it may be, nor would I expect additional hand-holding because of my special request.
Be that as it may, as has been suggested, hopefully your friends are OK with YouTube, reading the manual, and maybe your kind assistance, to help with the orientation they missed. Their My Tesla Site has several orientation videos that may help as well, but last time I watched them, they were becoming dated not matching the latest software updates we've received. Good luck to your friends with their new MS, and I hope their long-term ownership is a lot better than the rocky start they've begun with.

Mine was dropped off by a tow truck company. Great service and I never expected him to know anything about the car. In my case, it was a scheduling issue. I had originally planned on a factory pick up. But I knew pretty much everything about the car. So it was not an issue for me.

It's sad to see how out of fashion it has become to read the fine manual. I've owned three cars and the first thing I did with each was read the manual front to back. These aren't toasters, they're complicated machines. You want to find out how to use them, not just guess and pray.

I live 230+miles from nearest SC and was given option of pickup at the SC with orientation or garage delivery with no orientation. That was March, 2015. I opted for the former.

dhrivnak said:

The average person is not an early adopter techy like most of us are. They read the glowing reviews and want the latest cool car. Since a service center is 250 miles away and a showroom is 300 miles away that is not a good option for us.

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Given Tesla's current policy, Tesla should actually warn people who are 250 miles away from the nearest Service Center to NOT BUY THE CAR AT ALL.

Right now they're generating a larger and larger base of future angry customers, who will be furious when they get $750 or larger "transportation" bills for warranty issues.

Yes this does translate to an initial poor customer experience from a company that says they give superior service.

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Followed by an even worse experience when they discover that they're being charged through the nose to get service.

Tesla is currently creating a very poor situation for customers who live large distances from the Service Centers, but they keep right on selling cars into that market, heedless of the damage they're doing to themselves.

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mikeash said:

It's sad to see how out of fashion it has become to read the fine manual. I've owned three cars and the first thing I did with each was read the manual front to back. These aren't toasters, they're complicated machines. You want to find out how to use them, not just guess and pray.

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Tesla has a quite incomplete manual, just so you know.

neroden said:

Given Tesla's current policy, Tesla should actually warn people who are 250 miles away from the nearest Service Center to NOT BUY THE CAR AT ALL.

Right now they're generating a larger and larger base of future angry customers, who will be furious when they get $750 or larger "transportation" bills for warranty issues.

Followed by an even worse experience when they discover that they're being charged through the nose to get service.

Tesla is currently creating a very poor situation for customers who live large distances from the Service Centers, but they keep right on selling cars into that market, heedless of the damage they're doing to themselves.

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Tesla has a quite incomplete manual, just so you know.

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Not trying to be argumentative here, but personally, I believe this is America, and if a customer wants to buy something, they can. As I attempted to say earlier, a company can set up their preferred method of doing something like delivering a car in a nice environment and be willing to spend the one-on-one time it takes to initially familiarize the new customer with their purchase, but if a customer asks to override that for some reason, it is the customer's decision. We do not know the precise conversations or communication that took place by the OP's friends and Tesla over the course of time, so at least I won't speculate too far in that regard. As an example though, I purchased my first Acura and then Lexus back in the day when there were very few dealerships anywhere in the US from those new companies, and I wanted to understand before I purchased, how sales and service would operate -- especially if I was not near a dealership in the middle of nowhere and my car failed. I did not, and do not today, consider it to have been their responsibility to warn or talk me out of a purchase I wanted to make. I doubt most people would, but we're all welcome to our opinions.

I agree the MS manual is minimal and could be a lot more thorough -- it's not too great -- but for those that choose to read it like I did 3 times before taking delivery, the manual does answer the basics needed to orient one to the features of the vehicle, how to start it, how to stop it, how to charge it, and what to do in an emergency. Now, does the present manual have as much detail that enthusiasts like many here on TMC would prefer? Probably not, but then again, if we get back to the original post that started this thread, it appears the OP's surgeon friends aren't like many of us here on TMC, and elected to purchase a new MS they chose to never even test drive, then have it remotely delivered (which they would have had to specifically request, as that wasn't an online option when I ordered my MS in September), and these same owner's then didn't know how to turn on the vehicle that was dropped-off at their request because they didn't read the documentation that had been provided several weeks in advance via My Tesla and also delivered with their vehicle. I'll say it again: IMHO a company such as Tesla can only go so far when a customer asks to do something out of the norm. A company cannot always protect a customer from themselves. Isn't the saying, "the customer is always right?"

Drop off

dhrivnak said:

Two people in our area received a new Model S and in both cases a kid dropped off the car handed over the FOB and begged off any questions claiming not to know anything about the car. Is this common as both buyers had no EV experience and one had great difficulty getting his car started? I thought the drop off included up to an hour to go over the car and answer any questions. I am hoping we have a bad apple here and delivery has not degraded to a drop off service. EV'S are a little different and most people need a little guidance to get off on the ground on the right foot.

