How to effectively interact with Genesis America corporate and maybe get what you want..

[deilenberger]

I have some experience in effectively encouraging automobile (and motorcycle) manufacturers to "do the right thing" and to make changes to their products.

Posting complaints on a forum may relieve tension and make you feel better - but it's a pretty ineffective way to convince the manufacturer to take action. You can assume the manufacturer has some person who is tasked with monitoring forum posts and taking notes and numbers on complaints heard on the forums, but it's hard to say how much any manufacturer values this information when making decisions on serving the customer better or making a change to a product.

What usually may work (no promises) is directly contacting people within the organization with your suggestion or complaint. If it's a complaint and it seems to be a common one (examples: Why doesn't the GV70/GV80 link the key to the driver memory? Or - my XYZ would automatically lock the door when I walked away from it.. why doesn't my GV##? Or "Lesser Hyundai vehicles and Genesis cars in Europe have wireless CarPlay or AndroidAuto - why not us?)

Those are all things that I've seen any number of times in threads in different sections of this forum, but what I haven't seen is anyone reaching out to Genesis to ask these questions. Asking here probably isn't going to make it happen (unless the thread What do you want Genesis to do? is being monitored by Hyundai/Genesis).

So how do you make your complaints, wishes, desires known to someone who can do something about it? There are a lot of ways that may work, and sometimes using several in concert with other people works even better.

- Complaints
The issue is complaints are posted here and Genesis America probably won't see them. So how do you make them see them? There is a direct approach, and an indirect approach, I'll outline a few:

Direct approach - going directly to Genesis and making your concerns known:

Genesis Customer Service || Genesis USA - who would have thought - Genesis has an entire page with multiple means presented to contact them. It offers a concierge service, messaging, and a phone number to call.

The one I'd suggest first is to try "Messaging" and keep a record of your discussion (many messaging systems will let you download a complete transcript of any message sessions you have. If this does - download it and save it. I just tried it - and you DO have to submit your user/name information, and the VIN# of your vehicle, eventually you get to a form allowing you to fill in your suggestion/complaint. I just entered two items - the walkway key issue (not locking the car) and the lack of key linking to the seat memory and profile memory. To be effective - it's good if other people also message them with the same issues as a concern. There was an option for what car system I was messaging about - I selected the one for communications - there didn't seem to be one for vehicle computer functions.

There is also the option to call them given on that page - I haven't tried it but perhaps I will tomorrow. It will be interesting if it just goes to a chat-bot or a person. I suspect a person since there are hours given when it's active. The phone contact info is: (844)-340-9741 Mon-Fri 5:00 am - 5:00 pm PST, Sat 6:30 am - 3:00 pm PST, Sun Closed

Now we get into the bit more adventuresome contact means - contacting people within the company.

First part of this game plan is knowing who to contact. First Google (or DuckDuckGo) "genesis usa officers" - DuckDuckGo gave me a bunch of links that I'll start exploring, looking for contact info on people in customer relations, product planning, sales - these are the people who can perhaps do something you want done if it's reasonable, possible and presented clearly.

My first try: RocketReach - Find email, phone, social media for 450M+ professionals - gave me a partial listing of officers at Genesis America. It didn't give full email addresses, but a free account will reveal those. You need to have a throwaway Google account to use with this tool. Make up one that you're never going to bother visiting - you just need it to unlock this tool. I did that - and the "Get Contact Info" asked me to log in with a Google account, so I did - then it presented the same group of officers of Genesis with their email addresses. Seeing the email addresses tells me that Genesis, as do many corporations, use the following pattern in assigning email addresses: firstname.lastname@genesis.com - the old "firstname dot lastname" @ company.com email address. This is useful info to know, it lets you contact individual in Genesis where you know their name.

My next result gave me names that might be useful: Genesis Motor North America Names Claudia Marquez As Chief Operating Officer

It tells me "FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective October 1, 2021, Genesis Motor North America has appointed Claudia Marquez as Chief Operating Officer, reporting to José Muñoz, Global COO of Hyundai Motor Company and President & CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. Claudia will lead the strategy and execution of all sales, after-sales, marketing, and growth strategies for Genesis." - giving me the name (and hence email address) of the COO of Genesis Motor NA - Claudia Marquez - and I bet her email address is claudia.marquez@genesis.com - useful to know. Her boss is José Muñoz at Hyundai - perhaps you can think of what his email address might be..

