Write a NICE letter! :)

Okay, so I’m on vacation. I know, crazy, right? I actually MADE it on one of my vacations. And I’m enjoying myself immensely. I’ll have plenty more to post about when I get home, but for now, I didn’t want to let this slip by. On Wednesday, Veronica wrote this for SPP. She, like most of us, had seen the terrible letter that was slipped under the door of an autistic person. And she, like all of us, was completely appalled by it. So to try and even out the good versus the bad in the universe, has challenged everyone to write a NICE letter. Sure, it won’t make the bad people stop doing bad things, but flooding the world with a little niceness surely can’t hurt, right? Right.

Here’s the letter that I’m going to be sending out when I get home. (Don’t worry, I’ll share the reason for the letter in a post next week when I recap my trip, lol)

August 23, 2013

To the Manager of Klaben Ford:

Hello, my name is Amanda Buckland, and I’d like to tell you a little about the experience I had last week with your service department. I am from Michigan, and was driving to Virginia on Tuesday, when my car (a 2009 Ford Focus) suddenly lost power and the wrench light came on. I was 300 miles from home and had no idea what to do. Through the assistance of a friend, I was able to locate your service center and managed to get my car to you.

Even though they were very busy, my car was immediately taken back for the diagnostic test. In the meantime, the guys in the front of the service department were more than friendly, and took very good care of me. I’d been rather shaken up and they managed not only to calm me down but to actually make me laugh. The diagnostic came back without a code error, so it was recommended that the Mass Airflow Sensor be cleaned, and they could get me back on the road that night. They did inform me that there was a possibility that it was something more serious, but since there was no error code, they determined that it was safe for me to continue on my way.

I made it about 15 miles out of town and my car quit again. I called the service department back and told them, and asked them to please order the part for me, since I was in the same position as earlier. Jeff, the gentleman I dealt with the most, told me to bring the car in first thing in the morning, they would make a special run to get my part (since it was 6pm, and the parts department was already closed). He apologized profusely even though it was no fault of his, or your service department.

I arrived at the dealership at 9am Wednesday morning. They took the car right back to start taking everything apart so that the minute the part arrived, they could put it on and send me on my way. In the meantime, one of the guys in the service center offered to run me down to the mall so that I didn’t have to sit in the repair center all morning. I declined the offer, since I’d brought my laptop and intended to do some work. When I told them that’s what I’d planned on doing, I was offered use of one of their meeting tables so that I could work in comfort and privacy.

I apologize for not remembering anyone’s name other than Jeff, but EVERYONE that I encountered was extremely friendly and most helpful. Not one person walked by me without asking how I was or if there was anything they could do/get for me. My car was fixed in a very timely manner, the prices were reasonable, and I have since arrived safely at my destination.

This was a time when I could have been completely taken advantage of. I am a woman traveling on my own with a limited amount of car knowledge. They could have told me that anything under the sun was wrong with the car, and I would have believed them. Instead, they treated me very well, understood my situation, and tried to get me back on the road with as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

The way I was treated was more than anything I would have expected out of even my hometown dealership. I fully intend (and I informed them of this) to return to your dealership in the spring, when I am ready to purchase a new car. It will be a 5 hour drive from where I will be living, but it will be worth every minute to be able to deal with your company and the people you employ again.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I’m not usually a letter-writer, but I was incredibly impressed by your staff and felt that you needed to know.

Amanda Buckland

Port Huron, MI

Veronica has created a special hashtag for this endeavor (#writeaniceletter), and I think it would be really cool if we could all turn this in to a thing. Write your letter – it doesn’t have to be anything huge, even just a few lines – send it to someone, and then blog about it, tweet about it, Facebook about it … whatever it is that you do, so that we can keep this chain going.