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Has anyone else ever had customer service issues with the Esso gas station at Main and James Snow Parkway?

Most of the time getting gas & a car wash is pretty straight forward. I pay at the pump and never go inside. There have only been two instances that I have had to enter the store for issues related to the car wash and both times I have been treated like garbage.

Today I got a car wash and the entire left side of my car still had soap on it. First I went up to the cash, where the guy on cash told me that he was alone and asked me to wait a few minutes for his co-worker to come back, he proceeded to serve other customers while I waited. Now that I didn't mind too much...once his co-worker came back he came outside and verified that my car was soapy and offered me another car wash code.

I made the argument that giving me another code right now was not enough, that would only get me the car wash that I should have received the first time I paid for it. I'd wasted almost 20 minutes waiting for him and dicussing this with him, by then there was a line up at the car wash so I'd be guaranteed to wait another 45 minutes to an hour there! I felt that I should get a clean car today and a complimentary car wash for another time for all my trouble.

He tried to persuade me to save the code he was giving me for another time, but that wouldn't get the soap off of my car today...

After much civil back and forth conversation, he just said that I'm not understanding that he is not going to give me another code. Then he proceeded to take the one that he gave me to use today and said that he's keeping it and that if I wanted to use it then I had to go right now and get into the car wash line up and he would walk over and punch it in for me.

The first incident a few months ago was of similar nature. When I left the store that time, my husband was in the car. He went in to speak with them and it took only minutes for him to get the car wash code.

I honestly believe that staff at this location have absolutely no respect for women and unfortunately for Esso they will lose a customer because of it. I've launched a formal complaint, but I doubt anything will come of it.

I'm wondering if anyone else out there has had any experiences at this location (or others).

Or any recommendations on a better gas station in Milton?

**Edit** I was probably overreacting with the BOYCOTT in the title of this post, but I did call Esso Corporate and they did side with me and in fact gave me two free car washes.

They offered a car wash to correct the first one, however I've lost over an hour of my time because of a faulty car wash because of the whole situation only to end up with the car wash I should have gotten the first time.

Sorry to hear, I'd be unhappy too. I saw a black Mercedes with soap on the left side as well at the Petro Canada on Thompson/Derry this morning around 9:15am. I think that owner was not happy either.

I do all my car washes at the coin-op during the winter temperature-permitting, and have my own way of getting it clean at $10 or less. It's hard to explain how to do it, I'd have to show people how to use the power sprayer.

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What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

What your comparing is services to a product.

I look at this like ordering food from a fast food place. If I order something and they mess up my order, I typically get my meal corrected and a coupon for another in the future for the trouble. This is a common practice in the service industry to have an incentive to make sure customer comes back because most people won't complain, they just won't return.

I say, give your car a hosedown on your private property. Save some water, frustration and cashola. Why feed the corporate faceless giant?

Customer service nowadays does stink. If he was being rude, that's not right but I would have done the same as him (minus the rude attitude)... offer you another wash at no extra charge for at that time or another time. But why would I give you another free wash?

I don't go there anymore. I purchased a car wash with gas and went to use wash code about a week later and it came up as code used. They insisted that i had used it and could not help me. They weren't very polite about it. Pretty much told me to get lost. So that I don't get the type of replies common to this forum.....No there is not even the slightest chance that I may have used the code and forgotten.

Bottom line, she's the customer who was inconvenienced and the corporate giant/franchisee must accomodate the customer!

It may be down to staffing as well. Years ago I worked customer service (aftersales in a store like Futureshop), and we had a matrix (literally a big huge binder) of what we would do for a customer depending on the manufacturer of their product, what the product was, how long they'd had it, etc. I had to follow the matrix to the letter, my manager could walk over and change the rules as he saw fit.

Maybe your husband dealt with the manager who had the authority to do something, and you dealt with someone who didn't.

Personally I HATE that gas station. It's terribly designed to get to a pump, people park all over the place, and it's always too busy. Does anyone else find the pressure in their pumps really low? It takes forever to fill our car there, at any other gas station we're in and out in no time.

I do have to ask though - if you continue to have poor customer service, and bad car washes there - why do you keep going? It's not like it's the only one around!

Couldnt agree with you more !!!

Definitely think you're asking for too much asking for a re-wash and another free car wash.

I can understand you not liking their service, you should simply not go back there until you hear they've improved. There's no law or rule that says a company has to provide a level of quality of customer service. If you don't like it, you should switch to another station.

Kevely,

I agree with you. Their customer service is awful. In their car wash, the water pressure is not good, the water comes very slowly... some thing is wrong with their car wash system. I also had the car wash last weekend and there were all the dust and mud spots at the car and the guy there refused to give me even the rewash. He said your car was too dirty when you brought in and thats why you still see mud on it.... His attitude was really rude. I told him that I'm going to call Esso and complain about you but I still could not get the time to do it. I will call Esso today to let them know about my experience with them.

This is the first time I've seen that kind of disgusting customer service, sepcially in the gas station business.

Most car wash soaps are formulated to be biodegradable.

I am not vain nor wasteful, but I like to wash my car in winter when I anticipate a stretch of nice weather ahead....

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What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Washing the car is not a vain thing, it is just to get the salt off of the car that is on the underside. Washing the car on our lawn is not an option for us, not to mention commercial car washes are proven to use less water and are required to treat the water before it goes down the storm drain.