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My Salesperson Misled Me
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The answer is Yes.
Why? Because the US is not a Socialistic country. Every customer is not expected to be treated the same. The treatment customer receives is a function of his/her patronage bestowed upon the house.
A local Jean boutique offers free hemming with any pair of jeans that you buy.
However, if a customer comes in with a discount coupon, then the free hemming offer is not presented to the customer. If the purchase exceeds $1000, then the customer also gets a waiver for the valet expense.....
Macy's also puts your product in a plastic bag if the items purchased are sale/clearance items. If you buy full price items, your purchase is presented in a crisp paper bag.
Walmart covers your car seat with plastic wrap if you choose Full premium oil change.
I have the complete Verizon bundle, bundled with DirecTV. If I have any problems, and I call them, the call is answered in under 4 rings and I get greeted by a human being, not a machine.
how many more examples does anyone need?
It would be interesting to move to the restaurant model. The salesperson gets rewarded directly by the buyer dependant upon the service received.
Actually I'd like to see it go the other way. No disrepect intended, but to me the sales person is an order taker as I've already researched (to death) what I am seeking. In most cases I know the product better than the sales person. The sales person is there for the test drive to confirm my research and to take my offer to the SM. However, I don't expect any added service from the sales person so it works out well.
I nominate Miss Laura for the "car sales topic" post of the decade!
You should be upset at management for selling at/below cost instead of the customer who's offered a no-profit deal. Like a previous poster said, you get what you sell for.
The customer has no power/control over what price the dealership will sell a car for. Only management can set the sale price!!! And ALL of your customers would be profitable if the dealership didn’t offer zero-profit deals!!!
Say a customer comes into a dealership on the last day of the month and you haven’t sold a car all day. The customer asks “What is the best price you can do.” Management is desperate to sell a car, offers a zero-profit deal, and the customer accepts.
So you guys would give this person worse service because they were not a profitable customer? Even though this person isn’t a “grinder” and has no idea if the dealership made a profit. Why would you penalize this customer because management decided to sell them a car at no profit?
Of course, there will always be a**hole customers in every industry. But giving sub-par service to every customer who gets a zero-profit deal is a very bad idea, considering management is the one offering these deals, and customers may not even know why they are getting bad service!!!
Actually, your grammar is hideous. "Not why I came to this forum"... ? PLEEAASEEE! Can you say sentence fragment? Also, you didn't capitalize the "S" in "sheesh". You should have put an exclamation point after "Enough already" as well... as it sounds like you are peeved off. I don't think that is proper use of a colon either. :P
Only that it won't be at the same level as it would be for a more valuable customer.
I fail to see why this is so hard to understand.
People who spend more money with you are more valuable than people who don't.
Look at sporting events. The people who buy the better seats and luxury boxes get treated better than the fan in the bleachers. They get VIP parking, their own entrances, wait staff,etc.
Well, it would appear that that is exactly what you are getting.
At least in the mass marketed brands.
Problem is,the majority of buyers don't take the time to do all the research,and even when they do, a lot of the time the information is erroneous.
Hence, the need for trained salespeople.
We're not "upset" at anyone. We simply prefer people who pay more and take care of them accordingly.
The customer has no power/control over what price the dealership will sell a car for.
While this is true to a degree, they certainly have control over what they offer and how they treat the dealership while negotiating.
At any rate, I extended the courtesy of answering your question. Could you answer mine? What do you sell?
I would love to hear how your business is different from ours.
Than
As I understand it the sales guys aren't talking normal service to a customer. They are talking beyond normal service - picking someone up for service work, discounts on service beyond what is offered to all customers. I don't have a real problem with that.
I think some folks think you're saying you wouldn't lift a finger for such a customer and I don't know that they guys are saying that.
Add into all of this how one defines a grinder and the opportunity to misinterpret what someone is saying grows exponentially.
In my own experience I have found I get different results with different salesmen regardless of the rest of the deal. There's a guy in town who bends over backwards to make sure you're in a loaner car when the car is in for service. Even if the loaner fleet is all already spoken for he'd find something. The one I'm dealing with now is strictly if they have a loaner in. It's not a major inconvenience but you can't beat that first guy. The question for me when it comes time to buy again will be how much is the first guy worth to have? Of late his dealership has been demanding unrealistically high prices on cars. If when I'm buying they are in the ballpark they'll sell me another car.
