SiR_YO

Being in the industry now for a couple of years now (a year in sales, a year as service/parts advisor) I've realized there's little loyalty now within a dealership. Specifically in sales, as a lot of times it's about the bottom line number.

My question is how do you feel as a customer walking into dealerships? do you have your guard up thinking "I'm not going to let a salesperson rip me off" and feel you need to lie or bend the truth? and just be difficult in general? or does it depend on the dealership/salesperson? What are your impressions of the dealerships you've been to in the past year or so and what stands out for you from the moment you walk in, positive or negative? This little exercise will help me determine a bit better where customers are coming from and allow me to (hopefully) relate better or increase the probability of selling the vehicle. I've always believed in treating the customer the same way I would want to be treated, and at the same time believe my job is not to sell anything to the customer, but to help them buy a car (usually someone coming into Honda really wants a HONDA).... thoughts? comments? suggestions?

cibs

IMO - There's not much loyalty cuz there's not much care after the sale of the car... most sales people could care less about you after they sell you a car unless you're looking for another one or bringing someone to them...

also there's too much of a divide between sales/service... I go back to the dealership to get a problem taken care of, and the service guy is being a douche I can't go to the person who sold me my car to have him help me out... they're separate departments...

in the states you take your car in for service at a dealership and you get treated like a king... here you might as well be in a midas or wherever it's all the same...

SiR_YO

so Alex, for you it's the post-sale treatment that you're concerned with? what if the sales person guarantee's proper treatment? or how can they assure you that either themselves or the service department at their dealership will treat them like a king? by me telling you that our service department is #1 in the province, does that mean anything to you?

shlammed

No

I've never really had any pleasant experiences with Honda dealers for service. They always take way too long to do everything. With my old 4-door civic it took them almost 3 weeks to do body work (insurance claim) that probably should have taken a few days.

Bring it to Honda for an oil change, wait around for 3 hours. It's rediculous. I guess it depends where you go (and I've never been to your dealer) but the general experience turns me off.

Double B

My experience is mixed. I don't think it's the dealership, but the person you deal with. Not every salesperson is bad, but you have those that don't understand what "Customer Service" is.

My experience with Gus Brown Pontiac is mixed. Our first van we leased was in 2001 from a saleswoman named Gail. I would like to say that this woman was fantastic and helped us in every way. After having the van for two years, my wife lost her job and we had to figure some things out. One of them was the lease. She helped me out and showed me some options on what I can do. We ended up keeping the van, but the point was, she didn't forget who I was and even though it wasn't a sale, she helped me out. My second van I leased I didn't get from her (big mistake on my part), it was from her dealership, but dealt with another guy thinking I could get a better deal, he knows someone I work with and I was told he would help me out. Even though I got the van from him, I still in the end dealt with Gail when I returned the van last week and she was still very helpful when I returned it, even though I didn't buy from her. I told her, that anyone I know that is looking for a gm vehicle I will direct to her and only her. I will never forget her because of that. This was a total of 8 years I have dealt with her. That is customer service in my opinion.

The car we have now, we bought from another woman at Nissan. She was very nice and accomodating. Didn't push us, but I knew we were going to buy the vehicle even though we just went to test drive the car. Just one of those things. What they did for us was cut us a cheque to pay off the last three months of our van, put on wheel locks at no charge to us, even though I have an extra set here at home, gave us key chains each with head carvings from Korea and took a picture of us and the kids for xmas cards.

In the end, no matter what, you are going to buy things, whether it be a car, insurance or just an mp3 player, but to me, customer service goes a long way in my eyes. I use to work part time at Future Shop and the thing I took pride in most was giving the best customer service possible, even when I worked at the shack I did so, and to this day, people I dealt with still remember me to this day.

Service at Gus Brown has been decent and never had a problem. Nissan, I will see and keep you updated, but the people I met there that one day was great. They introduced us to just about everyone.

That to me is what it is all about.

Hope that helps Ed!

bruce fee

all i care about is the bottom line.

i assume every single full time sales person is out to make as much money as possible.

this means his/her goal is to make the customer pay as much as possible for the least amount of work.

as a customer, my goal is to spend as little as possible, and get the most that I can out of the purchase.

I believe it's strictly an adversarial relationship filled with a lot of fakes smiles, laughs, and small talk from both ends.

Dealership Loyalty is for people who don't have a clue, or don't have a care as to what they are spending.

Mandy

What kinda turns me off from stepping foot in a dealership, is the 'buy now so I can get paid' impression I get from the dealers. I find that alot of dealers that I have encountered in the past were very, very pushy in doing a sale. I think I have come across ONE Honda dealer (a couple years ago) where he wasn't pushy at all for a sale.
(Sorry if my reply is too vague...I'm dealing with a head cold...)

Nova_Dust

I don't expected to get treated like king, but I do require knowledge and attention when needed.

Of course, no one is prefect.

From what I understand and told by friends who worked at dealerships, Sales and Service each have their own agendas, and they compete in revenue. It is not easy being a sales person, and when you do succeed, it is not hard to make a close to 6 digit figure annually.

I tend to have more beef with Service than Sales. Why, perhaps the cost, time it takes and attitude.

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

in general everyone understands that buying a car is a distributive negotiation situation, so everyone knows there is markup on the car and that something can be worked out. so I think since so many salespeople are rigid on the price, just giving up a little bit will satisfy most people that they've 'won' the negotiation battle and they'll walk out of there with a new car happier than a fat kid at the ice cream parlour. but yeah, relating to the customer is really important too, don't judge a book by the cover - i bought my car at 17, and I went by myself. at one place they totally ignored me, at the other place i bought a car. and then we bought 2 more cars after that with the same salesperson.