So we have a way to email people in Genesis directly. That is quite useful IF you keep your email businesslike and polite. Going on a rant about some issue that's bugging you will put the email in the bit bucket before the executive even sees it (executives in big corporations have lacky's that pre-sort and filter any incoming communications. A COO never gets to find out she may have won Publisher's Clearinghouse..). Keep it businesslike. Keep it direct and to the point. Keep it short (something I have to work at) and keep it polite. Doing this - I have always received a reply - sometimes from the executive, sometimes from their lacky presorter. They aren't actually ignored.

OK - so now you have several tools to contact people who might make a difference. Next post I'll tell you how to encourage them to make a difference.

 

[deilenberger]

We've figured out how to write/email people within Genesis, and perhaps Hyundai. What can be done to encourage them to take some action that you want to happen?

Good and bad publicity.
I sometimes don't get answers that I want (remember the presort-lacky?) - so moving the project along becomes making the alternative to what you want something that they don't want - ie - bad publicity.

How to create and deliver bad publicity - simple. Every company seems to feel they must be seen on Facebook, X formerly know as something, Linked-In, etc. And they always respond to posts made on those public sites.

First up: LinkedIn - LinkedIn Login, Sign in | LinkedIn
In order to post to Genesis on LinkedIn, it appears you must respond or comment on one of their posts. One of the posts was concerning their COO and her award from a woman's organization for her achievement in becoming COO. That might be one worth posting your comment on. You also can go to: LinkedIn Login, Sign in | LinkedIn - and using what you learned about Genesis email addresses - find some more people at Genesis who you'd like to converse with, there are a LOT to choose from.

Next up: Facebook - in general I have a love/hate relationship with FB. I detest their algorithm that decides what posts stay visible and which don't. I detest that there is no option to ALWAYS show ALL posts in a thread, not just what they think will create the most clicks.. but - there are some excellent groups on FB, and companies respond quickly when approached on FB. In more than one instance, when I find myself being bounced around the global call center universe (had one the other day with a mad dog barking continuously in the background) - I'll turn to FB, look for the companies FB presence, and start posting there - again being civil, detailed and businesslike - and they will 99% of the time get back to you. So - here is FB: Genesis USA | New York NY - and you can comment. Polite, businesslike, brief - chances are good they'll respond either publically, or via messaging (most common in my experience.)

Finally - the big guns - NHTSA website: car makers hate when someone posts a complaint on the NHTSA website because it might trigger an investigation that leads to a mandatory service event or worse - recall.

I do NOT suggest using this for things like wireless Bluetooth - save it for things that matter, things affecting the safety of the vehicle. To really get their attention, and the attention of NHTSA you must get other people to report the same event, and to report is in the same category with the same or similar details. The NHTSA database flags complaints based on their seriousness and the number of them reported. One person reporting a fuel leak may just be a fluke - but 10 people reporting the same sort of fuel leak, that will get their attention. They then do an "investigation" where they write the manufacturer outlining the issue and asking for information on any actions that have been taken regarding the issue, If they determine it's a real safety hazard - a recall will be issued.

That's enough to get you started. I've placed a message in the Genesis system using the link in my first post, I asked about two things. I've since received an email confirmation of the message being placed, and I await answers to my two items. I'll share them here if/when I get them.

Good luck with these techniques, I'd be really interested in hearing if any of them were of any use to the members here.

 

[Tau]

See if the contact listed below would be so kind as to provide the owners forum with the list of regional field managers responsible for developing GMA dealers into the kind that treat owners like "Honored Guests".

Peter Donnellan
Executive Director, Aftersales, Customer Satisfaction, and Training
10550 Talbert Ave.
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
(714)-965-3000

 

[deilenberger]

See if the contact listed below would be so kind as to provide the owners forum with the list of regional field managers responsible for developing GMA dealers into the kind that treat owners like "Honored Guests".

Peter Donnellan
Executive Director, Aftersales, Customer Satisfaction, and Training
10550 Talbert Ave.
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
(714)-965-3000

Looks as if you have all the info necessary to either email him Pete.Donnellan@genesis.com or call him or send a letter... my posts were intended to enable members here to make contact with Genesis instead of just complaining here which aside from venting, (which I do once in a while..) accomplishes little.

 

[Husky]

I have some experience in effectively encouraging automobile (and motorcycle) manufacturers to "do the right thing" and to make changes to their products.

Posting complaints on a forum may relieve tension and make you feel better - but it's a pretty ineffective way to convince the manufacturer to take action. You can assume the manufacturer has some person who is tasked with monitoring forum posts and taking notes and numbers on complaints heard on the forums, but it's hard to say how much any manufacturer values this information when making decisions on serving the customer better or making a change to a product.

