Car Salesman Dropped Me Like A Hot Potato
Discussion
daemon said:
KingNothing said:
The only thing you learn from a pistonheads car salesmen thread after the resident salesmen have chimed in, is; if you want to get anywhere; lie you're arse off to them to pass their rigorous "qualifying" criteria. otherwise if you say one minor thing that irks them, you're branded a tyrekicking timewaster not worthy of their time, even if you are genuinely ready to buy from them.
Its hardly "vigorous". I've never yet had ANY problems buying a car - or getting time with a car salesman - when i wanted to.
Theres clearly more happening here than the O/P is letting on.
4941cc said:
Agreed. Periods like the last 10 days of March maybe?
The biggest month of the year and broadly speaking, your make or break point for the whole rest of the year, where you're either ahead of your numbers, or chasing for the next 9 months - which we're currently in and most are utterly frazzled following a period since the New Year with no annual leave permitted to be taken in 2 of those three months, working rota days off and extra Sundays just to secure your quarter and thus your year early etc.
Event weekends such as we have in mid Feb and early March, test drives of even 15 minutes around the block aren't available, we explain to people if they want a great deal, now is a good time, so sit down and let's talk, but if they want the full nine yards, they'll need to reappoint at a time when we can allocate sufficient time to give them that experience. Given the choice and explained the reason why, the majority sit down and talk about and do deals, others are happy to reappoint a bit later and be given the due time, whereas the kickers get the arse and rant on the internet.
We secured our March and Q1 numbers with a fortnight to spare and as such, get the reward of an increased target to take up the slack of other branches that are lagging behind (amusingly, it's our Retailers making up for the Corporate team's shortfall...) - so we have that to deal with as well as delivering all the cars, typically three times a normal month's business, whilst still ensuring our buyers have no reason at all to return anything other than a Completely Satisfied experience, which takes more effort in terms of time and organisation than just doing the deal with the customer ever did.
In school holidays however, the OP would however have recieved a different experience, as time is considerably more free and prospects thinner on the ground. There will have been an effort vs potential reward vs potential loss of opportunity time and cost analysis by the individual, based upon their own particular workload at that time.
Yes we are brand ambassadors to a point. But investing an hour or two fulfilling a fairly basic and obvious requirement was deemed not to be as worthwhile as whatever else they had to do that day.
Valeters, drivers and so on are all flat out too and as for "take it during lunch" - taking a car to a customer to test drive off site is rather more doing work than taking a lunch break isn't it? (We don't tend to take lunch hours like regular humans, because customers are demanding as it is). Would the prospect be happy for a salesperson to turn up with a demo, pasty in hand, park it in the garage for them and bugger off? I doubt it very much. It's not an experience anyone I know would want to deliver either.
Quite often we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. So might as well be selective to a degree as to how best to make use of our working time.
I've lost track of how many times people have pulled the garage query. I ask them if they have their garage dimensions to hand, as I have the car dimensions for both their current and prospective purhcase, so we can work together to solve it with some fairly rudimentary arithmetic. "Err no, we haven't measured it..." - if it's *that* vital, they would have. I have also taken cars to people's homes, provided the service, to people who have qualified as worth investing the time to do so. Car fits, they are pleased and take it as "food for thought", then vanish into the telephonic abyss. Pay a little visit later and you see a new car with Arval/Leaseplan/Hitachi plates etc. Buyers are liars, we know this.
If "all you have to do for my business is bring a car and it fit in my garage", no problem. Let's work out the figures, ensure that we are eligible suppliers, have a vehicle to the right specification that we can supply at an agreeable timescale, take a deposit subject, raise a provisional order subject to that condition. Then they start squirming and you know they only need to take up another minute or two of your time.
We are well recompensed for what we do. Exercising our own judgement is a part of that and being able to state your reasons for not following up a particular course of action and being prepared to be accountable for it is another part of it. Occasionally you get it wrong and you get a howler ring your boss or head office, who then ask your side of it. They'll usually agree with you, but get somebody else on the team to follow up with the customer and oblige the customer's request, if it's a reasonable one - at a reasonable time, both to the customer and for the business. Right now, we'd get roasted for doing an offsite test drive in the last week of March/Q1 for a single vehicle user and likely a forward order for a negligible profit anyway.
A company car user chooser can request a corporate demonstrator for evaluation via their fleet manager in any case, which means you usually get a driver or corporate sales bod deliver a car to your place of work for a couple of days, a much better opportunity to evaluate than going into a retailer for a normal test drive, usually with a retail sales exec who doesn't want to spend the time with a non-opportunity anyway. It's usually a result of lazy company fleet managers who can't be bothered to arrange these through the correct channel and just tell their user choosers to go to their local de
aler and pretend to be a punter, which results in the wrong experience and result for all involved.
