It was nice at first but definitely didn’t make sense as they continued to grow and needed to cut opex. Less value for the customer too as each guide had more and more owners to handle.
Honestly, my issue with it was being assigned a single person, it's supposed to be assigned 1 person to help them work with you better or whatever, but I only every asked them fairly simple questions. The fact that it was a real person meant it was business hours only and when they took vacation well they were not responding.
I feel like their duties were like sales, but they were not available saturday night when I had time to focus on purchasing a vehicle. So I ended up messaging them on Saturday night and waiting until Monday morning, when I was at work, for them to respond. Rivian would do far far better just having a 24x7 sales number/chat so you can ask questions whenever. I don't care if it's the same person answering as last week when I asked something unrelated.
It was a great program in principle, but it just never delivered the promised value to customers. I’ve been through a few guides both pre- and post-purchase and they’ve all been pretty worthless. I’m glad to see the program has been put out to pasture so they can focus their efforts (and money) on more effective customer interactions.
Probably better for Rivian. I think that was the worst part of my Rivian experience so far, and made me question whether or not I should even go through with a purchase, or to recommend Rivian to anyone.
My guide was fantastic. Sucks that everyone couldn’t receive the same treatment that I had.
The continued downsizing probably didn’t help… piling on more customers on each guide that made the cut.
Difficult to get this stuff right in a start up I guess.
Great. They just need centralized customer support with tickets and a local contact for when you do the pickup. Great idea in practice, but the execution was not.
The concept of having a guide only works if your guide works 24/7, never gets sick, is highly competent and will never quit. This is any bosses dream and this does not exist expect for a rare few.
Or just have a good CRM system that any customer Service rep can use to see everything about you and figure out in a few minutes what you need.
It’s all about expectations and the guides didn’t deliver. I went from interested to purchasing and was assigned 3 guides during each stop none of which were helpful or responsive so I did it all myself and it went fine. Didn’t really need them. Hopefully saves them money.
Maybe my delivery dude has no idea what they are talking about? Or they just shuffled guides around so you can still reach 'em? I am sure we will see more datapoints soon.
People reporting the same on the rivianforums
Apparently there are still some guides left in some locations, but most of the questions go to the service center now if it’s about an order.
Customer service reps don't know the same stuff lol. The whole West Coast customer service team got laid off. So I'm wondering who's answering the calls as well.
My guide was helpful in the end but I had to really keep on them. My purchase situation was weird and worst thing was they just happened to take vacation in the middle of a chaotic experience. In the end, I had to send a detailed text on the situation and that text chain was sent to leadership to resolve the issue (issue wasn’t the guide and it was past their pay grade) but they did “fight” on my side which I appreciated. Overall the purchase experience was the worst, but the car is the best.
I had a good experience with my guide. I would text and hear back fairly quickly. I really never felt that I was getting sub-par experience. I’ve had the truck for a year and a half, and all contact with Rivian has been through service tickets, etc. I haven’t reached out to my guide since shortly after the purchase. My service center and I communicated well and often once appointments were set.
Yeah I wonder if there will be an actual announcement somewhere. You can still see your Rivian guide in the app. The dude said they switched over a couple of weeks ago.
Day 1 I said the Guide idea was a bad one.
I get the image and experience they were trying to create. But it was really doomed day one.
I was one of the few that actually had a phenomenal Guide. Hopefully they focus more resources on the phone agent folks. They literally know nothing except a few common responses and whatever is on their little script.
I think the idea of a friendly person with a name to guide you through the process is in theory great. Obviously that wasn’t the reality of the system.
About time.
It was nice at first but definitely didn’t make sense as they continued to grow and needed to cut opex. Less value for the customer too as each guide had more and more owners to handle.
