>>A deserted Mini dealership, mid-week, mid-afternoon. I go and open the door of a Cooper and 10 seconds later the alarm goes off. Salesman comes running and across and tells me I shouldn't sit in the cars without asking. Alarm can't be turned off because the car battery is flat. I ask to test drive one and am told there's a two day notice period for test drives. I gaze across the empty showroom, smile politely and walk away. The end (of their chances of selling me a car).
Roll on Tescos, Sainsburys etc. selling cars>>
Couldn't agree more.
I have recently been in dealerships for Saab, VW and Renault. Comments are :-
Saab - look of incredulity as I asked to look inside three 9.5 estates on the forecourt. Several minutes to find keys. Once inside the cars (which I had taken the trouble to do some research on), salesman had NO IDEA about the cars.
Didn't know insurance group, bhp, mpg or anything on all three cars - pathetic. I don't sell Saab and I knew all the above from simply checking car data sources.
VW - spent 20 minutes poring over a Golf estate and not a single person came over to have a word. I saw over a dozen VW people 'busying' around. I was in casual clothing, made a point of looking as though I needed (and wanted) some assistance - but nothing. I drive a Passat and I think the whole VW quality/service issue is a myth.
Renault - I knew this dealership had a 2.2 Dci estate available as a demo and, during my inspection of a showroom car, asked if they had any used/demo models available. No, was the reply. It is still there, today, on the forecourt exactly to the spec I was interested in.
My opinion is these guys don't have a clue on how to sell and they must have life far too easy propped up by fleet sales, company cars etc.etc.
If they had to go out and buy their own car, I am sure they would see another world.
JD
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Absolutely agree. In spite of a previous thread where some respondents said that 'salesman' have a sixth sense, when it comes to tyre kickers, I am of the view that they haven't a clue.
A few years ago with cash to spend ( from a house sale) I went looking for a new car, armed with a shortlist and having done some research. I was dressed in casual clothes and some dealers could barely be bothered to speak to me as if the thought of me sitting in one of their automobiles might taint it. I got a bit fed up with that so the next time I went looking I wore a suit and carried my briefcase. The silly salesman were falling over themselves to sell me a car. I even got one for the day so I went to visit my parents. What does that say about their 'sixth sense?'
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I was wearing my best whistle as well!
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Find another Beemer dealer then. Don't let this bad experience put you off a brilliant little car.
It's not the cars fault is it? Would you buy a FIAT if the dealer was suitably fawning? Didn't think so.........
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I used to drive an extra, approx, 15 miles to avoid my local VW dealer. The local one was appalling - the other was great.
I think the lesson here is a bit like where you have your bank account. Good staff and a good manager are more important than which brand you go to.
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This brought to mind a client I once had. The were in the biz of very high end geodemographic systems - ie they map what kind of people buy what kind of goods/services in any given location. They had data from the DVLA (I think, it was a few years ago) which showed the clustering of sales of particular makes around dealerships and whilst say Lada might have had say 2% of the total new car market nationally, within a couple of miles of their dealerships their share of all new cars sold was upwards of 10%. This would suggest that the majority do not discriminate massively between makes it's more a question of what's available to hand.
The hierarchy of marketing messages in different media (which Ford used to exemplify best of all) was 1. National press/TV - Buy a Ford. 2. Regional TV - Pennine/N East etc. Ford Dealers have great deals on 3. Local paper - Get them from Norberts - your local Ford specialist
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Absolutely agree. In spite of a previous thread where some respondents said that 'salesman' have a sixth sense, when it comes to tyre kickers, I am of the view that they haven't a clue. A few years ago with cash to spend ( from a house sale) I went looking for a new car, armed with a shortlist and having done some research. I was dressed in casual clothes and some dealers could barely be bothered to speak to me as if the thought of me sitting in one of their automobiles might taint it. I got a bit fed up with that so the next time I went looking I wore a suit and carried my briefcase. The silly salesman were falling over themselves to sell me a car. I even got one for the day so I went to visit my parents. What does that say about their 'sixth sense?'
In the original post I pointed out how this 6th sense *always* rang true because nobody ever bought from them.
In other words, the salesman decides somebody isn't going to buy and treats them accordingly. By some strange coincidence, that customer doesn't buy from them! In their mind, they were right about that "timewaster". In the mind of the customer, see the first post on this thread. It's magic.....
I thought it got misunderstood first time round. To see my comments come back out of context in this thread really had me worried!
Can somebody tell me that they get my point here? Please??
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Sorry, No Dosh, I get your point now. Perhaps, I should read more carefully in future.
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Cheers bafta. Thought I was going mad!
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Most posters on this thread indicate they have l - o - n - g memories.
My brother's car was washed off a hotel forecourt into a flooded stream a couple of decades ago.
In desperation, went to the adjacent petrol garage asking to borrow a rope. Yes they had one, but they didn't want to get it wet ...
I won't say I haven't ever bought that brand of petrol ever in the meantime, but at least, never without remembering this incident.
Oz (as was)
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I recently changed cars and before long I became convinced that some dealers really and truly didn't want to sell me one of their motors.