What usually may work (no promises) is directly contacting people within the organization with your suggestion or complaint. If it's a complaint and it seems to be a common one (examples: Why doesn't the GV70/GV80 link the key to the driver memory? Or - my XYZ would automatically lock the door when I walked away from it.. why doesn't my GV##? Or "Lesser Hyundai vehicles and Genesis cars in Europe have wireless CarPlay or AndroidAuto - why not us?)

Those are all things that I've seen any number of times in threads in different sections of this forum, but what I haven't seen is anyone reaching out to Genesis to ask these questions. Asking here probably isn't going to make it happen (unless the thread What do you want Genesis to do? is being monitored by Hyundai/Genesis).

So how do you make your complaints, wishes, desires known to someone who can do something about it? There are a lot of ways that may work, and sometimes using several in concert with other people works even better.

- Complaints
The issue is complaints are posted here and Genesis America probably won't see them. So how do you make them see them? There is a direct approach, and an indirect approach, I'll outline a few:

Direct approach - going directly to Genesis and making your concerns known:

Genesis Customer Service || Genesis USA - who would have thought - Genesis has an entire page with multiple means presented to contact them. It offers a concierge service, messaging, and a phone number to call.

The one I'd suggest first is to try "Messaging" and keep a record of your discussion (many messaging systems will let you download a complete transcript of any message sessions you have. If this does - download it and save it. I just tried it - and you DO have to submit your user/name information, and the VIN# of your vehicle, eventually you get to a form allowing you to fill in your suggestion/complaint. I just entered two items - the walkway key issue (not locking the car) and the lack of key linking to the seat memory and profile memory. To be effective - it's good if other people also message them with the same issues as a concern. There was an option for what car system I was messaging about - I selected the one for communications - there didn't seem to be one for vehicle computer functions.

There is also the option to call them given on that page - I haven't tried it but perhaps I will tomorrow. It will be interesting if it just goes to a chat-bot or a person. I suspect a person since there are hours given when it's active. The phone contact info is: (844)-340-9741 Mon-Fri 5:00 am - 5:00 pm PST, Sat 6:30 am - 3:00 pm PST, Sun Closed

Now we get into the bit more adventuresome contact means - contacting people within the company.

First part of this game plan is knowing who to contact. First Google (or DuckDuckGo) "genesis usa officers" - DuckDuckGo gave me a bunch of links that I'll start exploring, looking for contact info on people in customer relations, product planning, sales - these are the people who can perhaps do something you want done if it's reasonable, possible and presented clearly.

My first try: RocketReach - Find email, phone, social media for 450M+ professionals - gave me a partial listing of officers at Genesis America. It didn't give full email addresses, but a free account will reveal those. You need to have a throwaway Google account to use with this tool. Make up one that you're never going to bother visiting - you just need it to unlock this tool. I did that - and the "Get Contact Info" asked me to log in with a Google account, so I did - then it presented the same group of officers of Genesis with their email addresses. Seeing the email addresses tells me that Genesis, as do many corporations, use the following pattern in assigning email addresses: firstname.lastname@genesis.com - the old "firstname dot lastname" @ company.com email address. This is useful info to know, it lets you contact individual in Genesis where you know their name.

My next result gave me names that might be useful: Genesis Motor North America Names Claudia Marquez As Chief Operating Officer

It tells me "FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective October 1, 2021, Genesis Motor North America has appointed Claudia Marquez as Chief Operating Officer, reporting to José Muñoz, Global COO of Hyundai Motor Company and President & CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. Claudia will lead the strategy and execution of all sales, after-sales, marketing, and growth strategies for Genesis." - giving me the name (and hence email address) of the COO of Genesis Motor NA - Claudia Marquez - and I bet her email address is claudia.marquez@genesis.com - useful to know. Her boss is José Muñoz at Hyundai - perhaps you can think of what his email address might be..

So we have a way to email people in Genesis directly. That is quite useful IF you keep your email businesslike and polite. Going on a rant about some issue that's bugging you will put the email in the bit bucket before the executive even sees it (executives in big corporations have lacky's that pre-sort and filter any incoming communications. A COO never gets to find out she may have won Publisher's Clearinghouse..). Keep it businesslike. Keep it direct and to the point. Keep it short (something I have to work at) and keep it polite. Doing this - I have always received a reply - sometimes from the executive, sometimes from their lacky presorter. They aren't actually ignored.