I would agree with that statement, I shouldn't expect the best service if I were a near invoice buyer, but I would still expect good to very good service... as long as I was being a decent and respecful buyer.
The "grinder" is a different story though. I would agree with moo and vovo on the proper treatment for a grinder... death by beheading!
While this is true, most major brand dealerships spend thousands of dollars a month trying to convince the customers that they will get the best deal with them. I think the dealership, in an attempt to set them self above the other dealerships, are they ones who set this expectation. The last time I was in the market, several dealerships kept contacting me telling me they would beat the other offers. It shouldn't be the customers concern how your employer chooses to compensate you for your time.
People who spend more money with you are more valuable than people who don't.
Look at sporting events. The people who buy the better seats and luxury boxes get treated better than the fan in the bleachers. They get VIP parking, their own entrances, wait staff,etc.
We keep going around, so I'll stop after this. Your analogy is wrong because it refers to buying two different products (luxury box vs. bleachers). We are talking about customers who visit the same dealership, buy the same product (insert make/model), but get different service.
If two people buy identical luxury boxes, but one luxury box is offered/sold for $1000 and the other for $750, should they not get the same level of service?
The guy paying $750 did not determine the price he was offered, has no idea what others are paying or the profit margin on his deal, and wasn’t told he would get reduced service because of the price he paid.
He paid the price that was offered to him and expects the same level of service than any other luxury box owner receives. Why is that so hard to understand?
But it is the dealership that determines what the customers pay!
If a dealership is particularly desperate to sell a vehicle, and offers to sell a car at zero profit, then why shouldn't the customer get top-notch service? Why should the customer be penalized because the dealership decided to sell at a low price?
In order to get the best service, is the customer supposed to reject the dealer's offer, and demand to pay thousands more?
I would love to hear how your business is different from ours.
I work for a company that provides marketing research.
We bid on dozens of jobs and respond to dozens of RFPs every week. We makes lots of money on some jobs and very little money on others. But we do not vary the level of service we provide, because we determined the price that was charged, not the client.
It is not the client's fault that we offered them a low-profit deal, so their level of service should not suffer. If we cannot provide a high level of service, then we could have either charged more or not sold them anything. But we willingly & knowingly sold at the low price, so we need to provide them with great service.
Does your management have the guts to say "If you want to grind and buy a cheap car, I recommend you visit xyz dealer"........
SM should step in and enlighten the customer of his position.....end of story.
Did you miss reading my example of Macy's?
Same product purchased in a final sale cannot be returned, handed to you in a plastic "thank you" bag.
Good luck
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Same product purchased in a final sale cannot be returned, handed to you in a plastic "thank you" bag.
I saw your Macy's example but don't see the relevence.
For one, I don't see the premium of a paper bag over a plastic bag. They are both equal to me, neither being more desireable/more upscale than the other. Any grocery store will offer you paper or plastic.
For two, my Macy's puts everything in a plastic bag, regardless of whether you pay full price or clearance.
For three, customers in your example are knowingly buying an item that is on clearance, and there are clear policies associated with those clearance items. In my example, the guy has no idea what others were paying or and wasn’t aware he would get reduced service because of the price he paid.
How do you begin to ration out your professionalism? $5,000 profit= 100% service, $2,500-$4,999= 75% service,etc.,etc.! Your concept of service taken to absurdity to put it in perspective."
Thank goodness there is a reputable & responsible car salesman here who takes pride in his job, customers and employer. Thank you saablcp!
As someone noted earlier, if a customer is going to receive worse service as a result of a no-profit deal, the SM should step in and enlighten the customer of this, since the customer has no way of knowing whether the dealer is making a profit.
Instead, dealers willingly sell cars for no profit, and customers unwillingly get reduced service as a result. And we wonder why many car dealerships/salespeople aren't known for being reputable, responsible and honest.
You may call what they refer to as grinders a different name..try A-h**e. Have you ever done biz with one of them? If you have you will understand.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
I, for example, am not going to lay down and let the salesman walk over me but neither am i going to continue wringing nickels out of him either. I know what the market is and if a reasonable price is agreed to I'm fine with that. A couple of hundred bucks over eight to ten years of ownership isn't going to kill me.
