No Keys, No Execution, No Customer

Here’s Some Cold, Hard Facts of Promises Not Delivered On.

Services paid for and no benefit. We have had experiences like this, haven’t we? We pay for something and it doesn’t show up, work, or deliver, nearly as expected.

Case in point. This happened two nights ago in my town:

Temperatures dropping well below freezing and at least 4 inches of newly fallen snow blanketing the existing 4 or 5, an older woman mistakenly locks her car keys in her place of employment. She is the supervisor for the evening, and the last one out of the door as she sets the alarm for the building and scurries out into the brittle weather. Moments after closing the door, she comes to the realization she has no car keys. The unthinkable! “I have locked them in the store! My spare store key is in the car! My car keys are locked in the store!”

After the initial panic and shock wear off, she begins to think clearly and calm down. She outlines the resources available to her.

She has her cell phone still. This will be no big deal.

She is subscribed to OnStar. She enrolled in the service when she had purchased the vehicle earlier this year.

OnStar can unlock the car for her. Maybe even start it and warm it up while she is waiting.

She makes her emergency call. The one she has paid in advance for:

“We are not getting any signal from your vehicle, we will have to try again in 10 minutes. There are no towers in your area sending the signal”. Huh? She is on a major intersection with her store parallel to the highway. She stares into the cold in disbelief. Her cell phone works, doesn’t it? She will have to freeze a little while longer. After ten minutes or more, her cell phone rings. “We have tried to unlock your vehicle, it failed on the first attempt. We will have to wait another ten minutes.” The lady, quite perturbed at this point stutters “Are you kidding me? What do you mean it failed?” Another ten minutes later, her phone rings again, and the OnStar representative reports once again that the attempt failed, and they would have to dispatch a wrecker with someone who can unlock the door.

After waiting three hours until the end of this nightmare, she was finally home. The person dispatched was unable to unlock the vehicle and it ended up being towed. The Auto Safety and Security Service had failed in the execution of its promised services.

OnStar was cancelled the next day.