Really! Well good for you!! Hopefully they got someone as passionate as you are. Be persistent though; let them know you ARE interested anyways, and even grease the wheels a bit with some ideas to let them know that you want to help them solve their problems, and you've got some great ideas. I've gotten jobs before that were 'already filled' by being persistent.
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Email to Lotus customer service Manger - ref colour photos
- Thread starter BeHappy
- Start date
Well not yet that we know of. It hasn't been that long since the guys were there. It took Lotus months before they revealed the new configurator, though the time to roll out a decent communication process would be the day the first cars start to roll off the production line. I don't know what their approval cycle is for getting things signed off for release, or who has to do that, but hopefully they don't take too long to get something in place. The curtain is about to go up, and they need to have their act together.
In hindsight that now seems like an attempt to silence the more active and vocal members offering constructive criticism.
People were understanding and patient - up until they were told they had to finalise their spec blindly.
I pray to God China doesn't move on Taiwan. TSMC (Taiwan Semi Conductor) makes most of the worlds chips. If China takes control of that, that would throw the entire world economy into the blender. If China and Russia have signed a pact together, that's almost setting up World War III. Especially if China takes Taiwan, and Russia starts moving in a blitzkrieg fashion towards Europe. Without a focused and coherent U.S., NATO won't be able to stop them, and unfortunately we have a near vegetable in the White House who can't even form a sentence anymore. If any one of you are spiritually inclined, now's a good time to be praying.
Again a more fwd thinking company would have made a massive deal out of this. It's the perfect opportunity to say look we made some mistakes but we are genuinely interested to hear constructive feedback from our customers and this is how seriously we are taking it. Heck I'd have videoed it and posted it if I could have
FederGigant
Emira Fanatic
I don't get this whole discussing... Comms were and still are bad, got it. They are not showing the pictures, but assuming that they are not dumb it might be for a reason. Another thing that some of you have to realize is that this problem only exists for a few hundred people that have to lock in before march. Being one of them I would have preferred better comms and would have liked some actual pictures, but then it would have been even better to see the car live in all it's colors, with and without black pack, in all different interior trims (combined with all the different outside colors of course) and drive all three suspension/tire combinations and so on, so we could continue the complaining game even further. It isn't perfect, it never will be. The configurator is good, the car will be great and I'm happy to be one of the lucky ones to get it quite early. That's what I feel about it and therefore I don't see a reason to complain. All people who get their cars after July can look at pictures, reviews and what not before locking in, so they don't have those problems anyways.
Are you not even slightly upset that you haven't even had confirmation of your order and the spec you will recieve in June????
The waiting and anticipation should be fun but it’s difficult for customers to enjoy that aspect when they’re not 100% sure they’re getting what they want
FederGigant
Emira Fanatic
Well it is July for me, and of course I only start to believe it when I see the car standing in front of me. Spec is confirmed, so I just hope it will all work out. Nowadays there are too many what ifs to allow me to feel sure about a fixed delivery date. This is not the fault of Lotus however (at least something that isn't their fault 
). I just think it's not the time to blame them because of those mistakes. They probably have to deal with worse problems at the moment. There are worse things happening in the world than missing out on showing some pictures. I would just feel a bit stupid at the moment to complain about those kind of things.
). I just think it's not the time to blame them because of those mistakes. They probably have to deal with worse problems at the moment. There are worse things happening in the world than missing out on showing some pictures. I would just feel a bit stupid at the moment to complain about those kind of things.Boy does this put pressure on the highly anticipated March update. It's going to be a high threshold to clear. Enough sustenance for the ravenous?
Considering the waiting list they already have and that continues to build, if you get your car and it's not exactly what you want, you shouldn't have any problem selling it, and probably for more than you paid for it. On the other hand, you may find you actually like it so it's all good. I don't see a downside right now. If the car is as great as I suspect it's going to be, you'll quickly forget about these times the moment you see it, sit in it, and start it up. I fully expect videos of you with a big grin plastered all over your face, driving the most beautiful sports car in its segment, and a few segments above it.
I can't wait to see the videos that are going to be posted by early owners. On the one hand it will be great, and on the other it's going to make it harder to wait for mine to arrive, but we get to be the lucky ones to be a part of this historical occasion.
I agree I expect that to be the case on collection/delivery.
The issue at hand is lotus - by design - are ruining the lead up and anticipation.
Yes, I could sell it but I’d have wasted a year waiting.
Can’t imagine anyone waiting this long for their dream car and then realising they’d have preferred a different colour. Kinda takes the shine off it all.
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Yes, it's exactly that level of amateur. As we've all said many times, there is no attempt to walk in their customers' shoes.
For some of the roadshows they also forgot to recharge the battery packs between events, so couldn't run the dash, interior or power to the seats so people could adjust them to try out the driving position. This is basic stuff.
It's very clear they care hugely about quality, from design through procurement and build and QA. They know they need to step up and address previous concerns on that. And everyone is very committed to quality and creating a great car. I have no doubt it will be great to drive, a nice place to sit and well made.
