"That's his job - he sells cars."
He does? How? Over the phone perhaps?
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Perhaps the Security man and the salesman should switch jobs...
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>>>> He does? How? Over the phone perhaps?>> >>
So thats where salesman went wrong in his selling technique. And I thought that the complaint was that the salesman got off his armchair to come out and tell a serious "purchaser" what engine size a particular car had! You just can't get the staff these days. Assuming that the salesman was a youth - what do you expect from the eager over-enthusiatic pushy dynamic youth of today. Let the Govt raise retirement age to 70 so we can bring back the laid back old retired couch potato to the office.
Maybe the yoof salesman would have been better off staying at his desk, and let the punter phone his questions over to him on the mobile.
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So apart from trying to be helpful and sell cars, what else did the salesman do wrong?
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RF: >> So apart from trying to be helpful and sell cars, whatelse did the salesman do wrong? >>>>
Holmes: Are you asking me? The reply Watson has given is that his replies were a little sarcy, and he really would gladly employ this salesman any day. Watson did check the date of the Boraports' post to make sure it was not April 1st. Britain needs pushy salespeople, but preferably to sell UK manufactured goods (and preferably though not necessarily UK owned).
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I thought in sales you would try to foster good relations. The conversation as above makes the salesman look rude for no apparent reason. Surely, bid the customer a good day, drop him a card and say give me a ring when you have decided which model you are after etc. would have been a better technique? Or am I missing something??!?
Surely a case of where its easier to be nice than to be rude and the salesman has taken the trickier path and made up an undecided customer's mind for them?
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Glutton: I'll reply to you; and make this my last post in this thread, as I do not wish to monopolise the discussion.
All you said is good practise. You also asked >>" Or am I missing something??!?">>
With the proviso that we take for granted that Borasport has accurately reported the exchanges, and that we do not know the tone of voice used, I would point to these words from the original post:
"... so I asked the man who was walking down the cars closing all the hatches and bonnets if it was a 1500 or an 1800 - he said I'm only the security man, do you want me to find out ? and of course i said yes ... "
Glutton: Ask yourself why did it matter whether the engine was 1500 or 1800 ?? - in light of the following conversation with the salesman who came out to answer this question.
"him - can I help you ?
me - yes, is that a 1.5 or 1.8 ?
him - it's a 1.8 - can i help you more ?
me - no, thats fine
him - anything else ?
me - no, I'd just like to look around the forecourt
him - have you got a car to sell ?
me - yes, but i'd just like a look around thank you
him - we what are you looking for ?
me - I'd just like to have a look round the forecourt - is there a problem with that ?"
Glutton: At what point do you see the first sign of rudeness?
You can draw your own conclusions.
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So even if it was said stroppily, a salesman has never dealt with a stroppy customer??!? Get real!
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Glutton: Sorry to disapoint, but I cannot reply to you, or to Borasport's post below - unlike the salesman in question I do not rise to the bait - ; and anyway, to repeat what I said in my above post, that is my last word on this thread. Night night.
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"him - can I help you ?
me - yes, is that a 1.5 or 1.8 ?
him - it's a 1.8 - can i help you more ?
me - no, thats fine
him - anything else ?
me - no, I'd just like to look around the forecourt
him - have you got a car to sell ?
me - yes, but i'd just like a look around thank you
him - we what are you looking for ?
me - I'd just like to have a look round the forecourt - is there a problem with that ?"
Glutton: At what point do you see the first sign of rudeness?
***********
I got this far in this thread and decided to reply to eMBE,
When the salesman said "anything else" that is when he over stepped the line, every thing else he said after that only added to the salesman's incompetence. and ensured the prospective customer was not going to buy a car. A good salesman would have said, "I'll be over there if you need anything else." and would have possibly approached again as the customer had finished looking.
It wouldn't hurt them just to put a few details including engine size on a piece of card on top of the dash.
When I went to a car supermarket, knowing that I only wanted to look. I discovered that the salesmen have to take it in turns to meet and greet each customer that walks in through the doors, and if the salesman gets someone like me who is there only to look then thats his tough luck and he goes to the back of the queue. I asked him where the 206's were and off I went, stressing to him that I was only there to look. He approached me as I had finished looking and asked again about this and that, and that and this, I politely defended my position and left the showroom. Looking back on this, I accept the salesman was only doing his job and in my opinion he did it rather well.
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eMBe
1) how do I ascertain the engine size of a car without asking someone if it is not on the car itself ?
2 )is it not permitted to walk around a showroom forecourt and be curious ?
I have to grow old - but I don't have to grow up
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But if you say you are "looking around", is it not a perfectly legitimate question (especially from a salesperson's POV) to ask what you are looking around for? Unless the answer was in order to exercise your eye muscles...
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I'd agree that the note of rudeness wasn't introduced by the salesman. Nonetheless I'd have thought it would be part of a salesman's job not to take the bait in this situation: there might be a hope of making a sale and the annoyed prospective customer might go away and tell other potential customers.
I had a comparable experience at a local VW dealer.
Me: I'm wondering if a second hand Polo might be what I'm looking for.
Salesman: What's your price range?