I have walked over deals that weren't deals - like when I tried to buy a 97 Accord for my daughter and they wanted $1,700 over the high price for one. Too bad. I was willing to pay the high end of market at that point but not that much. That was the sales guy i said took very good care of his customers but the SM wouldn't budge.
Sorry. I'll re-enroll in "Rodney Dangerfield's School of Comedy", somethings getting lost in the translation... mostly the comedy I suspect.
Irrelevant. The customer wouldn't believe the SM, nor would the customer care.
This is just going round and round.
You asked, we answered.
We live w/ our customers on a daily basis. We all have customers we cherish and others that we hope we never see again. Sometimes it isn't even about profit.
I'll give a car away if a) it doesn't cost me an inordinate amount of time and b) the customer is respectful.
The VAST majority of grinder customers are like a lot of people here. Mistrustful,disdainful of the salesperson,convinced they are being screwed and never ever happy w/ their experience. Of course I don't care if that person ever comes back and I am certainly not going to reward them for their behavior.
Anyone who sells cars can understand this.
I don't understand your question. I never said they could find a Genesis on a Mitsu lot.
I did suggest to a poster that if she was interested in cars like a Hyundai Tiburon she could cross shop a Mitsu Eclipse for the same price.
The post about a Genesis was something else entirely.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Would you like to name names?
I for one do not put any person in the biz here in the same category as some of the slimey sales people I've run in to on recent purchases.
Now getting bcak to the service thing. As a dealership... when someone needs "service" they go to our Service Depatment..... Now I have heard the stories about how people feel about service departments and heck I work with one everyday and I know how they can be. But If someone paid profit and was a good guy.... I can extend extra service such as bring the car to the person with out making them come here... Let them use my personal car while they are in service... etc....etc...
Now alot of times you get the "guy" I don't care what you sell it for... i'll go down the street if they are cheaper.... Well there are still some dealerships that if don't buy at the dealership you can't service there! I think that is it should be :surprise:
No offense. But if you can drive a hour away for $300-$500 than you should be able to do your service there. I have seen times when someone needs something done quickly... maybe it is a minor thing like reprogramiong a remote or sunroof.... Those things I can do in a few minutes instead of making the customer wait 1 hour in service... I have done it.
I can also influence service over a customer who hadn't purchased here before. And get them in before a non sales cusstomer.
I don't get it, It takes two to close a deal. So as a buyer if I don't like the figure I can say no, and conversely if the dealer does not like the price they can say no.
If a customer does not agree to the price they can leave?
However if I am wrong and a dealer is free to set a price that only serves their needs - sign me up, I will start a dealership TOMORROW!
Nowhere is it mentioned that the customer will be treated 3rd rate because he paid less.
However, the customer will not be offered some privileges that a better customer would get, such as free loaner.
For one, I don't see the premium of a paper bag over a plastic bag. They are both equal to me, neither being more desireable/more upscale than the other. Any grocery store will offer you paper or plastic.
Huh??
Paper bags, the ones at Macy, would run about $1.25 apiece. The plastic bags would be couple of cents.
Just because you don't care doesn't mean others don't either. It is a matter of pride to come out of Macys/Nordstrom with their paper bag. It shows that you are a classy customer as opposed to a clearance shopper.
I agree with you on that.
Therefore I even mentioned that the SM should step in, inform the customer that you purchased a product at clearance price, which does not come with the privileges that are offered to regular buyers.
That is the most pathetic and ridiculous thing I've heard in a long time. To feel a sense of "pride" because you're carrying a paper bag versus plastic??
These people have some serious problems if they are worried about looking like a "classy customer" because they are carrying a paper bag. The people you are describing sound like Paris Hilton wanna-be's.
Here in the Midwest, people apparently don't feel the same sense of "pride," self worth, or status as a "class customer" that comes with a paper bag. Because at the Macy's here, ALL purchases come in a plastic bag!
You're right, you don't get it, and it's because you're behind on the previous posts. Go back and read them and you will understand the context and accuracy of what I said.