But there is still a massive lack of appreciation of customers, and consideration of the customer experience and the overall customer lifecycle. The direct channel has been and still is woefully inadequate in handling what customers want at a very basic level, never mind a premium or differentiated experience. The relationship with the dealers is broken and ineffective.
Brilliant design and quality manufacturing aren't enough to sell cars if your customer acquisition and pre-delivery care (and we have to fear also the likely post-delivery service) is this bad. If I wasn't a loyal Lotus fan with a confidence in the greatness of the car and a 25-year relationship with a dealer 30 minutes away I'd have cancelled months ago.
It's the numerous broken promises and changes of approach that are becoming increasingly frustrating. Three examples:
- We were told there would be photos "soon" in October and "soon" continued until December when it became "January", then in January it became "we'll do a better configurator and the photos will be in March - probably or we might change our minds again".
- UK V6 FE deposit holders were told in Oct/Nov at time of second deposit they would be able to make changes up until 3rd deposit in January and would have further details (including the photos) before then. People were then contacted in December (early - yay!) to be told no 3rd deposit, spec already locked in and changes would result in a delay to delivery and no pictures. The people contacted in Jan and Feb were also given very limited new info (new configurator) and in some cases given less than 24 hours to make changes.
- Other UK depositors were told in Oct they would be contacted in Jan about next stage of the process for i4 FE and Base Editions. They have still not been contacted, despite me reminding the three senior Lotus people responsible for this on 21 Jan and them saying they would act on it and contact this sub-group.
It's not a start-up business. All the design and development capability is current and has existed for decades. The production and QA stuff is modern but not unfamiliar. The other part they needed to address was the customer experience, where they hired people in - not just a Head of Customer Experience but teams of people in sales, marketing, PR, comms, customer service. They are part of the Geely group and have access to all kinds of expertise, not just technical. I know for example they are drawing on Volvo UK capability for some customer lifecycle stuff.
And then they go and make a splash about hiring Simon Lane from Aston Martin to head up the "bespoke " business when they haven't even got the "basic" business of customer care sorted.
They are not only watching, they asked for feedback from four of us (4 pages from me) and had feedback from the Customer Care team about issues they couldn't handle. Apart from inviting us to the factory to talk about it, what have they done to act on that or improve the customer experience in the 5 weeks since we were there? From my perspective the answer is literally nothing.
I don't think it was intended to silence us. It was to show us behind the scenes so we would be reassured they were making good progress, and to talk about where they were up to and what they were doing so we had a better appreciation of the Lotus perspective on things. That was fine. There were only a couple of things I saw/heard that I was asked not to share.
I wasn't asked to scale back or alter my comments online. I also made it clear I had no intention of allowing the visit to be mis-construed as me being a Lotus insider or getting any kind of preferential treatment to gain my support. We offered to be part of some Lotus-led comms about our being there but they declined.
It's the mis-steps, broken promises and absence of customer care that are frustrating and affecting a growing group of people. Those of us with very early deposits accepted we would have to commit based on very limited info - but info we were promised didn't appear and we found out too late that we couldn't make changes when we'd been told we could. It was expected this would affect a few hundred people - the ones with deliveries in the first 1-2 months. But it actually affects the first 6 months of production, two-thirds of 2022 deliveries and over 1,500 people. And on top of that add the mess of US allocations and mark ups plus the lack of info to dealers in other countries.
I'm looking forward to getting the car but I'm disappointed that people are getting such a poor experience when it didn't need to be like this. I can cope with things still being "old Lotus" in several areas but this is such a huge missed opportunity for what would have been a small level of effort.
I hope you're right. But what if you ordered Magma and then when you see the cars you wish you'd chosen Nimbus? Sell the car and join the back of the queue? Drive the Magma and be disgruntled that it isn't the colour you wanted? Ask for a change before delivery and be told your car will now arrive in the winter and you'll have to buy another car in the interim? Cancel your order before delivery?
If Lotus really appreciated the things people are (quite reasonably) anxious or concerned about, they would be easily able to address them. I gave them a list in January to add to the lists they already had from the Customer Care team.
Lotus are up against well established brands for our money. I'm bought into Lotus simply due to the looks of the car and the promise/premise of a great handling car and so made a deposit early.
The way I view it is that we are evangelists for the Emira and Lotus brand. If we can't see 6 photos then what hope is there for when cars roll off the line with problems.
As an evangelist I couldn't and wouldn't recommend the buying experience to date.
The way I view it is that we are evangelists for the Emira and Lotus brand. If we can't see 6 photos then what hope is there for when cars roll off the line with problems.
As an evangelist I couldn't and wouldn't recommend the buying experience to date.
Regardless of it being “for the drivers” - the demand is essentially a direct result of how the Emira looks - and that’s why it’s so important customers are confident and happy with what they’re getting, aesthetically.
Otherwise we’d all have evoras
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