My friend (concerned that the salesman might try to raise his prices to match the answer): we'd rather not say for now.
Salesman: I don't like guessing games.
Needless to say we didn't hang around for very long. The salesman's remark seemed particularly annoying because he'd already pointed us towards a row of unpriced Polos. He told us that VW don't allow prices to be displayed until the cars are prepared for sale. This may be true but it made his remark particularly ill-judged.
Before looking for my first car I had imagined that car salesmen were mean lean selling machines, capable of weighing up anyone who dared enter their forecourts. In fact, although I was a serious buyer, most seemed to categorise me as a probable time waster and expended little or no effort on me. I eventually found the prospect of dealing with them so depressing that I ordered my car via an internet broker.
Guess whose house is in urgent need of replacement windows...
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eMBe, it\'s not so much the salesperson\'s attitude that I was disappointed in but the way he attempted to manage the situation and failed; this is why I\'m puzzled as to how he ever sells any cars. Okay, when I was taught retail sales (not cars but fairly big ticket items) and I appreciate this may not be verbatim.
Him - can I help you ?
Me - Yes, is that a 1.5 or 1.8 ?
Him - It\'s a 1.8 - can i help you more ?
Me - No, thats fine
Him - Anything else
That\'s three closed questions. The salesperson has already given the customer three opportunities to say no. Therefore to take the conversation further, he has to appear pushy.
Me - No, I\'d just like to look around the forecourt
Him - Have you got a car to sell ?
IMO he\'s jumping in too early here. At this stage the customer may just be an FTW (the TW stands for time waster), but it\'s too early to say for certain and he should still be looking to convert the customer.
Moving the conversation on to a financial part of the transaction before building or noticing any desire in the customer beyond a preliminary enquiry is leaving out the stage that makes the deal stick - unless the customer is shopping purely on price, having already chosen the prod>uct.
Me - Yes, but i\'d just like a look around thank you
Him - We[ll] what are you looking for?
Not too bad, first open question, depending on how it\'s said. This could equally be taken as the first introduction of rudeness. Here he could legitimately offer specific help - show things about the product, ask probing questions, but at least that\'s the general direction this question is going in.
Me - I\'d just like to have a look round the forecourt - is there a problem with that?
Him - That\'s igonrant - i\'m just being helpful and you[\'re] being rude and ignorant. Come back when youre intersted in buying a car.
That\'s the salesperson\'s job. Even if it was said rudely and stroppily, the salesperson should try and maintain control and offer to be around if you need me. What the customer is actually doing is raising a standard objection to assert control; salespeople meet with this all the time.
Here, the salesperson can either raise something that he thinks is genuinely worth seeing, or he can simply say, \"No problem, if you want more information or a test drive I\'ll be here,\" and offer his card. That way he\'s built an identity for himself, and even if he thinks he\'s being FTWed he can say that the demo isn\'t available right now but I can book a test drive for such and such time or the guy hasn\'t got his counterpart licence, etc.
It\'s certainly not about giving as good as you get, because even stroppy customers buy somewhere eventually; in fact someone without the money to spend or desire to spend it is less likely to get stroppy because they\'re only there to kill five minutes, not to invest £10k of their cash.
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David - that's a quality answer - have a rec.
CF
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Julian Richer (a quality retailer) once said that it's best to ask customers questions that lead to a "yes" refusal. For example, "Are you alright there?"
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Let the stroppy customer spend his money elsewhere,they only ever give you aggravation,there are always more people out there that are a pleasure to do business with and the stroppy customer always takes too much of your time and effort,lifes too short to have to deal with them.
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eMBe,
I know that you have taken your ball and gone home, but may I just point out that as far as I am aware, the motor trade is a service industry. Therefore, anybody who goes to a car dealers to have a look around can legitimately expect courtesy and professionalism.
The salesman in bora's example acted very unprofessionally, and his business manager even more so. I can identify with bora's frustration as there is nothing that annoys me more when I am just trying to have a look at something than a pushy salesperson.
I can hardly imagine that the dealer principal would have been too chuffed had he (or she) known that his staff's attitude resulted in someone buying a car from the competition. And always remember the old retail maxim - for every good piece of customer service, the customer will relate the tale to five people. For every bad piece, triple that figure.
Bora - was the dealer round my neck of the woods perchance? Initials "CN"?
Cheers
Rob
"Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
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rob -
you win the cigar ! the Wigan Branch
as for what the boss thinks, I'll find out soon enough. I've written to ask him how he squares my experience with the statement that our
'aim is to treat customers the way we would like to be treated '
Also pointed out that I didn't get that sort of treament at the Nissan Dealer in Bolton, or Gordons Honda, and i'm equally certain I won't meet that attitude at Widnes Car Centre or Corkills or Fords of Winsford tomorrow
I have to grow old - but I don't have to grow up
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Surely the point is that todays "just browsing" customer is tomorrows serious sales prospect. When I am in the market for another car, I spend quite a bit of time at garages "just browsing", what I am doing is getting ideas.
In the example in this thread, you can bet that the customer is not going to buy from that garage, and put any commission in the salesman's pocket, under any circumstances.
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