"Typical" Car Dealerships

isellhondas

When I picked the store where I spent 13.5 years, I got lucky and I knew it.

The typical store is a horrible place to work. They treat their sales staff like third graders and they turn over their salespeople sometimes by 30% a month.

I once interviewed a prospective salesperson who had the "second longest seniority" in a local domestic store. I think they had something like 20 salespeople. He had been there eight months!

Some places make their salespeople stand outside unless they have a customer. They "call ups" as cars pull into their lot. Even if the "up" is there to buy parts, it still counts as an "up" and that salesperson go's to the end of the line.

Some stores have such low floor traffic that customers are pounced on and not allowed to leave unless three or four "managers" take a turn at them.

New sales people are known as "liners" and all they do is greet customers and try to get some kind of a commitment to buy a car. They the "closers" come in and they can be relentless.

If a commitment has been made the closer carries the write-up to a Sales Office or to a "Tower" where the deal is either approved or a number is "penciled".

Salespeople are often fired without warnings and managers often suffer the same fate.

Two years ago, I helped our son buy a new Jeep Wrangler and we visited several different stores.

They pulled every trick in the book even AFTER I told them my history.

Like I said...I got lucky!

Kirstie_H

I think some dealerships are changing, isell. The dealership we recently worked with has a well-deserved poor reputation across the chain for just about everything you mentioned. They've been in this town forever, so they have had plenty of time to earn it.

However, when we went to their used-only dealership, I thought we were treated pretty well. They tried a few tactics that I wouldn't call tricks - focused on monthly payment after we indicated we only cared about overall cost of the vehicle to us, tried to get us to take it home today, even though it needed an alignment and we didn't want to commit to buy til that was done and we'd driven it - but no subterfuge designed to get us to be confused by the numbers. Finance tried to sell, but didn't give a hard sell. That's acceptable, and we walked away with a better impression of the dealership than we did going in.

You've seen a variety of dealerships in your time as a salesperson and as a buyer's helper. What is ONE thing you think dealerships as a whole could do to be a better place to work and buy?

isellhondas

The one thing?

Hire professionals that are well groomed and educated.

The trouble is, today's buyers are hell bent on squeezing every last dollar out of the deal and
these great people don't want to survive on 150.00 mini deals.

They frankly deserve better but people don't care.

Kirstie_H

I think it's a self-perpetuating cycle. Dealerships often hire people who don't meet the criteria you mentioned, and of course the buyer doesn't see value in that type of salesperson. They rarely know more about the vehicle I'm looking at than I do - usually less. Maybe a more professional sales staff would yield more respect and better results.

isellhondas

The average salesperson hired usually doesn't last long enough to learn all that they need to learn.

Not an easy way to make a living.