Good post, just been in today and told the dealer that he needn't worry about delivering our new car this week , we are off on holiday booked last minute and we will take delivery on April 15 th instead.The biggest month of the year and broadly speaking, your make or break point for the whole rest of the year, where you're either ahead of your numbers, or chasing for the next 9 months - which we're currently in and most are utterly frazzled following a period since the New Year with no annual leave permitted to be taken in 2 of those three months, working rota days off and extra Sundays just to secure your quarter and thus your year early etc.
Event weekends such as we have in mid Feb and early March, test drives of even 15 minutes around the block aren't available, we explain to people if they want a great deal, now is a good time, so sit down and let's talk, but if they want the full nine yards, they'll need to reappoint at a time when we can allocate sufficient time to give them that experience. Given the choice and explained the reason why, the majority sit down and talk about and do deals, others are happy to reappoint a bit later and be given the due time, whereas the kickers get the arse and rant on the internet.
We secured our March and Q1 numbers with a fortnight to spare and as such, get the reward of an increased target to take up the slack of other branches that are lagging behind (amusingly, it's our Retailers making up for the Corporate team's shortfall...) - so we have that to deal with as well as delivering all the cars, typically three times a normal month's business, whilst still ensuring our buyers have no reason at all to return anything other than a Completely Satisfied experience, which takes more effort in terms of time and organisation than just doing the deal with the customer ever did.
In school holidays however, the OP would however have recieved a different experience, as time is considerably more free and prospects thinner on the ground. There will have been an effort vs potential reward vs potential loss of opportunity time and cost analysis by the individual, based upon their own particular workload at that time.
Yes we are brand ambassadors to a point. But investing an hour or two fulfilling a fairly basic and obvious requirement was deemed not to be as worthwhile as whatever else they had to do that day.
Valeters, drivers and so on are all flat out too and as for "take it during lunch" - taking a car to a customer to test drive off site is rather more doing work than taking a lunch break isn't it? (We don't tend to take lunch hours like regular humans, because customers are demanding as it is). Would the prospect be happy for a salesperson to turn up with a demo, pasty in hand, park it in the garage for them and bugger off? I doubt it very much. It's not an experience anyone I know would want to deliver either.
Quite often we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. So might as well be selective to a degree as to how best to make use of our working time.
I've lost track of how many times people have pulled the garage query. I ask them if they have their garage dimensions to hand, as I have the car dimensions for both their current and prospective purhcase, so we can work together to solve it with some fairly rudimentary arithmetic. "Err no, we haven't measured it..." - if it's *that* vital, they would have. I have also taken cars to people's homes, provided the service, to people who have qualified as worth investing the time to do so. Car fits, they are pleased and take it as "food for thought", then vanish into the telephonic abyss. Pay a little visit later and you see a new car with Arval/Leaseplan/Hitachi plates etc. Buyers are liars, we know this.
If "all you have to do for my business is bring a car and it fit in my garage", no problem. Let's work out the figures, ensure that we are eligible suppliers, have a vehicle to the right specification that we can supply at an agreeable timescale, take a deposit subject, raise a provisional order subject to that condition. Then they start squirming and you know they only need to take up another minute or two of your time.
We are well recompensed for what we do. Exercising our own judgement is a part of that and being able to state your reasons for not following up a particular course of action and being prepared to be accountable for it is another part of it. Occasionally you get it wrong and you get a howler ring your boss or head office, who then ask your side of it. They'll usually agree with you, but get somebody else on the team to follow up with the customer and oblige the customer's request, if it's a reasonable one - at a reasonable time, both to the customer and for the business. Right now, we'd get roasted for doing an offsite test drive in the last week of March/Q1 for a single vehicle user and likely a forward order for a negligible profit anyway.
A company car user chooser can request a corporate demonstrator for evaluation via their fleet manager in any case, which means you usually get a driver or corporate sales bod deliver a car to your place of work for a couple of days, a much better opportunity to evaluate than going into a retailer for a normal test drive, usually with a retail sales exec who doesn't want to spend the time with a non-opportunity anyway. It's usually a result of lazy company fleet managers who can't be bothered to arrange these through the correct channel and just tell their user choosers to go to their local de
aler and pretend to be a punter, which results in the wrong experience and result for all involved.
The relief on his face spoke volumes.
daemon said:
I've never yet had ANY problems buying a car - or getting time with a car salesman - when i wanted to.
