First, let me say that I've done about 100 of these calls just this year. Up until about a week ago, it's about all I've been doing for almost a month due to the previously mentioned air conditioning issue (which is now resolved - I bought a new car - yaay me!). All that is just to make the point that I know I didn't screw up the call to give the wrong impression. I've rode this horse. It wasn't me.

I knew I was in trouble when the receptionist answered the phone with food in her mouth. It had to be a lot of food. I couldn't understand her at first, and when I asked her to repeat herself, I heard her take a big slurp off of her straw, and then spoke again, and I understood her just fine. Okay, crap happens. Moving on.

Sales rep on the phone, asks how she can help. I need to replace a vehicle, and haven't really looked in awhile, looking for something like my current vehicle, except new. Then you should just come in and see what we have on the lot. Well, I was kind of hoping to get a little information first. Well, do you want *model A* or *model B*? I really don't know the difference. Can you tell me what the differences are? You can look on our website at our inventory. All the vehicle information is listed there. When you get serious about buying, then call me back. Here's my name and number. Well, can you tell me about the base pricing between the two vehicles? Sir, I have customers waiting that are serious about purchasing vehicles. When you know what you want, let me know and we'll be happy to help you get it.

Did she really just imply that I wasn't serious? Maybe I heard that wrong. She didn't want to deal with me because I didn't know exactly what I wanted? Isn't it the sales persons job to tell me what I want?

I'm sure I'll be getting a call from the editor.

Wow!

it could have been worse though. I went into a dealership that had no parking so I had to park in the hotel parking lot a block down. It took me over 6 minutes to get someone to look at me. The associate askes "what you want?" I tell him that I was interested in 2 different vehicles. He goes into the dealership after saying nada. He comes out, points to where two vehicles were parked, hands me the keys and leaves me. When I get back from a test drive, I still had zero service. The msc stated I didn't try hard enough.

While she was a bit "blunt" I find this entirely normal. .....Not based on auto phone shops (I've done none) but based on my experiences calling dealerships and my father calling them.

Pushing aside the food in her mouth (no pun intended) her response was "sales driven." They want you in the STORE. They don't want to give details,... details.

You say you have done 100 of these and this is the first time someone told you to COME DOWN and see the cars? Or got straight up serious about how they felt that you might not be serious about a purchase? Not trying to guess here but would find it hard to believe that most dealerships would not have done the same thing that this one did. Encourage you to come down, give you little bits of information and so on.....Also, "time is money" and they could be talking to a customer on the floor, instead of talking to you. (not trying to be mean but after all, they are there to sell cars)...

Look at it from her perspective: You did not know the model you wanted. You wanted information about the vehicle that you could have easily accessed on the web site, through search engines.

I understand your job was to "fish" information. Her job was to get you down there.

If this were 20 years ago, they would have tried do the same and still have you come down to the store...

If I had been making that call as a potential customer, talking to that sales person would have prevented me from ever going to that particular dealer. I research EVERYTHING before buying, and besides going to the website, I might call and ask for more information. Implying that I am wasting their time is NOT what I want to hear as a potential customer.

It may be "entirely normal" in some areas, but I've also done many new car phone shops for the upper Midwest and the majority of the people I talk to do their best to entice me to come to the dealership, not demand I stop wasting their time on the phone.

It definitely was not you! That was incredibly rude and shocking and I personally would have gotten a lot of satisfaction out of writing that report. I also research a great deal online and on phone before I purchase. Keep us posted.

I've had plenty of them try to get me to come in, and really not want to talk about it on the phone. This is just the first one I have ever had that has actually said she didn't want to deal with me until I was "serious". I just found it very rude.

I'd also like to point out that even in 2014, there are still a lot of people who don't have the internet, or don't use it for anything more than email. They don't know how to research cars online. It seems pretty arrogant to me that a dealer would assume that everyone has these capabilities and knows how to use them.

Obviously the major manufacturers find value in how their dealers handle phone enquiries, and still see them as a necessary tool to selling, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Did I mention that I finally got a "new" car? Yaay me!

Congratulations on your new car!
The dealership would have lost me as a potential customer based on that call.
I look forward to hearing how it is received by the MSC.

I've done a lot of car shops and it's amazing how some dealer stay in business. I had one where the sales person really just stood there and looked at me, didn't ask any questions, nothing. If I asked questions to get him talking, his answers were "I don't know", "not sure" that kind of thing. I detailed that in my visit narrative and the editor did not like that one bit. I had one dealership where I was looking at cars that was WAS going to buy, and just happened to be able to get a shop to look--refused to give me pricing on the cars....and still emails me about what they can do to 'earn' my business....well, how about telling me your rock bottom price like I asked, 3 times, while I was there....I bought the car from another dealer who was wonderful, whom I found on a previous shop .