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We live hours from a SC. When I had my Roadster delivered in 2011, it was by a company that shipped many high end cars to the east coast. The guy had just dropped an Astin Martin in NYC and then headed up to VT to drop off my car. He didn't know anything except now to drive it. I am pretty sure it was different for the Model S Signature. Tesla personally delivered that one from a flatbed tow truck type vehicle, and the guy offered to answer questions and go over stuff, but it isn't like there was a lot to learn. I guess with auto-pilot, things are a little more complicated, but I have always felt I wanted to read my car owner's manual cover to cover when I got a new car anyway...

DJ

mikeash said:

It's sad to see how out of fashion it has become to read the fine manual. I've owned three cars and the first thing I did with each was read the manual front to back. These aren't toasters, they're complicated machines. You want to find out how to use them, not just guess and pray.

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+1 on this. I do realize that not everyone wants to spend the time to read a cars user manual. And in all fairness, I probably only thumbed through the manuals in my past ICE cars. However, the Tesla is a fairly rare and very special(ized) vehicle with some extremely unique attributes to it. I would argue that one needs to do their homework before buying a car like this. It's a fantastically simple car to drive, but with some very unique qualities and nuances that need to be understood (when coming from the ICE world).

I probably read the manual cover to cover several times before delivery and once again after delivery. And then again when the v7.0 manual was released. The good news is that the Tesla manual is on orders of magnitude shorter than all of the previous manuals for my ICE cars! But it also answers pretty much any question out there about the car. I'm surprised to see as many basic questions posted about the car on this forum when the answers are right there. And if you don't want to read the manual, fine, but there are tons of resources and overviews on the car including the videos which Tesla has on their website.

This is NOT a knock against OP, for the record, just my slightly off-topic opinion agreeing with some of the comments here...

neroden said:

Tesla has a quite incomplete manual, just so you know.

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How so? I don't recall thinking anything was missing, although it's possible it just didn't occur to me.

In any case, even if it's incomplete, it definitely tells you how to start the car!

I went to the service center for my test drive prior to ordering. I pointed out several features that the SC rep was unaware of. I elected to have mine delivered to my home just so I did NOT have to listen to someone who knew less than I did about the car waste an hour of my time. The flatbed driver was VERY professional. He put on rubber gloves and booties before he got in my car to pull it off of the flatbed.

BertL said:

As I attempted to say earlier, a company can set up their preferred method of doing something like delivering a car in a nice environment and be willing to spend the one-on-one time it takes to initially familiarize the new customer with their purchase, but if a customer asks to override that for some reason, it is the customer's decision.

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I'll say it again: IMHO a company such as Tesla can only go so far when a customer asks to do something out of the norm.

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I agree that customers should know at least the basics about the car before taking delivery. But I did want to point out that the customer in the OP's example lived such a great distance from a service center that delivery by truck was very likely to have been the default delivery method, rather than something that was an "override" option, or something "outside the norm."

dhrivnak said:

The average person is not an early adopter techy like most of us are. They read the glowing reviews and want the latest cool car. Since a service center is 250 miles away and a showroom is 300 miles away that is not a good option for us. Yes this does translate to an initial poor customer experience from a company that says they give superior service.

I heard this from a cardiologist friend where one of his partners ordered one and had it delivered. He said the FOB was given to his partner and the delivery guy drove off. It took 2 phone calls and 20 minutes to discover you HAD to have the foot on the brake and then jut put it in gear. So my fried asked what kind of company delivers a $100,000 with no orientation. Even Chevy does MUCH better than that.

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I find this hard to believe. For years now, automatic transmission ICEs have required the driver to put the foot on the brake to put it in gear.

I just had my car delivered this past Friday and the experience was fantastic. Tesla used a third-party delivery service and although he wasn't a Tesla employee, he might as well have been. The car arrived from Columbus to MI in a covered 1 car trailer right to my house. He pulled it out of the trailer and right into my garage for me, and then spent an hour going over every single feature of the car, inside and out. He programmed my garage door for me, set up my driver profile, and even walked me through the iPhone app. My DS even gave me a care package with the car that included a ton of stuff like a coffee mug, scarf, umbrella, pen, pin, and key fob covers. Absolute 10/10 experience!

I live about 100 miles from the Cincinatti service center so I opted for home delivery. I had read the manual several times and felt that I understood the basics. The delivery driver did have a basic knowledge of the operations of the car. We do have a Tesla store here in Indy and one of the sales associates spent an hour with me going over the car in detail a few days after I took delivery. Overall my delivery experience was good.