Guide Rant

[derichio02]

My R1S is scheduled for pickup this Thursday and I got an initial text from my guide and ghosted for the past 2 weeks. If I hadn’t already been through the process with my R1T last year I probably would have just cancelled. I will say that “guides” sure have changed since my purchase in Q1 2022. Back then they were super responsive and always at least acknowledged they received my request.

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[R1TS]

From my experience out here on the West, Rivian employees who are customer-facing don't give a flying F about customer service experience.

 

[Joules Burn]

Our guide has been phenomenal.

 

[agsogg]

Didn’t know guides were still a thing. Mines been switched a few times I don’t even contact them anymore. Go straight to CS.

Six months after delivery my guide, Sam, is still very responsive and helpful.

 

[AlanP]

My guide always emails back to me 2 to 4 days later. I just figured that was the normal response time. Doesn’t really matter how urgent the question is. I only call in now with good success.

 

[Count Orlok]

My guide has always told me to do one of the following a) contact customer service b) contact vehicle service or c) contact customer service when even I've reached out.

 

[R1Thor]

I had a pretty cool guide initially--during purchase and delivery.
He checked in almost weekly and sent me some swag.
Always responded to any feedback I provided (surveys and otherwise).

Then suddenly one day I sent him a photo of the truck with an updated Vanity Plate, and never heard from him again.

Found out during a follow-up survey from a completely different guide that he'd been promoted (good for him, genuinely, but the notice ...there was none, and that's pretty crappy of Rivian).

I've heard from that guide once--during that immediate survey follow-up and then letting me know he was my new guide when I said "what happened to XXXX X?" Literally crickets since.

 

[emoore]

Guess I just don’t understand. I thought guides were there to guide you thru your purchase. Not to be there all the time at any given moment. I would never expect to have the same guide or CS person after I bought my truck. And I don’t think it’s crappy for a company not to tell you someone got promoted. I had a different guide when I had questions about the manual tonneau cover shipping. I didn’t expect to have the same one when I bought my truck a year earlier. And I’m sure she got promoted or left the company. Never crossed my mind that Rivian should have informed me of that. It’s none of my business.

 

[R1Thor]

Guess I just don’t understand. I thought guides were there to guide you thru your purchase. Not to be there all the time at any given moment. I would never expect to have the same guide or CS person after I bought my truck. And I don’t think it’s crappy for a company not to tell you someone got promoted. I had a different guide when I had questions about the manual tonneau cover shipping. I didn’t expect to have the same one when I bought my truck a year earlier. And I’m sure she got promoted or left the company. Never crossed my mind that Rivian should have informed me of that. It’s none of my business.

Seems like you're responding to me.

I don't know that I had any real expectations one way or another. But from the interactions I was having (quite frequently--there were times my guide just dropped a text to 'check in' and see how things were going) for a few months after purchase.


I had no expectations going into the Rivian guides 'program,' but it was kinda crappy that it went from 100 to 0 overnight without any heads up. That's my point. And for what it's worth, it's not like one day they say "no more guides." I WAS assigned another one.

Maybe it should be consistent across the board, no? Or there should be a set expectation when assigned guides as to what their intentions are and what the interactions should be.

 

[beyondgravity]

Update: She came through and I think stuck around just past the end of her shift so I'll give her credit on that. Just added some stress to the day. Looking forward to hopefully having a smooth delivery at 9:45 Friday.

She's been pretty responsive (at least seemingly compared to other stories) throughout it - usually within a few hours I'll get a text back. But can't get her on the phone at all and 90% of the stuff would be way more efficient with a quick call. Maybe I'm just getting old.

What is a phone? I agree nowadays it is easier to text 50 times and not get a clear answer with current generation; than just to have a quick call. My guide was awesome; but again it took a while to get responses and right answers to questions. In some cases, he was not clear; but they were minor and I didn’t bother to clarify. I do generally like people at Rivian, they do come across very authentic.

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