Steering Clear of Bad Customer Service

Edmunds.com

Steering Clear of Bad Customer Service

Car buying shouldn't instill dread, but it often does. Rather than wait for dealerships to change their old-school ways, consumers can take control now.

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crown5

Very representative of car buying experiences which in my case goes back a few decades.
It will nowadays take more than four times preparation time just to stay on top and have the required info in mind when dealing with salespeople. This is where internet technology is priceless for reviews, sharing info etc.

autoseller

This article written by Philip Reed does a great job vilifying dealerships and sales personnel. In my 20+ years of selling cars and being the manager in few different dealerships in my career in a large auto group, I can tell you above written article should only be applied to very few dealerships. Yes, there are bad salesperson and incompentent managers that will treat customers badly from time to time, but this type of scenario applies to every businesses and profession - not just auto dealerships! I've had terrible experiences with doctors, lawyers, car detailers, construction crew and even waitresses everywhere I went. But for me to treat them all equally with predetermine notion that they are all crooks would be extremely unfair to the people who are just trying to make a honest living.

Just to point our few flaws in this article:

-No sales person are allowed to work their own deals since the 70's or 80's. "I have to talk/ask my manager" is NOT A PLOW or delay tactics as Mr. Reed would like to point out. All sales, discounts and pricing are to be determined by a Manager and not sales. If it was up to sales staff to work their own deals, dealerships would sell lot more cars, however, it wouldn't take long before that dealership went out of business.

Also, it's an asinine way to consider that a dealership would purposely waste customer time with slow contract preparations, signing, and vehicle prep. What purpose would this solve? Deal it done already so how would dealership benefit from making a customer wait on purpose? It takes time to get a deal funded through the banks when we are not the only dealership in town. We don't rush customers at signing since some have more questions than others and it takes longer for them to review their contract than others as well. Insurance has to be verified and documented in order for any dealership to legally sell a car. This is just few examples this inane article fails to mention. When there are more than few customers who just purchased a car and wants to take it home, que line will get longer all around. Dealerships prefers to send the customers home lot sooner than later, trust me.

Buying a car can be as easy as customers willing to make. When certain customers have unrealistic expectations that no dealership can meet, it takes time trying to educate that customer on why a $30k car finance won't be $250 a month with no money down. Wealth of information is readily available online with MSRP to actual invoice of a car - but when consumers feel they can get thousands dollars less then what dealership paid for, yes, it's going to take some time.