Theres clearly more happening here than the O/P is letting on.
I've posted the very same and did so quite recently on a someone not happy with a Mercedes dealer thread. Not only have I not had a problem buying a car I've also been given test drives after fessing up It was a company car sourced elsewhere. The last time I did this the salesman sent me out in the car with a valeter/driver. What's more, when I drove in for my first service he acknowledged and greeted me and asked how I was enjoying my car. Theres clearly more happening here than the O/P is letting on.
Sorry for disappearing. Was over in Ireland over the weekend and came back to a thread that had grown arms and legs to an extent I didn't know where to start answering so here goes.
My employer has a very punitive personal use charging policy for our company cars. I therefore only use mine for commuting and business use. My next company car options are limited to the colour choice of a base Vauxhall Astra Hatch. At home (or rather at my parents house as I haven't the room) I have a Peugeot 208 and MGTF for private miles. I've decided it's not worth paying tax on a car I don't use and not that fussed about taking a van home. My vehicle of choice given the circumstances is a Dacia Duster Commercial. (A Duster with blanked windows and no rear seats. I checked with the MD and was given the OK to place my order with our accountant (he procures our cars and vans).
Before doing so I contacted the fleet salesman we use. He works for a multi dealer franchise. I mentioned that I had sat in the Duster in the dealer's showroom and that it felt considerably bigger than either the Citroen Nemo or Vauxhall Astra both of which can squeeze (just in the case of the Astra) into my garage: 2100mm at the door and spreading to 2550mm wall to wall. Sadly anything bigger would really start to struggle. The Astra is stated to be 2084mm wide at the mirrors, the Nemo 2019mm the Duster 2000mm. I find the Duster being narrowest vehicle hard to believe. It just doesn't feel it. I mentioned this to the fleet manager who said he'd get me a shot of one to check and put me in touch with the local dealer.
The initial salesman was a Renault van salesman. He doesn't usually have anything to do with Dacias. Isn't sure if he should be involved. Dacia car salesman doesn't have anything to do with vans. Isn't sure if he should be dealing with me and unlike the van salesman hasn't any working relationship with the fleet salesman my company deals with. All of a sudden no car is available.
This is wrong. When your dealership has an impending sale you sell the car.
4941cc said:
truck71 said:
A retail sales exec is not stretched (other than a Saturday and or end of quarter handover periods) and needs to work smarter/ harder with proper time management making the most of every opportunity.
Agreed. Periods like the last 10 days of March maybe?The biggest month of the year and broadly speaking, your make or break point for the whole rest of the year, where you're either ahead of your numbers, or chasing for the next 9 months - which we're currently in and most are utterly frazzled following a period since the New Year with no annual leave permitted to be taken in 2 of those three months, working rota days off and extra Sundays just to secure your quarter and thus your year early etc.
Event weekends such as we have in mid Feb and early March, test drives of even 15 minutes around the block aren't available, we explain to people if they want a great deal, now is a good time, so sit down and let's talk, but if they want the full nine yards, they'll need to reappoint at a time when we can allocate sufficient time to give them that experience. Given the choice and explained the reason why, the majority sit down and talk about and do deals, others are happy to reappoint a bit later and be given the due time, whereas the kickers get the arse and rant on the internet.
We secured our March and Q1 numbers with a fortnight to spare and as such, get the reward of an increased target to take up the slack of other branches that are lagging behind (amusingly, it's our Retailers making up for the Corporate team's shortfall...) - so we have that to deal with as well as delivering all the cars, typically three times a normal month's business, whilst still ensuring our buyers have no reason at all to return anything other than a Completely Satisfied experience, which takes more effort in terms of time and organisation than just doing the deal with the customer ever did.
In school holidays however, the OP would however have recieved a different experience, as time is considerably more free and prospects thinner on the ground. There will have been an effort vs potential reward vs potential loss of opportunity time and cost analysis by the individual, based upon their own particular workload at that time.
Yes we are brand ambassadors to a point. But investing an hour or two fulfilling a fairly basic and obvious requirement was deemed not to be as worthwhile as whatever else they had to do that day.
Valeters, drivers and so on are all flat out too and as for "take it during lunch" - taking a car to a customer to test drive off site is rather more doing work than taking a lunch break isn't it? (We don't tend to take lunch hours like regular humans, because customers are demanding as it is). Would the prospect be happy for a salesperson to turn up with a demo, pasty in hand, park it in the garage for them and bugger off? I doubt it very much. It's not an experience anyone I know would want to deliver either.
