The Car Salesman's Thread

[Fox-]

Gary11 said:

Hence HPI have from this month introduced a scheme where by any insurance funded repair is listed on your HPI report with parts pictures and everything....Great 85% of all cars are now pogglers.

Seriously? This seems incredibly unfair - so somebody drives into your door and you have it fixed by the insurers suddenly everyone who bids you for a PX or comes to view it in a private sale in future now thinks its 'been in an accident and worth less'?

I'd imagine they do but it does seem somewhat wrong that they have the right to retain photographs of your property and then sell them, at a profit, to others?

It's totally different if its written off - its the insurers property (even if only technically) at that point therefore informing HPI etc is different.

But with no writeoff involved?

[Clivey]

Fox- said:

Gary11 said:

Hence HPI have from this month introduced a scheme where by any insurance funded repair is listed on your HPI report with parts pictures and everything....Great 85% of all cars are now pogglers.

Seriously? This seems incredibly unfair - so somebody drives into your door and you have it fixed by the insurers suddenly everyone who bids you for a PX or comes to view it in a private sale in future now thinks its 'been in an accident and worth less'?

I'd imagine they do but it does seem somewhat wrong that they have the right to retain photographs of your property and then sell them, at a profit, to others?

It's totally different if its written off - its the insurers property (even if only technically) at that point therefore informing HPI etc is different.

But with no writeoff involved?

This is VERY interesting...I've had insurance funded repairs done to my cars but IMO they should add to the value as those parts of the car are now literally "as new"!

[POORCARDEALER]

Gary11 said:

750turbo said:

Absolutely, and this from a Renault Main Dealer!!!

Shocking.

Hence HPI have from this month introduced a scheme where by any insurance funded repair is listed on your HPI report with parts pictures and everything....Great 85% of all cars are now pogglers.

Got the stuff from Hpi yesterday...what a joke.....Worse thing is under "Unfair Selling Regulations" if you know the car has had some repairs carried out and do not tell the customer you could be committing an offence, as it "may have effected their buying decision"......I will carry on appraising cars myself, wont be ticking the box when I Hpi.

[crazy about cars]

AtticusFinch said:

A customer who despite the DP phoning to discuss and says everything was excellent gives such a poor customer service feed back that the salesman gets fined £100 (his whole commission on the deal)

Edited by AtticusFinch on Thursday 4th October 08:47

This is interesting. I didn't realise customer complaints will go this fair. I've only complaint once and that's because the salesman completely ignored me when I called back within few days to report a defect with the car. I kept getting passed around and never got a callback so I complaint with the reception. Did get a callback after that from the sales manager though.

[POORCARDEALER]

crazy about cars said:

AtticusFinch said:

A customer who despite the DP phoning to discuss and says everything was excellent gives such a poor customer service feed back that the salesman gets fined £100 (his whole commission on the deal)

Edited by AtticusFinch on Thursday 4th October 08:47

This is interesting. I didn't realise customer complaints will go this fair. I've only complaint once and that's because the salesman completely ignored me when I called back within few days to report a defect with the car. I kept getting passed around and never got a callback so I complaint with the reception. Did get a callback after that from the sales manager though.

We used to get fined for mis appraisal of part exchanges...teaches you to appraise properly very quickly

[AtticusFinch]

crazy about cars said:

AtticusFinch said:

A customer who despite the DP phoning to discuss and says everything was excellent gives such a poor customer service feed back that the salesman gets fined £100 (his whole commission on the deal)

Edited by AtticusFinch on Thursday 4th October 08:47

This is interesting. I didn't realise customer complaints will go this fair. I've only complaint once and that's because the salesman completely ignored me when I called back within few days to report a defect with the car. I kept getting passed around and never got a callback so I complaint with the reception. Did get a callback after that from the sales manager though.

Not a complaint but a survey carried out from the Manufacturer after taking delivery of a new car.

In this instance the customer would "only" give a "very good" score this qualifies as an 8 out of 12 score so £100 fine for the salesman involved.
Completely satisfied gives a 10 out of 12
Extremely satisfied gets a 12 out of 12 (bingo bonus time)

Now I have to admit being a person who never gives a top score (where's the room for improvement then) so you have to feel sorry for these guys. How can I be any more satisfied than Completely?

[LHD]

Grenoble said:

Not helped by strange customer service surveys wher the response "excellent" is not the highest grade.

Apparently the customer has to say "exceptional" or "outstanding" to get the highest. Not two words that the British normally use or that come to mind when describing a car service.

Guess the brand?

Land Rover.

[yellowbentines]

Zwolf said:

Dealers do often include a blank template questionnaire in the handover pack with the key questions and desired responses highlighted and mention it at the point of handover.

When picking up my last car the SM came over at handover, introduced himself, ran through the questionnaire he said I could expect via email, and asked if there was any reason I wouldn't be ticking the top box for each question/category - a good idea and I'd no problem with it, he said if there was any issues he'd rather he dealt with them there and then rather than him getting a call from head office the week later.

So, when I got the questionnaire of course I felt obliged to tick the top box for each!

