Dealer Arrogance...and not VW !

[am1w]

I'll never forget the day when we were going to buy 2 Premium saloon cars. I went in first and negotiations went very well and we struck a deal, more or less. Then I sent my lady in and moved away so the salesman did not know our relationship. She was wearing a rather large diamond ring, and slightly smaller diamonds in each ear and a few other trinkets. I observed from afar the look on the salesman's face. He was transfixed but did not offer her as good a deal as I got. Then I went over and when he realised we were together, his face dropped and funnily enough he gave us an even better deal! So we bought from him!

Strange fruit, these car salesman.

[JBirchy]

Amazing isn't it. Hard to believe the way some of them act. I'm a sales professional in a distribution business and even in our industry, sales guys are shocking.

My Father-In-Law has also been a sales professional for over 30 years, was the European Sales Director for a large blue chip company and now owns his own sales and marketing consultancy business so he's well aware of proper sales processes.

He and my Mother-In-Law went into a Land Rover garage at the weekend with a view to placing a firm order for a new Evoque to replace her 3 year old one. He owns a new Range Rover Sport and went into the dealer in Manchester with a printed configuration of the car they wanted generated from the LR website.

He made it quite clear that they were there to do a deal and shake hands on the day. No finance required, he simply wanted a part-ex price, a new car price and the difference to change. He said he would be trying several dealers but if the deal on the table seemed reasonable given delivery time was more important to him than price, then a deal was to be done. For me, this is the perfect customer to buy a new car.

The salesperson took an hour and a half to come back with some figures and said simply "part-ex is £XX,XXX, new car price is £XX,XXX so the difference and therefore cost to change is £XX,XXX. Go away, have a think about it and let me know if you might be interested in moving forward."

Shocking. He could have closed the deal there and then but didn't want to! Crazy fool.

[am1w]

The majority of them are a bunch of guttersnipes. 

[fredgroves]

To be fair, pretty much everything here is about employee empowerment or rather lack of.

Its not just sales, its a problem that can infest your company in any part of it.

If you don't let your staff think on their feet and come up with creative solutions to keep their customers happy (be them internal or external) then your business suffers from rigidity to the point of suffocation.

The top bosses might think proudly that they run a tight ship and blah blah, but actually they just run a sh!t ship.

There you go, management consultancy on a VW forum, whatever next 

[Booth11]

To be fair, pretty much everything here is about employee empowerment or rather lack of.

Its not just sales, its a problem that can infest your company in any part of it.

If you don't let your staff think on their feet and come up with creative solutions to keep their customers happy (be them internal or external) then your business suffers from rigidity to the point of suffocation.

The top bosses might think proudly that they run a tight ship and blah blah, but actually they just run a sh!t ship.

There you go, management consultancy on a VW forum, whatever next 

I couldn't agree more.  I used to work for Whitbread and they were just the kind of company for allowing zero flexibility or local enterprise amongst their staff.  They simply chased the bottom line relentlessly at the expense of everything else.  This approach ultimtately led to their undoing (in the area I worked).  More fool them.  The day I  was made redundant was a great day!

The big boys are all the same,

[JBirchy]

To be fair, pretty much everything here is about employee empowerment or rather lack of.

Its not just sales, its a problem that can infest your company in any part of it.

If you don't let your staff think on their feet and come up with creative solutions to keep their customers happy (be them internal or external) then your business suffers from rigidity to the point of suffocation.

The top bosses might think proudly that they run a tight ship and blah blah, but actually they just run a sh!t ship.

There you go, management consultancy on a VW forum, whatever next 

I think you're spot on there. They try and control the sales/pricing structure so much they get in the way of the customer relationship building and intangible part of the sales process.

People buy from people. They need to remember that.

[matchboy]

It honestly beggars belief how dealers behave.  Some of these stories make me so mad.  Indeed, I can add to it!

So last weekend I went to drive a Jaguar F-Type (great car btw!) - older salesman, old school.  Talking figures etc, he went off to get a valuation for my R.  They came back with £26K.  This is a £38.5K car, and is 9 months old.  I just laughed.  He said that's the value that the VW garage within their group had given them.  I told him to get onto Autotrader.  He said I can do better than that, and looked at R's for sale in their group.  The one they had was 6 months younger than mine, similar spec, on for £36k.  He seemed a bit perplexed by this, and went back to his finance bloke.

A 12 year old then came out (said finance bloke).  He said that's the price that VW have given us, based on CAP values etc etc.  Ie. computer says no scenario.  I asked him to explain how my car had lost £12.5K in 9 months.  Couldn't answer me.  I asked him to explain how the VW garage in his dealership were selling one very similar to mine for £36K.  His explanation was because it had the bigger wheels and panaramic roof.  Fair point, but does it had the DNS Pro and Carbon Nappa Leather....no.....hmmm, then we'll cancel those options out shall we.  So, how can it be valued £10K more?  Carried on banging on about CAP values.  Sorry my friend, I'm not accepting VW making a £10K profit (I didn't say that).  He then had the audacity to ask if I was going to place an order 

This doesn't really explain his attitude.  It was so rude and condesending it was unreal.  The older salesman sat there looking highly embarrassed.  I had thought that by dealing with a so called 'higher end' dealership there would be less of these conning sales tactics going on, unfortunately not.  It's almost like they don't want to sell cars, and if they had matched my more than reasonable valuation of my car, they'd have secured a pretty easy sale.  As it is, they can jog on!!

[CraigW]

It honestly beggars belief how dealers behave.  Some of these stories make me so mad.  Indeed, I can add to it!

So last weekend I went to drive a Jaguar F-Type (great car btw!) - older salesman, old school.  Talking figures etc, he went off to get a valuation for my R.  They came back with £26K.  This is a £38.5K car, and is 9 months old.  I just laughed.  He said that's the value that the VW garage within their group had given them.  I told him to get onto Autotrader.  He said I can do better than that, and looked at R's for sale in their group.  The one they had was 6 months younger than mine, similar spec, on for £36k.  He seemed a bit perplexed by this, and went back to his finance bloke.

A 12 year old then came out (said finance bloke).  He said that's the price that VW have given us, based on CAP values etc etc.  Ie. computer says no scenario.  I asked him to explain how my car had lost £12.5K in 9 months.  Couldn't answer me.  I asked him to explain how the VW garage in his dealership were selling one very similar to mine for £36K.  His explanation was because it had the bigger wheels and panaramic roof.  Fair point, but does it had the DNS Pro and Carbon Nappa Leather....no.....hmmm, then we'll cancel those options out shall we.  So, how can it be valued £10K more?  Carried on banging on about CAP values.  Sorry my friend, I'm not accepting VW making a £10K profit (I didn't say that).  He then had the audacity to ask if I was going to place an order 

This doesn't really explain his attitude.  It was so rude and condesending it was unreal.  The older salesman sat there looking highly embarrassed.  I had thought that by dealing with a so called 'higher end' dealership there would be less of these conning sales tactics going on, unfortunately not.  It's almost like they don't want to sell cars, and if they had matched my more than reasonable valuation of my car, they'd have secured a pretty easy sale.  As it is, they can jog on!!

Mark, are you thinking of selling already?

[matchboy]

Mark, are you thinking of selling already?

I would have done if they hadn't tried to screw me over! 

[CraigW]

Mark, are you thinking of selling already?

I would have done if they hadn't tried to screw me over! 

The F-type is a beautiful looking thing that's for sure. Just out of interest, have you become bored with the R?