Quite often we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. So might as well be selective to a degree as to how best to make use of our working time.
I've lost track of how many times people have pulled the garage query. I ask them if they have their garage dimensions to hand, as I have the car dimensions for both their current and prospective purhcase, so we can work together to solve it with some fairly rudimentary arithmetic. "Err no, we haven't measured it..." - if it's *that* vital, they would have. I have also taken cars to people's homes, provided the service, to people who have qualified as worth investing the time to do so. Car fits, they are pleased and take it as "food for thought", then vanish into the telephonic abyss. Pay a little visit later and you see a new car with Arval/Leaseplan/Hitachi plates etc. Buyers are liars, we know this.
If "all you have to do for my business is bring a car and it fit in my garage", no problem. Let's work out the figures, ensure that we are eligible suppliers, have a vehicle to the right specification that we can supply at an agreeable timescale, take a deposit subject, raise a provisional order subject to that condition. Then they start squirming and you know they only need to take up another minute or two of your time.
We are well recompensed for what we do. Exercising our own judgement is a part of that and being able to state your reasons for not following up a particular course of action and being prepared to be accountable for it is another part of it. Occasionally you get it wrong and you get a howler ring your boss or head office, who then ask your side of it. They'll usually agree with you, but get somebody else on the team to follow up with the customer and oblige the customer's request, if it's a reasonable one - at a reasonable time, both to the customer and for the business. Right now, we'd get roasted for doing an offsite test drive in the last week of March/Q1 for a single vehicle user and likely a forward order for a negligible profit anyway.
A company car user chooser can request a corporate demonstrator for evaluation via their fleet manager in any case, which means you usually get a driver or corporate sales bod deliver a car to your place of work for a couple of days, a much better opportunity to evaluate than going into a retailer for a normal test drive, usually with a retail sales exec who doesn't want to spend the time with a non-opportunity anyway. It's usually a result of lazy company fleet managers who can't be bothered to arrange these through the correct channel and just tell their user choosers to go to their local dealer and pretend to be a punter, which results in the wrong experience and result for all involved.
I saw on here ( so it must be true - after all this isn't the Daily Mail) that dealers make 2/3 of sweet FA on Dacias, but are sometimes forced to take the franchise on to increase volumes and/or benefit from aftersales.
This may explain the complete lack of interest from someone who not only would not make anything from the deal, but who is incentivised by a dealership who would also not make anything from the deal.
But the basic question has to be
Who the hell keeps a company van in the garage?
This may explain the complete lack of interest from someone who not only would not make anything from the deal, but who is incentivised by a dealership who would also not make anything from the deal.
But the basic question has to be
Who the hell keeps a company van in the garage?
HTP99 said:
Op, you say that you don't believe that the Duster is the size claimed in the specs hence why you want to try one in the garage, why don't you just measure one yourself?
He did rightly observe that the simple dimensions of the width don't necessarily tell you if the car is going to 'fit'. Where 'fit' isn't the simple metric of just comparing the widths but also the usability. Ie a 5 door car will 'fit' more easily than a three door identical car because you need less space to obtain the same door opening aperture. If you think a car might be a tight fit to your garage then I think it's perfectly sensible to try it out prior to buying but I can't fathom why a dealer wouldn't facilitate this as part of the test drive to close the deal. People seem to have such terrible problems buying things sometimes.
Tannedbaldhead said:
I've posted the very same and did so quite recently on a someone not happy with a Mercedes dealer thread. Not only have I not had a problem buying a car I've also been given test drives after fessing up It was a company car sourced elsewhere. The last time I did this the salesman sent me out in the car with a valeter/driver. What's more, when I drove in for my first service he acknowledged and greeted me and asked how I was enjoying my car.
Sorry for disappearing. Was over in Ireland over the weekend and came back to a thread that had grown arms and legs to an extent I didn't know where to start answering so here goes.
My employer has a very punitive personal use charging policy for our company cars. I therefore only use mine for commuting and business use. My next company car options are limited to the colour choice of a base Vauxhall Astra Hatch. At home (or rather at my parents house as I haven't the room) I have a Peugeot 208 and MGTF for private miles. I've decided it's not worth paying tax on a car I don't use and not that fussed about taking a van home. My vehicle of choice given the circumstances is a Dacia Duster Commercial. (A Duster with blanked windows and no rear seats. I checked with the MD and was given the OK to place my order with our accountant (he procures our cars and vans).
