Genuinely one of the worst customer…
Genuinely one of the worst customer service experiences I've had.
For transparency, our business payment was 12 days overdue. We accepted this and were happy to pay Vrooma's daily late fees. The issue was that our two directors who control payments were unexpectedly unavailable, one had been in Africa for three weeks dealing with a family matter and the other was on paternity leave. I explained all of this.
On Tuesday, Vrooma gave me until 4pm THAT DAY to pay. I explained I couldn't guarantee reaching either director by then and simply asked them to extend it THREE DAYS until Friday so I could resolve everything.
No response whatsoever.
Just over 24 hours later, at around 11pm, two Vrooma representatives arrived where I live with a spare key and took the car without a phone call, message or even knocking to tell me.
I didn't even know it had gone until their repossession email arrived. I checked the vehicle app and it was already miles away.
I found that an incredibly cowardly way of handling it. If they'd simply replied, "Sorry, we can't extend until Friday," I would have arranged the return and removed our belongings.
Instead, they drove away with everything still inside, including our children's school belongings and car seats.
Instead, they drove away with everything still inside, including our children's school belongings and car seats.
We live on the Isle of Wight, and the only reason I managed to retrieve our possessions that night was because I could still track the vehicle through the app. I saw that the car had stopped at the ferry terminal before leaving the Island, so I immediately travelled there myself and managed to catch up with them.
Vrooma did not tell me they were waiting at the ferry terminal, they did not arrange to meet me there, and the two representatives had absolutely no idea I was coming to collect our belongings. Had I not been able to track the car myself and catch them before the ferry, our children's car seats, school belongings and everything else would simply have left the Island with the vehicle.
That alone says a great deal about how poorly the whole situation was handled.
I must specifically praise Luke from the team. He was excellent, calm, polite, professional and genuinely willing to listen and explain the situation. A real credit to the business.
Unfortunately, my experience with Paul was the complete opposite. I found him argumentative, confrontational and seemingly determined to escalate matters while Luke was successfully having a perfectly sensible conversation with me. At one point, Paul was even getting in Luke's face telling him to get into the car, resulting in Luke saying words to the effect of, "Dad, stop, let me talk."
That interaction probably tells you everything you need to know.
It was quite remarkable watching the considerably younger of the two demonstrate substantially more maturity, restraint and professionalism. Luke clearly understood that being professional doesn't mean agreeing with the customer, it means being capable of having a calm, adult conversation when there is a disagreement.
Perhaps rather than Paul trying to tell Luke how to handle these situations, he might benefit from watching how Luke handles them. He may learn something.