OK - so now you have several tools to contact people who might make a difference. Next post I'll tell you how to encourage them to make a difference.

This all sounds great. Have you actually tried emailing the COO and CEO? Good luck, haha.
I have, about a year ago (the exact two people you mentioned) after my G70 sunroof exploded on the highway for no reason and all I got out of Genesis Customer Care was a case number (they're great at that part) and a case "worker" who, after a couple of weeks basically told me I was SOL and to call my insurance company. (The case worker asked zero questions and had no interest in the circumstances or details of the failure or in having me send them pics.) The emails and letter I sent to the two execs both came back as undeliverable. What a shock.
You must realize that these execs get hundreds of emails a day, and have all kinds of assistants and tools to screen them. They have much bigger fish to fry and no interest in hearing about somebody's issue.
I wish you luck trying to get a working email address and breaking through their defenses, and even more luck in getting a useful reply.
I also went to the NHTSA website and filed an official report or complaint (I don't remember what they call it), and submitted pics of the shattered sunroof, along with a detailed description of the incident. This also went nowhere and I was never contacted.

 

[Husky]

Looks as if you have all the info necessary to either email him Pete.Donnellan@genesis.com or call him or send a letter... my posts were intended to enable members here to make contact with Genesis instead of just complaining here which aside from venting, (which I do once in a while..) accomplishes little.

I think very few of us here are naive enough to think that the posts on this forum are being read by anyone at Genesis corporate, or that they will have an impact.

 

[EdP]

I think very few of us here are naive enough to think that the posts on this forum are being read by anyone at Genesis corporate, or that they will have an impact.

They make take a peek at times but are smart enough not to reply or join in. That would be a full time job for someone as it would become the main path to customer service. Not to mention they would not have the power to solve every complaint and will just piss off more people.

 

[deilenberger]

Surprisingly - some years ago - BMW corporate did admit at a BMW-CCA meeting held at BMW headquarters in NJ that they did have people assigned to monitoring forums for BMW cars, and had taken action based on some of the items revealed to them on the forums. There were also instances of someone from BMW privately contacting people on the forum who had a legitimate complaint the local dealer couldn't or didn't resolve, and working with them to get a resolution. At that meeting (I was there..) the speaker said "This is the cheapest form of marketing research we've ever found - people talk about what they like and dislike - and it costs us nothing.."

In the Porsche world - I have sent an email to the President of Porsche Cars North America - and got a response and solution from one of his assistants about an issue that the dealer couldn't resolve. Did he reply directly? Nope - I didn't say that would happen - but it might get the email high enough in the corporate food chain for some action to take place.

The other action about NHTSA - I started a campaign on a Porsche forum (I was a moderator and fairly well known there) for members to post complaints when their 2010-2012 V8 Cayenne engines blew up, due to faulty bolts used in the assembly of a variable valve/timing/lift mechanism. The bolt heads would pop off (aluminum bolts) and get jammed in the engine somewhere, and if you were out of warranty, it was about $15,000 for a long block, and about $3,000 to install it.

Enough people followed the directions I gave them on how to fill out the complaint form correctly so ALL the complaints ended up matching. NHTSA's database at the time would trigger a human look-see when ## number of complaints in the same area of a certain model and year car built up above some number (from a friend who programmed that database at NHTSA..) In this case, we got over 20 matching complaints. NHTSA contacted me for information on the complaint - which I gave them - and a bit of other stuff I really can't talk about - the result was a recall was issued for those engines, and the bolts or the adjuster they were in were replaced, and in cases where people had paid for a new engine, they were reimbursed that expense.

You might have noticed I specifically stressed that the communications be done in a civil manner, well-written, business-like, brief, and to the point. That's for ANY communications you expect to have an effect. Generally, you should provide them with why you're writing (what is troubling you), what you've done about it already, and what you feel a reasonable solution would be. I'd suggest going beyond a spell checker - I'd suggest using Grammarly to correct any grammar mistakes. Anything less is likely to be shitcanned.. or bit-bucketed.

Write it out, let it sit for at least a few hours (overnight is better), and then re-read and edit it again, using the guideline of what you would think if you received this message. Then send it.

There are no guarantees this will work, but it damn well will work better than endless bitching about things on forums. And if you include in your message the chest-beating "No more Genesis for me.." you've guaranteed it will be deleted or discarded since you announced you will no longer provide them with profit.

YMMV - but what do you have to lose? At most - a bit of time.