I generally went looking on my lunch break with a colleague so we both had a shirt and tie on, not super-smart but not scruffy either. Time after time, despite me pondering over various cars on the forecourt and/or in the showroom with a look of great interest, we were simply left to our own devices, until we got bored and walked away.
I had a £9k car to trade in and was looking to get something worth £13-£15k, so you'd think it'd be worth their while to at least ask if they could help me with anything.
The Hyundai dealer was appalling, the salesman did at least approach me but then completely ignored my requirements and was desperate to sell me a brand new Elantra, he even admitted he wanted to shift it before the end of the month so they'd hit their quota. He was irritatingly pushy too, so I left, pledging never to return.
The Rover/Volvo dealer clearly had pretensions of grandeur and the salesman completely ignored us, I quite liked the look of the MGs, but I wasn't going to go begging to be told about them.
The Ford dealer did at least have a friendly, open salesman - but his prices were on the high side. I agreed to return for a test drive on Sunday with the nearest and dearest, "There'll be someone here all morning", he said. We turned up on Sunday at 1030am and found a deserted garage, a 50 mile round trip therefore being wasted. Another one struck off the list forever.
The guy at the Skoda dealer was ever so nice but only had two basic Fabias and a used Octavia in stock, so no joy there.
I'd already decided I'd had enough of my local Honda dealer but decided to give them one last chance. The salesman waved vaguely at some cars I might like (after I'd dragged him away from whatever he was doing on his computer which was so absorbing his attention) and then started to moan about how little money they made on each sale, wondering what the f**k that was supposed to have to do with me, I made my excuses and left. That dealer has lost Honda a customer forever (a shame because I actually quite like their cars).
The Vauxhall and Toyota dealers are next door to each other, however, the site of two smart young men driving up in a £9k Accord and looking with great interest at the latest Vectras and Corollas and a tasty Celica clearly wasn't enough to tempt them up off their a***s into the chilly winter air. We even looked into the showrooms and made eye contact a couple of times, the result of this was one of the salesmen going to the coffee machine to get himself a nice drink. We left.
(Also note that my colleague, a fairly well to do family man who'll be looking for a sporty new car for himself soon, was taking note of all of this as well, some of these dealers have lost him as a potential customer without even saying a word to him.)
A couple of independent dealers yielded fruit in much better attention and salesmanship, although neither had a motor that fitted my criteria, trade-in offers were lower too.
A third independent dealer was remarkably shabby, I spied a very nice looking Polo GTi (cheaper than my target market but it caught my eye). Not knowing much about the car as I hadn't researched it I asked the dealer, "Could you give me a bit of information on this Polo please?", "It's a Polo", he replied. Every extra piece of information was extracted from him in a similar fashion. End result, one nice car, one very disinterested buyer.
The Peuegot dealer was chronic, despite us spending some 15 minutes in the very large forecourt, no one came to say a word to us. I was interested in a nice BMW 3 series (they don't just sell Peugeots) and a couple of others, but again, I wasn't going to go begging.
It was a similar story at the Renault dealer.
I never even bothered with VW/Audi dealer, a friend bought a nearly new Golf GTi from there 2 1/2 years ago, apart from having numerous problems with it inside warranty she was then hit with a whopping £600 routine service bill one month outside of warranty, when she questioned it she was told it was essential work and her warranty would be invalidated if she didn't agree to get the work done. I reckon VW/Audi are wildly overrated anyway, and after hearing that tale I was doubly uninclined to pay a visit.
I was pretty much giving up hope, but then got delightfully good service at the SEAT/Mazda/Ford dealer (they like to cover all the bases). Within moments of pulling up and starting to look about a salesman approached and politely asked if he could help me, I outlined my requirements, he suggested a few options, and also let me know about cars he was expecting to arrive in the near future. No pressure, just good advice and a keen interest in my needs.
I returned a few days later to chase up a particular car, he apologised and said there'd be a delay with it arriving but he'd call me as soon as it was in, in the meantime I was welcome to test drive any other car they had.
By this time I'd spotted a rather nice Ibiza Cupra, and requested a test drive, he replied it was a bit short on petrol at that time, so he offered me a coffee, took the car round the corner to put some petrol in, then gave me the key. I said I'd want to take it for a decent length drive to get a proper feel for it, he said no problem. After the test drive I sat down with him, sorted out a good trade-in on my old car and the deal was done.
He then sorted out all the change of ownership forms, put a year's tax on, and handed the car over later that week fully valeted and freshly washed with a full tank of petrol, the 6-CD changer had been fitted as per my request and he reiterated that I should call him if I ever had any questions or problems.
That was a month ago, I'm very happy with the car, very happy with the service I've received, I've spread the word to my family and friends (my father-in-law is after trading his Golf GT-TDi in for a Leon Cupra) and that's definitely where I'll return next time I change cars.
In many ways I was a very "easy" sale, all I was after was decent, friendly service and the right car at the right price. It's amazing that out of all the dealers I visited so few could deliver something so basic.
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