It’s enough to make an AA client overheat

A communications breakdown left an Automobile Association member stranded, and fuming

IT takes years to win customers and seconds to lose them — and once gone, they’re unlikely to return.

Although I believe how a company deals with a mistake is often more important than the error itself, sometimes even the best of intentions after the fact don’t cut it.

Take the case of Cape Town reader Mike Workman.

Last weekend, he called on a service for which he’d been paying for 40 years, thinking the company would have his back. He’d been paying them to do exactly that.

But he didn’t just receive poor service, he got no service at all.

Which meant that he was stuck — literally.

Workman had woken up after spending a night away in Stellenbosch to discover that his car wouldn’t start. He turned immediately to the trusted Automobile Association to sort him out.

Instead, the call centre agent declined to help, saying drivers had been on strike for three weeks and that nobody would be coming to assist.

“I double-checked if we were stuck and the response was that yes, we were stuck,” said Workman.

“I had stayed a member out of loyalty and because I wanted a ‘Linus blanket’ in case something went wrong. Surely any service like this would make alternative arrangements?

“There was no notification beforehand that the service would not be available.”

I’d heard nothing about an AA strike and there was no mention of it or any possible service disruption on the AA’s website or social media accounts.

I asked spokesman Layton Beard to explain.

He did, and in stark contrast to Workman’s experience, he did so in record time.

Beard said the organisation was “horrified” at the complaint, that it was “business as usual” at the AA with a full fleet on the road 24/7.

Workman should have been

The call centre agent declined to help, saying drivers had been on strike for three weeks

assisted, he said.

The strike, which started at the end of June, involved about 120 of the AA’s 600-strong staff. Beard said management was still in negotiations with the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, which had declared a dispute over various issues including a demand for a 12% wage increase.

Those on strike in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban were mainly drivers, with a