Before doing so I contacted the fleet salesman we use. He works for a multi dealer franchise. I mentioned that I had sat in the Duster in the dealer's showroom and that it felt considerably bigger than either the Citroen Nemo or Vauxhall Astra both of which can squeeze (just in the case of the Astra) into my garage: 2100mm at the door and spreading to 2550mm wall to wall. Sadly anything bigger would really start to struggle. The Astra is stated to be 2084mm wide at the mirrors, the Nemo 2019mm the Duster 2000mm. I find the Duster being narrowest vehicle hard to believe. It just doesn't feel it. I mentioned this to the fleet manager who said he'd get me a shot of one to check and put me in touch with the local dealer.
The initial salesman was a Renault van salesman. He doesn't usually have anything to do with Dacias. Isn't sure if he should be involved. Dacia car salesman doesn't have anything to do with vans. Isn't sure if he should be dealing with me and unlike the van salesman hasn't any working relationship with the fleet salesman my company deals with. All of a sudden no car is available.
This is wrong. When your dealership has an impending sale you sell the car.
Fleet manager is lazy, he should sort it. Sorry for disappearing. Was over in Ireland over the weekend and came back to a thread that had grown arms and legs to an extent I didn't know where to start answering so here goes.
My employer has a very punitive personal use charging policy for our company cars. I therefore only use mine for commuting and business use. My next company car options are limited to the colour choice of a base Vauxhall Astra Hatch. At home (or rather at my parents house as I haven't the room) I have a Peugeot 208 and MGTF for private miles. I've decided it's not worth paying tax on a car I don't use and not that fussed about taking a van home. My vehicle of choice given the circumstances is a Dacia Duster Commercial. (A Duster with blanked windows and no rear seats. I checked with the MD and was given the OK to place my order with our accountant (he procures our cars and vans).
Before doing so I contacted the fleet salesman we use. He works for a multi dealer franchise. I mentioned that I had sat in the Duster in the dealer's showroom and that it felt considerably bigger than either the Citroen Nemo or Vauxhall Astra both of which can squeeze (just in the case of the Astra) into my garage: 2100mm at the door and spreading to 2550mm wall to wall. Sadly anything bigger would really start to struggle. The Astra is stated to be 2084mm wide at the mirrors, the Nemo 2019mm the Duster 2000mm. I find the Duster being narrowest vehicle hard to believe. It just doesn't feel it. I mentioned this to the fleet manager who said he'd get me a shot of one to check and put me in touch with the local dealer.
The initial salesman was a Renault van salesman. He doesn't usually have anything to do with Dacias. Isn't sure if he should be involved. Dacia car salesman doesn't have anything to do with vans. Isn't sure if he should be dealing with me and unlike the van salesman hasn't any working relationship with the fleet salesman my company deals with. All of a sudden no car is available.
This is wrong. When your dealership has an impending sale you sell the car.
Agreed, The single width measurement does not tell you everything.
The last car in my garage was a Lotus exige,e current is a 1989 Carrera. Both are very small compared to most modern stuff and both are incredibly difficult to get in or out. I think a lot of it has to do with seat position and the design of the doors.
Thankfully they are from a different era and fairly lightweight so quite often I'll just push them in or out!
The last car in my garage was a Lotus exige,e current is a 1989 Carrera. Both are very small compared to most modern stuff and both are incredibly difficult to get in or out. I think a lot of it has to do with seat position and the design of the doors.
Thankfully they are from a different era and fairly lightweight so quite often I'll just push them in or out!
Cupramax said:
You should be emailing youre post to the dealer principal, not on here. At least the salesman will get his arse kicked around the dealership and learn a lesson.
No he won't.It would go like this:
DP "We've had a complaint, apparently you refused to test drive a customer?"
SM "Yea he was a messer'
DP "Ok then, whats for lunch?"
Rick101 said:
Agreed, The single width measurement does not tell you everything.
The last car in my garage was a Lotus exige,e current is a 1989 Carrera. Both are very small compared to most modern stuff and both are incredibly difficult to get in or out. I think a lot of it has to do with seat position and the design of the doors.
Thankfully they are from a different era and fairly lightweight so quite often I'll just push them in or out!
I like the whole 'get the measurements, if the car's are smaller than the garage, it will fit'.The last car in my garage was a Lotus exige,e current is a 1989 Carrera. Both are very small compared to most modern stuff and both are incredibly difficult to get in or out. I think a lot of it has to do with seat position and the design of the doors.
Thankfully they are from a different era and fairly lightweight so quite often I'll just push them in or out!
Slightly missing the point of getting out of the car or even swinging it into the garage.
The movement towards dealer-less sales has slowly started, it won't be long until momentum gathers. Some sales bods will be in a struggle then, but hey-ho, they know best
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