My son drove in from Austin a few days ago and his car’s exhaust was a little louder than normal. He stated that he was scheduled to take it into the Houston dealership, Russell & Smith Ford, where it was purchased on the next day which happened to be a Saturday. At his request, I tagged along.

The car was checked in at the service department with my son was told that the service person would contact him in about an hour with an update. We took a short walk to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. After about an hour, we arrived back at the dealership just as they were notifying my son of his vehicle’s status.

It seems that the repair person felt that he could not properly make a repair weld and didn’t want to perform a substandard repair. The service advisor, B.J. Villareal advised my son that the repair should be done by one of their vendor muffler shops as they are experts with exhaust repair, but he did not have access to purchase orders on the weekend.

Without a purchase order, the vendor muffler shop would not perform the repairs. When B.J. was advised that my son lived in Austin, he called his manager at home to get authorization and then called the muffler shop to make sure that they would do the repairs without the purchase order. He then advised my son to take the vehicle to the muffler shop for the completion of the repairs.

We arrived at the muffler shop a short time later and the repairs were completed within 40 minutes. Now B.J. could have easily told my son that without having the ability to create a purchase order, he couldn’t authorize the repairs until Monday or he could have said just take it to a dealership when you get back to Austin. He didn’t do that! He took the necessary steps to get the repairs done and for that, he is a recipient of the “Now That’s Customer Service!” Award. Congratulations B.J.!