Salesman goes into the back for ages to talk to his manager

Salesman goes into the back for ages to talk to his manager

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Discussion

Wacky Racer

38,099 posts

246 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
unrepentant said:
Did you manage to shift that parcel of left footed trainers I sold you?
grumpy

M4cruiser

3,546 posts

149 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
deadslow said:
grumbledoak said:
walk out while he's gone.
yes
I wanted to do this walking out thing (many years ago) but then I realised that the salesman, having test driven my car round the block, had kept the keys, and gone to see his "manager"!! redface

I learned a lot from that day. And I didn't buy his car. When he came out I got the keys back and left.

It was a Rover dealer.

DonkeyApple

54,920 posts

168 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
unrepentant said:
Wacky Racer said:
unrepentant said:
Wacky Racer said:
This. Oldest trick in the book.

Probably gone in the office to look at some porn on the manager's computer, whilst saying "Let those mugs sweat a bit".....biggrin
You're too cynical Wacky.

When I used to send my sales reps in to sell you trainers I told them to call me at least 3 times to beg so you were convinced you were getting the best deal. hehe
Of course I wasn't referring to you rep, as we all know on here you and your dealership are 100% professional and above board, you wouldn't dream of stooping to such sneeky underhand tactics...









Would you?

biggrin
Moi?





Did you manage to shift that parcel of left footed trainers I sold you?
Took a massive hit offloading them and still stuck with the parcel of right footed trainers. biggrin

Wacky Racer

38,099 posts

246 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
M4cruiser said:
It was a Rover dealer.
The car was probably a dog anyway.

unrepentant

21,212 posts

255 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
M4cruiser said:
I wanted to do this walking out thing (many years ago) but then I realised that the salesman, having test driven my car round the block, had kept the keys, and gone to see his "manager"!! redface

I learned a lot from that day. And I didn't buy his car. When he came out I got the keys back and left.

It was a Rover dealer.
A lot of dealers will keep the keys to the trade in at the "desk" after it's been appraised. It's a good way of making sure the salesman doesn't let the customer leave. We don't do that.

Wacky Racer

38,099 posts

246 months

Thursday 11th February 2016
quotequote all
unrepentant said:
A lot of dealers will keep the keys to the trade in at the "desk" after it's been appraised. It's a good way of making sure the salesman doesn't let the customer leave. We don't do that.
No, you let the trade in's tyres down.

You can't kid the kid who's kidded thousands...

berlintaxi

8,535 posts

172 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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Downward said:
Working in Purchasing you never see sales people scurry away to managers to seal deals and we are buying equipment worth much more than cars.
Complete bks, there are numerous occasions where sales people will leave a meeting without the order to see if they can squeeze a little more off the price, if everything you purchase is straight list price you ain't much of a buyer.

Cyder

7,045 posts

219 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
unrepentant said:
M4cruiser said:
I wanted to do this walking out thing (many years ago) but then I realised that the salesman, having test driven my car round the block, had kept the keys, and gone to see his "manager"!! redface

I learned a lot from that day. And I didn't buy his car. When he came out I got the keys back and left.

It was a Rover dealer.
A lot of dealers will keep the keys to the trade in at the "desk" after it's been appraised. It's a good way of making sure the salesman doesn't let the customer leave. We don't do that.
We went to look at a car at a carshopwhistle in Northampton and to test drive my wife had to hand over her licence. Following he test drive we decided we didn't like the car and decided to look elsewhere but they weren't keen on giving back her driving licence.

Being a pregnant hormonal angry ginge she went absolutely ballistic at the salesman after a few minutes of him fking her around and demanded her licence back and announced she wouldn't buy a car from them ever. hehe

CorbynForTheBin

12,230 posts

193 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
Downward said:
Working in Purchasing you never see sales people scurry away to managers to seal deals and we are buying equipment worth much more than cars.
We had a recent 'go/no-go' meeting with IBM, on a $500m contract.

Funnily enough, the people that went into the room on both sides had the 'power' to make a deal, inc negotiation.

DonkeyApple

54,920 posts

168 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
CorbynForTheBin said:
Downward said:
Working in Purchasing you never see sales people scurry away to managers to seal deals and we are buying equipment worth much more than cars.
We had a recent 'go/no-go' meeting with IBM, on a $500m contract.