ForSale

Buying a car from the dealership is like getting Married, after the wedding and signed papers are done you come back to see the true nature of the bitch.lol

starboy869

For service I never had a problem with Barrie Honda, and Markham honda. It's always been fast, but all I really had done were the oil changes and one tire change (stupid broken beer bottle).

Roadsport Honda on the other hand just got to point where my wife and I just had to deal with the service manger or assistant service manger only. The EI lady they had working was a real bitch. Trying to deny warranty work, claiming the issues we had were normal on a HONDA. Basically any excuse in the book not to get warranty work done. However if we going to pay she had no problem booking a tech to look at it. We have a few friends that are EI that deal with Roadsport for service and this said they never had any issues with her.

Sales guy at NewMarket Honda was a bit poor. I Said "I needed the car by this date." yeah no problem. The dealership car got in two days ahead of schedule, but since he wasn't working no one wanted to take over for him to finish up the paper work. WTF? Ended up taking a $200 & 10 hr bus trip back home cause I didn't wheels at the time. When I got back to the dealership next weekend the finance guy adding in the max warranty option ($2k) w/o asking me. He got a little annoyed with me when I told him I didn't want it and to redo the paper work. Also the sales guy called and bitched me out for giving him a 4 instead of a 5 on the Honda Canada survey. I just told him to go **** himself and hung up.

Pembroke Honda. The one girl they have working the service counter is out to lunch. Only reason IMO she's working there is the blonde hair, and her big fake boobies (nice to look at btw). A rock on the ground is smarter than her. Service manger is also an ***. One of his tech left the oil cap on the engine on my 2000 SiR. Which resulted in a dent/missing paint on the inside of my hood (minor). Told me after oh that was like that and too bad can't prove that we did it (exact words). WTF! Last time I went there.

Pembroke Toyota on the other hand has been nothing but great service. No real issues. Never ever a problem, and my VAN get a free wash even after an oil change. Reasonable prices for service and for the regular maint.

SiR_YO

np, this is the type of response I'm looking for.. if you could elaborate on pushy when you feel better lemme know

SiR_YO

actually my goal is to get referrals through a new customer... cuz that's where the business is.. if I relied on incoming traffic soley I'd be broke as hell after a few years... so like doubleB I try and treat every customer with the most respect and professionalism that I possibly can, whether they give me 10secs or 10hrs ... because at the end of the day they will remember that experience, and hopefully let their friends/co-workers/neighbours etc.... know about me as well...

Sirberner

iTrader: (3)

[quote=SiR_YO;48198]Being in the industry now for a couple of years now (a year in sales, a year as service/parts advisor) I've realized there's little loyalty now within a dealership. Specifically in sales, as a lot of times it's about the bottom line number.


I work at the same dealer as you 4 7 years, most of the people are about one thing themselves. The sales look out 4 the sales, the parts look out 4 the part. and so on. it's not how you can make honda/Dealer look good, its
how they can make themselves look good.

P.S.trust no one!

Sirberner

iTrader: (3)

and the FIT is a girly car!

DumbasSi

I would think that repeat customers might be more important. My wife and I have gone to the same dealer and the same sales guy for our past 4 cars. He has always worked very hard to get us what we wanted for the price we wanted to pay. My problems have come more with Managment not allowing the sales guy to do more for their customer.

I'm also not thrilled with Honda Canada period. My 07 Si is costing me a fortune compared to what you can get one for now with Honda's low interest rates and incentives.

Now with Budds Mini, they have done everything for us. They are paying to have our car shipped from BC, covering most of the negative equity in our trade in, they also gave us more for our trade then they initially appraised it at, lowered the interest rate and added tints too.

Honda gave us what we wanted eventually, but they sometimes made a very big deal about it.

starboy869

However repeat customers and there friends/family can disappear once another dept. **** them off. ie. service.

ForSale

DumbasSi your right to quote what SIR_YO said there, let me also add, that repeat customers are much better than new customers, people who only seek to hear from new customers who have served one, will never expand their corporation, its a one time business tactic, which in the long run is the worse way to think.

Robb

iTrader: (1)

As far as car sales at dealers goes....
Please explain how a salesperson rips a customer off , especially in New cars ? Everyone knows MSRP ! Nothing is hidden. Everything is on the contract....

The 1 mistake a customer makes is when they buy a new car, then they go compare price at another dealer afterwards, only to find out they could have gotten it for cheaper..
Then they say they got ripped off....

As far as used cars, well it's a crap shoot , and customers should know that !

Doing your homework is key, just like anything else you purchase !

Mandy

Thanks for understanding lol..

What I meant by "pushy" was myself and my dad (on separate occasions) have experienced a dealer which he told us to sign the papers on the spot and to sign, sign, sign. The dealers were told that because this is a big purchase, we need to think about it. The dealer told my dad "if you don't sign, then I can't guarantee you that the car will be here tomorrow. If you sign all the papers now, you can come back and let me know that you changed your mind" (and this was one of our neighbors). If you sign, you a dead man, right?

And going back to voicing our opinions on dealers, I must admit that it's a shame that alot of them are being looked upon as "annoying"/"forceful", like the picture below, when there are probably a few of them out there that actually likes to take the time to inform their customers on their next car and their payment options, etc.

I know that not all of you guys are like this: lol