Great Car, Atrocious Customer Support - curious about others' experience and advice

[Positioned]

Newer Lucid Air owner here. My challenge: the charging cable that came with the car was defective right out of the box.

No problem, right? Just contact Customer Care and they’ll get it sorted. Well apparently not with any sort of urgency or pace.

In this case, we’re at nearly two weeks since I first reached out to Customer Care and the Store team hasn’t even gotten involved yet to process a replacement cable. In fact, the only communication or update I’ve received from Lucid’s end was a quick email asking for information I’ve already provided more than once on my calls to the Customer Care team. The single email I received was sent 10 days after I initially made contact with Customer Care to report the defective cable. It took 10 days and multiple calls from my end to get someone at Customer Care to even get the replacement process officially started. And there was no outreach from Lucid in between. I initiated all communication.

Today I sit in limbo, many days after that single email from Lucid Customer Care finally arrived, still hoping for any action from the Store team. But even at this delayed juncture, nobody is able to give me a timeline on when the Store team will address this case. They’ve assured me, however, that my case has been escalated for visibility no less than three times now. And they’ve let me know that I should reach out again if someone has not contacted me with a “reasonable time period.”

I ask you, fellow Lucid owners, what is a “reasonable” amount of time for something like this to be addressed? How many times did you have to contact Lucid before someone took action when you required assistance?

What have you longer-term owners experienced with Lucid response time? Any advice?

I come to you all searching for your best wisdom, because Lucid refuses to provide me with contact information for the Store team and continues to advise me that my only path is to wait longer until someone finds the time to address this. Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Tâm]

Newer Lucid Air owner here. My challenge: the charging cable that came with the car was defective right out of the box.

No problem, right? Just contact Customer Care and they’ll get it sorted. Well apparently not with any sort of urgency or pace.

In this case, we’re at nearly two weeks since I first reached out to Customer Care and the Store team hasn’t even gotten involved yet to process a replacement cable. In fact, the only communication or update I’ve received from Lucid’s end was a quick email asking for information I’ve already provided more than once on my calls to the Customer Care team. The single email I received was sent 10 days after I initially made contact with Customer Care to report the defective cable. It took 10 days and multiple calls from my end to get someone at Customer Care to even get the replacement process officially started. And there was no outreach from Lucid in between. I initiated all communication.

Today I sit in limbo, many days after that single email from Lucid Customer Care finally arrived, still hoping for any action from the Store team. But even at this delayed juncture, nobody is able to give me a timeline on when the Store team will address this case. They’ve assured me, however, that my case has been escalated for visibility no less than three times now. And they’ve let me know that I should reach out again if someone has not contacted me with a “reasonable time period.”

I ask you, fellow Lucid owners, what is a “reasonable” amount of time for something like this to be addressed? How many times did you have to contact Lucid before someone took action when you required assistance?

What have you longer-term owners experienced with Lucid response time? Any advice?

I come to you all searching for your best wisdom, because Lucid refuses to provide me with contact information for the Store team and continues to advise me that my only path is to wait longer until someone finds the time to address this. Thanks in advance for your help

The prolonged response is far from an acceptable standard.

Are you near a Service Center that you can drive to and ask for help in person?

 

[Positioned]

The prolonged response is far from an acceptable standard.

Are you near a Service Center that you can drive to and ask for help in person?

Appreciate the suggestion. I’m about 90 minutes drive to the nearest Service Center. I may try that, although I’m not fully confident that they’ll solve this for me:

1) I was advised by Customer Care that Service Centers don’t typically keep an inventory of charging cables on hand
2) I’ve called the Service Center numerous times over the past couple of weeks to inquire about an alternate path to solving this challenge, but I’ve yet to get a person to answer the phone, and they haven’t returned any of my calls.

At this point, however, perhaps showing up in person is the best option. Thanks again!

 

[Tâm]

Appreciate the suggestion. I’m about 90 minutes drive to the nearest Service Center. I may try that, although I’m not fully confident that they’ll solve this for me:

1) I was advised by Customer Care that Service Centers don’t typically keep an inventory of charging cables on hand
2) I’ve called the Service Center numerous times over the past couple of weeks to inquire about an alternate path to solving this challenge, but I’ve yet to get a person to answer the phone, and they haven’t returned any of my calls.

At this point, however, perhaps showing up in person is the best option. Thanks again!

If there's a procedure that you have to go through Customer Service and you did, I think there's still value to seek help from a Service Center.

The least they can do is to diagnose whether the issue is your car or the mobile connector and get that documented.