Funnily enough, the people that went into the room on both sides had the 'power' to make a deal, inc negotiation.
But that's why it's almost certainly a ruse and part of the game to sweat a deal out of a retail buyer.

No one is going to run a sales team where the sales staff sell below their operating range continuously. If they were really going off to ask permission to close a deal below their approved remit then all they are doing is asking their boss each time to replace them with an actual salesman.

Mr E

21,581 posts

258 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
Cyder said:
We went to look at a car at a carshopwhistle in Northampton and to test drive my wife had to hand over her licence. Following he test drive we decided we didn't like the car and decided to look elsewhere but they weren't keen on giving back her driving licence.

Being a pregnant hormonal angry ginge she went absolutely ballistic at the salesman after a few minutes of him fking her around and demanded her licence back and announced she wouldn't buy a car from them ever. hehe
I've told this tale before. We went to look at a car and upon arrival discovered it was a car supermarket type place. The sort of establishment that was more interested in finance than product (or finance was the product).

The car was well priced, and actually pretty good. We'd probably have bought it. But, on expressing interest we were taken to another guy who wanted to sort the finance and take a deposit before being allowed to test drive it.

A brief discussion ensued. I walked.

I'm sure he thinks I'm a dreamer, or a pillock. Or both.

We bought a very similar car the following week from an independent dealer who upon arrival threw me the keys and told me to bring it back when the petrol ran out.

One method does not fit all customers.

Pints

18,444 posts

193 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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oldnbold said:
Well thats the problem, just like bread, shoes and the camara there is a price on a car and it's advertised all over the internet so it's easy for you to just select the cheapest one from the adds and go and pay your money and drive the car away. Easy.

Except its not like that because you turn up at a dealer already knowing the price but you want to pay less. So the negotiations start. There are people who just turn up pay the advertised price and leave, just like buying bread.
Exactly. I really don't have the patience or inclination to negotiate on the price. If you want to negotiate, be prepared to put up with the salesman's bullst.

Ashley1111

757 posts

209 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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HTP99 said:
unrepentant said:
I work for a Mercedes-Benz dealer in the US and we no longer use that system. J D Power surveys have shown that customers hate all the back and forth and also hate being handed over to F&I managers so we don't do that either. I moved from JLR to MB mainly because of this process.

When you buy a car from me I do everything including all the negotiation and all the F&I. We don't have business managers and we don't go to the sales manager to get a deal approved. We have all the numbers and run our own deals. I know exactly what I can sell every car for and I can advise you best on finance v lease and show you every scenario in a no pressure setting and let you decide. We have fantastic Customer Experience scores and very happy customers. We also have very happy sales people who make a lot of money and sell a lot of cars.

Now that won't work at the local Chevy or Nissan store where the average sales person lasts 6 months but if you have a strong experienced sales team and you sell a luxury product it works and I'm sure it's the future, over here at any rate.
Exactly how I am allowed to operate, I am trusted to structure deals and finance, how I see fit, I can advise on different ways of buying and I have access to all offers and margins, it makes life so much easier for both myself and the customer and it makes the whole buying process so much easier for both the customer and me.

I've been selling cars for about 15 years, I've always been trusted to structure my own deals and I still don't understand how the concept of a "business manager" works; I've gained sales from rival dealerships where people have walked out due to frustration of hanging around waiting for finance figures or salesman who "haven't a clue".

Many dealerships make the whole buying process so difficult for themselves; it does make you wonder how they sell cars in the first place.
I was at a Jaguar dealer in London for 5 years and this is exactly how I worked. I did everything for pricing part exchange, dealing on price of car, arranging finance and all paperwork / order forms. Boss would give it a final glance over if I asked him to if I knew it was skinny but was always happy. Funnily enough I sold loads of cars and did very well for myself. (second in the whole national Jaguar network :-)

When I re-located back to Leeds I started at a Land Rover dealer where you had no authority on any pricing and the back and forth rubbish was constant. I just couldn't get on with it. Left about 6 months ago and now do contract hire and finance broking and have all the authority I need to do deals and am loving it.... Would never go back to that model of selling.

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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I hate LR dealers. The way they do business just does not attract customers. First thing they do is get their pen out and start filling in a form, rather than showing you round the cars.


anothernameitist

1,500 posts

134 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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Having worked in the motor trade in the past, i've seen allsorts, most covered in this thread.