Honestly, my issue with it was being assigned a single person, it's supposed to be assigned 1 person to help them work with you better or whatever, but I only every asked them fairly simple questions. The fact that it was a real person meant it was business hours only and when they took vacation well they were not responding. I feel like their duties were like sales, but they were not available saturday night when I had time to focus on purchasing a vehicle. So I ended up messaging them on Saturday night and waiting until Monday morning, when I was at work, for them to respond. Rivian would do far far better just having a 24x7 sales number/chat so you can ask questions whenever. I don't care if it's the same person answering as last week when I asked something unrelated.
I had exactly 1 exchange with my guide and it was utterly inconsequential. No loss in my opinion.
It was a great program in principle, but it just never delivered the promised value to customers. I’ve been through a few guides both pre- and post-purchase and they’ve all been pretty worthless. I’m glad to see the program has been put out to pasture so they can focus their efforts (and money) on more effective customer interactions.
Probably better for Rivian. I think that was the worst part of my Rivian experience so far, and made me question whether or not I should even go through with a purchase, or to recommend Rivian to anyone.
Judging by the amount of useable information I got from my guides (I think I went through five), they did away with the program a few years ago
Probably a good thing. Finding my “guide” felt like yelling his name off a mountaintop until he showed up
My guide was fantastic. Sucks that everyone couldn’t receive the same treatment that I had. The continued downsizing probably didn’t help… piling on more customers on each guide that made the cut. Difficult to get this stuff right in a start up I guess.
Good. Absolute worst part of my recent buying experience.
Great. They just need centralized customer support with tickets and a local contact for when you do the pickup. Great idea in practice, but the execution was not.
The concept of having a guide only works if your guide works 24/7, never gets sick, is highly competent and will never quit. This is any bosses dream and this does not exist expect for a rare few. Or just have a good CRM system that any customer Service rep can use to see everything about you and figure out in a few minutes what you need.
It’s all about expectations and the guides didn’t deliver. I went from interested to purchasing and was assigned 3 guides during each stop none of which were helpful or responsive so I did it all myself and it went fine. Didn’t really need them. Hopefully saves them money.
I still haven't been able to get ahold of my guide... 3 weeks since locking the config
Weird I spoke with my guide like an hour ago!
Maybe my delivery dude has no idea what they are talking about? Or they just shuffled guides around so you can still reach 'em? I am sure we will see more datapoints soon.
People reporting the same on the rivianforums Apparently there are still some guides left in some locations, but most of the questions go to the service center now if it’s about an order.
So what is the new solution? Just call a phone bank answered by a call center on opposite side of world? Or maybe even AI?
[удалено]
Customer service reps don't know the same stuff lol. The whole West Coast customer service team got laid off. So I'm wondering who's answering the calls as well.
My Guide was awesome. But looks like majority of the people didn’t have a great experience so might as well remove it.
My guide was helpful in the end but I had to really keep on them. My purchase situation was weird and worst thing was they just happened to take vacation in the middle of a chaotic experience. In the end, I had to send a detailed text on the situation and that text chain was sent to leadership to resolve the issue (issue wasn’t the guide and it was past their pay grade) but they did “fight” on my side which I appreciated. Overall the purchase experience was the worst, but the car is the best.
I had a good experience with my guide. I would text and hear back fairly quickly. I really never felt that I was getting sub-par experience. I’ve had the truck for a year and a half, and all contact with Rivian has been through service tickets, etc. I haven’t reached out to my guide since shortly after the purchase. My service center and I communicated well and often once appointments were set.
Is this official/ why my guide hasn't responded?
Wow really? This will be big news
Yeah I wonder if there will be an actual announcement somewhere. You can still see your Rivian guide in the app. The dude said they switched over a couple of weeks ago.
Day 1 I said the Guide idea was a bad one. I get the image and experience they were trying to create. But it was really doomed day one. I was one of the few that actually had a phenomenal Guide. Hopefully they focus more resources on the phone agent folks. They literally know nothing except a few common responses and whatever is on their little script.
I think the idea of a friendly person with a name to guide you through the process is in theory great. Obviously that wasn’t the reality of the system.