 

[Positioned]

Thank you to those who have read and responded. Quick update on the ongoing situation for anyone interested:

I reached out to my Sales Agent who was able to finally get some movement on this. Yesterday a member of the Service Team called me. On the phone call, they asked me the standard questions (questions I've already answered numerous times with numerous different Customer Care reps) about my attention to the tightness and fit of each component of the charging cable - alas, we weren't able to get the cable functioning over the phone (I've confirmed through public charging that the issue is indeed with the mobile charging cable, not the car). The only solution offered was to send a tech to my home to troubleshoot live. The kicker? The tech's first availability is 1.5+ weeks out. So while Lucid has advanced progress, it will have been nearly an entire month from my first request for assistance to possible resolution.

Here's to hoping that the tech brings a replacement cable, as requested.

On a more positive note, a leader in the Customer Care department was kind enough to reach out yesterday to offer an apology and reimbursement for a small number of past public charging sessions. I'm appreciative of the acknowledgement of a need for improvement and the gesture of goodwill. That does not, however, excuse the breakdowns in support, nor does it give respect to the amount of time I've spent personally trying to get this addressed.

My advice for anyone in a similar situation would be to get Sales involved. As with most businesses, the profit centers seem to have more resources and pull than the cost centers.

More to come as developments continue.

 

[Tâm]

Thank you to those who have read and responded. Quick update on the ongoing situation for anyone interested:

I reached out to my Sales Agent who was able to finally get some movement on this. Yesterday a member of the Service Team called me. On the phone call, they asked me the standard questions (questions I've already answered numerous times with numerous different Customer Care reps) about my attention to the tightness and fit of each component of the charging cable - alas, we weren't able to get the cable functioning over the phone (I've confirmed through public charging that the issue is indeed with the mobile charging cable, not the car). The only solution offered was to send a tech to my home to troubleshoot live. The kicker? The tech's first availability is 1.5+ weeks out. So while Lucid has advanced progress, it will have been nearly an entire month from my first request for assistance to possible resolution.

Here's to hoping that the tech brings a replacement cable, as requested.

On a more positive note, a leader in the Customer Care department was kind enough to reach out yesterday to offer an apology and reimbursement for a small number of past public charging sessions. I'm appreciative of the acknowledgement of a need for improvement and the gesture of goodwill. That does not, however, excuse the breakdowns in support, nor does it give respect to the amount of time I've spent personally trying to get this addressed.

My advice for anyone in a similar situation would be to get Sales involved. As with most businesses, the profit centers seem to have more resources and pull than the cost centers.

More to come as developments continue.

It's a progress in my book though it could be better.

Congratulations for getting some movements in customer service issue.

 

[j4gates]

Unfortunately, Lucid is not a legacy automaker with a built out sales/service network or a mature org structure that has been refined over decades, so we'll all be figuring out how to navigate support as the company grows.

Personally, I wouldn't expect Customer Care to handle anything beyond what's contained in the owner's manual, so if I have a true problem where something has stopped working, I'm going straight to my nearest Service Center. In your case, it sounds like the Service department wasn't responsive on calls, so it might be helpful for you to post which Service Center you're using and maybe someone who has built a relationship can suggest a better path. You were smart to engage Sales to get movement, but that shouldn't be necessary.

Since the vehicle charger is in the car and AC is different than DC charging, they'll need to run some diagnostics for the onboard charger which a cable swap might not remedy. It's frustrating for sure, but problems like this usually need a tech to figure out the real cause. Hope it's something that can be fixed at your home.

 

[Steveinarizona]

Unfortunately, Lucid is not a legacy automaker with a built out sales/service network or a mature org structure that has been refined over decades, so we'll all be figuring out how to navigate support as the company grows.

Personally, I wouldn't expect Customer Care to handle anything beyond what's contained in the owner's manual, so if I have a true problem where something has stopped working, I'm going straight to my nearest Service Center. In your case, it sounds like the Service department wasn't responsive on calls, so it might be helpful for you to post which Service Center you're using and maybe someone who has built a relationship can suggest a better path. You were smart to engage Sales to get movement, but that shouldn't be necessary.

Since the vehicle charger is in the car and AC is different than DC charging, they'll need to run some diagnostics for the onboard charger which a cable swap might not remedy. It's frustrating for sure, but problems like this usually need a tech to figure out the real cause. Hope it's something that can be fixed at your home.

I would buy this if the OP hadn't tried both customer care and the service center numerous times. A defective cable should be a simple swap. Personally, I would have gone into the sales office and asked them to swap it out for one of the ones in their test drive fleet and if they refused, I would start the count on a lemon law. This is totally unacceptable.

 

[socktucker]

I can't believe their solutiuon is to...send a mobile tech? No wonder they're hemorrhaging money. No wonder they're delayed to infinity and beyond for service.