I've just bought a nearly new car from a franchised dealer.

Went in knowing what I wanted, did test drive, PX valued. balance to change given. needed to revise that downwards!

Was straight with the sales person what I wanted in terms of price and a delivery date, buying in January but needed in February.

They didn't think the delivery date of february was possible!!!

no sales manager in on the Sunday so couldn't do the deal, but got backe to me on Monday with a delivery date of february and also matched the deal i wanted.

Very easy and pleasant process.

SpeedyDave

417 posts

225 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
unrepentant said:
I work for a Mercedes-Benz dealer in the US.

...

Now that won't work at the local Chevy or Nissan store where the average sales person lasts 6 months but if you have a strong experienced sales team and you sell a luxury product it works and I'm sure it's the future, over here at any rate.
What do you think about Tesla's direct sales model and their fight with the franchise networks, auto dealers association etc?

laters

324 posts

113 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
The last time I was in the local main dealers looking at a used car the salesman tried this tactic a couple of times.

His managers office was in the corner of the glass palace and fully visible from where we were sat.

He went off to talk to his manager to see about the possible part ex value and then to see if they could move on the final price (with or without part ex). Well that's what he said.

Being hard of hearing I can lip read better than most and on both visits to his managers office they discussed everything except the deal I was trying to negotiate.

When he went for the third time to talk to the manager, this time to talk to him about the faults/repairs needed on the car I was looking at, they had a quite long discussion about the football from the night before.
When he returned after a good ten mins I stopped him and asked him about the football. He looked a bit puzzled so I pointed out the hearing aids I was wearing and told him I could lip read over a distance quite well.

He went very red and suddenly lost all interest in visiting his manager.

We never came to a deal on the car, it didn't help that my wife found it for sale on their ebay clearance section while we were waiting for him for £2000 less than his best price. If he hadn't stalled so much she may never of even looked at their ebay sales as she saw the car while she was browsing on her phone while we waited.

Shakermaker

11,317 posts

99 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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Certainly from my recent-ish experience of buying a used car from my local franchised Skoda dealership, they appeared to have a number of sales people who can actually do the deal with you, and then there are a number of other staff who are not quite the sales people and are mostly there to conduct the test drives and demonstrate the cars.

Seemed to work well for me, perhaps I was lucky in that the 2 chaps I dealt with were both proper sales people and there was no need for them to go into the manager's office to authorise the deal, he could see all the numbers on his screen, the only person he had to contact was the finance people to check they were happy to loan me the money.

But when I was in for my MOT recently, there was a couple who were interested in a new Fabia and they were dealing with a more junior member of staff who could show them how the boot opened and where the oil cap was etc, but she hadn't got the authority to make the final deal on the sale when it came to talking numbers.

Perhaps they are keeping costs down by only having a few higher-paid persons making sales as they must know how many "enquiries" convert to final sales?

Whether that ratio would increase if they had more sales people, I couldn't know.

thorpexmma

2 posts

97 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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Maybe it's me being Naive, but I always assumed it was just for them to get approval from their boss. Most of the sales guys I've encountered are still spotty teens so probably don't have the authority to do the actual deals.

Recently ordered a new XF and the guy had to run up and down the stairs 4 or 5 times just to answer my questions. Told it would be 6-8 weeks for delivery....... 16 weeks and counting

superlightr

12,842 posts

262 months

Friday 12th February 2016
quotequote all
Audi - new car. Used car wow to get the lowest price. Test drove the car I wanted at a main dealer. Told them the deal I had from car wow and would they match it? Yes they could. Bought car from main dealer. easy. good experience.

BMW - new car as above with what car target price. easy. good experience.

Merc - used car- told them the price I was happy to pay if they could do it at that price I would buy it. They could I did - easy. good experience.

BMW - used car - as above but with lots of back and forths to sales manager verge of not bothering as taking too long/ getting fed up. not a good experience. In the end they did go with the price I offered. Would not mess around like that again. Poor experience.

Porks - new - thats the price - either I paid or I didnt Good experience
Porks - used - gentle negotiations, no time wasting - good experience.

Saab - used - gave us the keys come back in a few hours. It was priced well, slight negotiations but with just one guy. He was very pleasant so happy to do a quick deal. Good experience.


I think they key is for me when buying a car is that its hassle free, straight talking etc we dont waste each others time that way or get stressed.