[AtticusFinch]

yellowbentines said:

When picking up my last car the SM came over at handover, introduced himself, ran through the questionnaire he said I could expect via email, and asked if there was any reason I wouldn't be ticking the top box for each question/category - a good idea and I'd no problem with it, he said if there was any issues he'd rather he dealt with them there and then rather than him getting a call from head office the week later.

So, when I got the questionnaire of course I felt obliged to tick the top box for each!

Sounds like a Sytner script (It's called educating the customer and works)

[mercfunder]

AtticusFinch said:

In this instance the customer would "only" give a "very good" score this qualifies as an 8 out of 12 score so £100 fine for the salesman involved.
Completely satisfied gives a 10 out of 12
Extremely satisfied gets a 12 out of 12 (bingo bonus time)

Beats me why anyone would want to work in a industry where this is the norm.

[AtticusFinch]

mercfunder said:

Beats me why anyone would want to work in a industry where this is the norm.

The industry is changing. People who don't like it get out (me) new employees accept it as the norm.

[HTP99]

Our CS is based on a customer being "completely satisfied", most are however the guy this weekend who collected wasn't.

He wasn't completely satisfied because he was mis-informed by the finance company what to do with the car he was VT'ing, they told him it had to be taken back to the dealer, which is wrong, it is collected from his house, this was cleared up before he collected his new car however he wasn't completely satisfied due to the mis-information, I explained that this wasn't our fault (the dealer) however as far as he was concerned the finance company and us are one and the same and it has soured his experience.

Even though it wasn't us making him dis-satisfied it will go down against us and affect our CS score.

Another is the service dept this week was marked down due to a customer expressing his dis-satisfaction due to our hourly charges, he explained that he was completely satisfied with us, the service he received and the way we dealt with him and the time scales, unfortunately it will still go down as not completely satisfied and affect us, we have heard the telephone recording and are appealing the decision, however appeals usually go nowhere.

With sales we have a form that we ask the customer to fill in, which is just for us to make sure that they are completely satisfied to make sure that there are no issues, if there are then maybe we can rectify these issues so as to get a completely satisfied score.

It is all very black and white and no grey area

It's almost as if the manufacturer want us to fail as then we lose out on bonus monies.

[Grenoble]

LHD said:

Land Rover.

It was Audi, but I see now from this thread that they are not alone....

[Zwolf]

HTP99 said:

It's almost as if the manufacturer want us to fail as then we lose out on bonus monies.

• Almost*

[AtticusFinch]

HTP99 said:

It's almost as if the manufacturer want us to fail as then we lose out on bonus monies.

No they don't they want you to educate customers (see above) This way the ASM will get his bonus the national sales manager will get his bonus and the directorate can huddle around in (self denial?) a mutual congratulation society about how well they are doing and pay themselves huge bonuses. (stastics don't lie apparently)

[rj1986]

Grenoble said:

2You might be well suited to a premium brand with a soft sell approach - quality used or high end - where clients want more or a relationship manager in effect, not a salesman?

So what sort of sales figures would, for example, an Aston Martin sales guy expect to do in a year?

[AOK]

Zwolf said:

Odd, as in every instance I've ever known of new car CS questionnaires, the manufacturer writes/e-mails/calls directly to the customer, triggered by the AFRL registration process to preclude precisely that outcome.

Likewise when it's a used car and the dealer/dealer group/PLC overlords do it, it circumvents the sales department until that month's results have all been collated and a mass bking or faint praising occurs at the opening meeting of the new month. The only facility dealers have to stop a particular customer getting a questionnare is to mail-stop them prior to registering their new car.

Dealers do often include a blank template questionnaire in the handover pack with the key questions and desired responses highlighted and mention it at the point of handover.

At a place I used to work, we had new car CS calls on about 10% of customers... if there was an absolute problem deal, one where even the SM has been involved and despite every effort it was granted that the customer would dig into us, admin would change 1 digit of the phone number on keridge or add a dot in the email address. It was a 1 in a thousand occurance, but damage control nevertheless

[whoami]

AOK said:

Zwolf said:

Odd, as in every instance I've ever known of new car CS questionnaires, the manufacturer writes/e-mails/calls directly to the customer, triggered by the AFRL registration process to preclude precisely that outcome.

Likewise when it's a used car and the dealer/dealer group/PLC overlords do it, it circumvents the sales department until that month's results have all been collated and a mass bking or faint praising occurs at the opening meeting of the new month. The only facility dealers have to stop a particular customer getting a questionnare is to mail-stop them prior to registering their new car.

Dealers do often include a blank template questionnaire in the handover pack with the key questions and desired responses highlighted and mention it at the point of handover.

At a place I used to work, we had new car CS calls on about 10% of customers... if there was an absolute problem deal, one where even the SM has been involved and despite every effort it was granted that the customer would dig into us, admin would change 1 digit of the phone number on keridge or add a dot in the email address. It was a 1 in a thousand occurance, but damage control nevertheless

Good to know that honestly is alive and well in the car sales game...

[Arthur Daley]

Have you ever been on a manufacturer training course when about four of the sales guys phones ring.....

[Zwolf]

Arthur Daley said:

Have you ever been on a manufacturer training course when about four of the sales guys phones ring.....

No, but...