This is what happened to me at the Canadian Tire Auto service centre on the northwest corner of Queen St & Airport road in the city of Brampton, Ontario, Canada.
Today is Monday, November 1, 2010. I arrived at the auto service centre at around 5:10pm asking for an oil change. The man at the counter serving me has grey-white hair with a name starting with "M". This person is obvious an illiterate. He asked my car model twice before he got it right; then he got my name wrong; and lastly, the license plate of my car wrong. After he printed out the work order & I changed all his mess, I asked him how long it would take for the oil change & he told me 45 minutes. Then I sat in the waiting room and waited for my car to have oil change.
During the time that I waited in the waiting room, this is what I witnessed:
First, there was only 3 cars in the garage, the garage was not even full.
Second, there were only 2 auto mechanics / technicians working on the vehicles.
Third, one of the auto mechanics (he has blond hair with a mohawk haircut) kept chatting to a female CanadianTire worker from another department (she has blond hair & tattoos / drawings on her right arm). As one can see clearly, he is obviously not working on the vehicles inside the garage if he is chatting with another person outside.
Fourth, I asked another man sitting in the waiting room how long he waited here. He told me he only needed to change his tires to winter tires but he had been there since 4pm (he waited for over 2 hours by the time I talked to him).
Finally, it was 6:40pm & I could not stand it anymore because I was sitting in the waiting room all these times & I saw my car still outside in the parking lot exactly in the spot where I left it. After 1.5 hours, the auto mechanic did not even bring my car in the garage & did not even start the oil change.
I went to the auto service counter & asked the cashier why it was taking so long. She told me she is only an cashier & she knew nothing about the work inside the garage. There was no customer at the cashier at the time (because nothing was done in the garage so no one is paying money), but this female cashier did not make any initiative to ask other people in the garage about the long wait. She was just sitting there doing nothing.
Then I lined up at the counter again for the grey-white hair man who served me at 5:10pm and told me the job would be done in 45 minutes (which meant the oil change should be done at 5:55pm). He told me it was not his fault the mechanics were slow in the garage, that my extended long wait was not his problem. He then told me since they did not even start the oil change in my car yet, I can always take my car keys back & leave. This grey-white haired man did not tell me what position my car is in the line for the job, nor did he tell me how long more I have to wait so my car can start to have the oil change. His tone indicated that he did not care about my vehicle having an oil change or not; he did not care that I have been waiting there for 1.5 hours for nothing. To sum it up basically, he did not care about my business at the Canadian Tire at the northwest corner or Queen St & Airport road.
The grey -white hair man at the counter displayed extremely poor customer service, his tone & manners to the customer were horrible. First, he had poor communications with the mechanics/ technicians in the garage to result in telling me the wrong estimated time to have the oil change done. Second, he said very loudly that it was not his fault & that it was not his problem that I have been waiting for 1.5 hours with nothing done on my car. He has a very serious attitude problem because he would not admit that it was his poor communication with the garage mechanics that I have been waiting there. If he communicated with the mechanics properly, he would have told me it would require at least 2 hours for my car oil change instead of 45 minutes. Then of course, I would not have been waiting there for 1.5 hours, wasting my time, wasting my life away, plus I had to suffer through this horrible customer service .
I will make sure I tell all my friends about the poor service I received at the Candian Tire Auto centre & make sure none of them ever service their vehicles at Canadian Tire again.