The "best" one, however, was the guy that wouldn't even show me cars....tiny dealership, waited 10 minutes for him to finish playing a game on his computer--ok, I don't know what he was doing but still, I was the ONLY customer.....asked about information about 2 different cars, he pointed to the lot and said "they are out there" and walked away....seriously....I followed him and asked if I could test drive the cars, he said to go look at them and let him know which one I wanted to look at. I asked for the keys so I could get in side, nope, just look in the window....fortunately it was a shop where I didn't have to take a test drive so I left...holy cow!!!


Not a shop but I emailed the dealer where we've bought 5 cars and told them what I was looking for and to get me pricing/terms, etc. Never heard back from them...

When I bought my second car, I'd been saving toward it for three years, making double "payments" on my first car, to myself, continuing after the first was paid off.

Anyway, I'd been mystery shopping for three years at that point, and decided to go to a dealership I'd had great experiences shopping previously. I arrived with a bank check for 25k, a ridiculous amount of money for me at the time. I'd previously interacted with three great salesmen at this location while MSing, but when I came to actually buy a car, I got a nasty one who wouldn't give me the time of day. He refused to allow me a test drive, refused to open the car so I could even sit in it or check out the interior, and whenever I cornered him with a question about purchasing that day without financing, he basically just walked away and greeted someone else's customer!!

I left, went home, dug through my shoebox of business cards, pulled out the one for a salesman there I'd shopped the previous year, and called his cell. I explained what happened with the other salesman, and he offered to come in right then, even though he was off that day. When I arrived back at the dealership, he was waiting for me. Processed my sale in under an hour, and the nasty salesman was glaring at me the entire time.

I never shopped the sales side after purchasing there, but did shop them for oil changes. Three months later, nasty salesman had quit.

You would assume the MSC in consulting with the client determined that there was a proper procedure for handling phone inquiries. I would also assume the salesperson didn't follow that procedure. It would be interesting to know what kind of training they received. Most places hate phone shoppers and do give them short shrift as opposed to a live body standing in front of them.

Which is probably why that car company does the phone shops. People don't shop for cars like they used to..with the internet, people will reach out to dealers farther away for pricing and negotiating. Every dealership has a pop up internet sales person these days. If the dealer won't responds to those inquiries, they are losing business. I walked away from 2 dealerships because of my experience online. I did all of my negotiating via email for my latest car. I don't want to sit in a dealership for hours waiting for the salesperson to "check with his manager". My price is "$______", take it or leave it . It was so much nicer to walk into the dealership, have all the papers ready, just sign the papers and off I go!

ces1948 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You would assume the MSC in consulting with the
> client determined that there was a proper
> procedure for handling phone inquiries. I would
> also assume the salesperson didn't follow that
> procedure. It would be interesting to know what
> kind of training they received. Most places hate
> phone shoppers and do give them short shrift as
> opposed to a live body standing in front of them.

I responded to an online ad when I was shopping (for real) for a certain car. The online ad said the price was "$xx,xxx."

The sticker price was "$zz,zzz." When I called the dealer, the guy said they had a rebate of $b,bbb so the price was $yy,yyy.

$yy,yyy was significantly higher than $xx,xxx. I asked why. He hemmed and hawed about their online prices being posted by a third party company and sometimes they made mistakes. After some argument, discussion, and accusations of false advertising, he reluctantly agreed to sell me the car for $250 more than $xx,xxx and tried to make it sound like he was doing me a huge favor. No thanks.

A couple months later I flew to California and bought the same car only the upgraded model for "$ww,www," about $4000 less than his offer.

If the first guy hadn't be en such an a$$hole, I might have driven 100 miles to Phoenix and bought it for $xx,xxx. But with his reluctance to honor that price, I was pretty sure I would find several hundred dollars added on in "dealer prep" or other fees.

He still emails me. I delete them from my spam folder now and then.

The reputation car dealers have for being untrustworthy is richly earned by many of them, and unfortunately applied to the few honest ones out there.

I once mshopped a sales guy who literally did not speak English. The few words he did know had such a heavy accent, I could not understand him. It was the worst, and most uncomfortable situation.

Yeah, I had one guy on the recording (thank god this was a recorded call) tell me to stop wasting his time and that if I wanted to get my lazy @ss down to the dealership and be "a man" (i'm a woman) about shopping he'd talk to me then. Seriously.