Many people pay different amounts of profit. Sometimes we run specials on vehicles and customers buy those specials. These are not the people that I am referring to that don't receive the same level of service. The grinders are the ones that are passed over. They reflect the attitude that we see sometimes on this forum. They don't care about the dealership, the salesperson or anyone else unless they can help them save money or do something specifically for them. They are selfish, shortsighted and self-absorbed. I will not do anything above and beyond for these people.
I thought I had explained it pretty clearly in one of my posts regarding what this referred to. After sales service...
Simply because someone doesn't pay profit doesn't mean that they fall into this category because of the specials that a dealership will run at times. At any rate, a Saab salesperson says that he provides the same level of service for any customer over the last 24 years. That's great. I'm glad that he is able to do that for them. Put simply, he must be a better salesperson than me. The grinders and chooches don't qualify for above and beyond from me.
I guess you don't know "Fashion"......and the women
>These people have some serious problems if they are worried about looking like a "classy customer" because they are carrying a paper bag. The people you are describing sound like Paris Hilton wanna-be's.
You bet. That is what it is all about.
Now tell me...in the same breath why would one "dress" up a car with accessories? People have ego, and pride and would like to show off. They will spend the extra dollar to achieve that.
Why would you buy a new car when CPO cars from Hon/Toy/Lex are so good and come with warranty?
Ever seen a doctor drive an elantra to work?
Ok, is the dead horse officially kicked and beaten?
That is one of the funniest things I've read on these forums and I almost lost my coffee through my nose, LOL. Anyone who gets pride out of a stupid paper bag would be in the upper echelon of materialistic. I'm sure there are some it works on, those that always have to have to latest and greatest gadgets, those that buy the brand new model vehicle with the $3K ADM sticker to show they are a "classy" customer, LOL LOL LOL. OMG, that is so funny. Oh, look at me everyone, I have a Macys paper bag, I'm better than you, ROTFLMAO.
Not enough space in the reply box.
He sells SAAB's. He's probably happy for any customer he can get! :P
as a matter of fact, the hospital i work at, doctors drive kia's, hyundai's, '93 and '94 corollas, '98 camrys. these cars are not even the midline trims but dx with no power equipment and stick shifts. they are even hubcaps!!!
so, an elantra would be nice and a splurge.
The only problem with that idea is the customer would never believe the SM or the salesmen. When I sell cars at or below invoice the customer still believes that I'm making profit.
Do I bend over backwards to help the customers I make a big profit on?
Absolutely. They deserve to be helped over and above the call of duty.
For the customer who wants to grind me in a grueling 5 hour car deal and take all of the profit...well....they get what they pay for.
Extra keys for a used car? Sorry...can't help you.
There's a scratch I didn't notice can you get it buffed out? Sorry...you took all the profit and left with a $100 mini deal. I can't help you.
That's just the way it goes in this business. If you wan to grind the salesmen and take all of his profit then the quality of service will decline exponentially.
Alejandro.
That being said, I think this particular line has run its course - there really isn't any new information being added. Those who grind are less likely to get the top-of-the-line service than those who don't. Period. That's not misleading; it's common sense.
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Is it too much trouble to throw this into "No Country for Off Topic"? Sometimes the threads take a life of their own. Sorry for taking us so far off course here.
Let's just steer back on course, and we're OK. Hey, at least this time the off-topicness was automotive rather than about pretzels or inflateable taxis.
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
Review your vehicle
I do that too.....but that is reality.
Some are turned on by paying lowest i.e. grinders.
Some are turned on by paying full price and garnering the attention of the salesfolks and public.
Because buying a certified Hon/Toy is not a financially savvy decision in many cases, since the resale values are so ridiculously high. In some cases, the sticker price of CPO Hondas/Toyotas is higher than what you can buy new for.
I bought a new Accord two years ago and fully intended to buy a used model when I first started shopping. But I quickly realized that the overall cost of a new model was LESS than a used car.
For example, I paid $19,500 for my car, with the cheapest CPO version costing at least $17,000, and that is a 2-3 year old car with at least 30K miles.
Assuming I keep my car until 200K miles, the new model is actually cheaper (.098 vs. 10.3 cents/mile). Plus I get a brand new car that hasn't been used/abused.
FYI...Using the above example, you would have to put more than 270,000 miles on your car before the used CPO model would be a financially better decision (lower cost per mile).