From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter addressing the issue of blame-shifting between chassis and coachbuilders over noisy cars and how to handle customer complaints.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 41\3\ Scan260 | |
| Date | 6th January 1923 | |
| BJB/H6123. 6th January, 1923. [STAMP: RECEIVED 4 JAN 1923] Dear Captain Clinton, I am writing you this personal letter in the most friendly spirit because I should like you to write to me under similar circumstances. I know the policy of your Company is the same as our own, namely, to give entire and absolute satisfaction to customers and so retain their goodwill; and that when we have mutually supplied a customer with a car which is half made by you and half made by ourselves, your Company and our Company should together mutually back eachother up to keep that customer's goodwill, and not try to throw blame from one to the other, which can only lead to intense irritation on the part of a customer and consequent loss of goodwill. I refer chiefly to cases where a customer states that his car booms, or is noisy. In such cases our first inclination is naturally to say, 'That is the coachbuilder's fault', and the coachbuilder's natural inclination is to say 'That is the chassis maker's fault'. The customer's impression is, 'These two people are both blaming eachother, but they are not satisfying me; I have had enough of themand will never go to them again.' We had a Sales Conference a few days ago at which I read this letter, and asked the head of every department to avoid inferring to customers that such noises are due only to carriage bodies; but rather to inform customers that it is extremely difficult even for experts to trace exactly what is the cause of such noises, that obviously it is a combination of the chassis and the body, and that we, together with the coachbuilder, will do everything possible to make the car silent and satisfactory to the customer. Also, to give the customer clearly to understand | ||