Unbelievable! Does Car Buying HAVE To Be SO Bad?
Colin Shaw
LinkedIn 'Top Voice' & influencer Customer Experience & Marketing | Financial Times Award Leading Consultancy 4 Straight Years | Host of 'The Intuitive Customer' in Top 2% | Best-selling Author x 7 | Conference Speaker
So a couple of months ago, Lorraine and I headed out to our local Jeep dealership. And thus began an excellent case study in how NOT to treat your customers.
When we arrived, I told the salesman I wasn’t going to buy anything that day. But the salesman cornered me into a negotiation anyway. I sat in an uncomfortable chair for most of the afternoon while this fellow disappeared time and again, emerging each time with a new lower price written on a sheet of paper.
After several rounds of this, I thanked him, told him, again, I didn’t intend to buy a Jeep that day, and went home with my piece of paper to think about it, with a promise the price would still stand. A couple of days later, I phoned him up to say I was ready to buy and would be over shortly. I hoped then this would be an easy transaction and my shiny new car would be waiting for me!
However, when I got to the dealership, my salesman told me they could no longer sell me the Jeep at the price we’d agreed to! The manager (who supposedly approved the price in the first place) said it really shouldn’t have happened – the car costs the dealership more than that. I was furious over the bait and switch and the wasted day of negotiating. I’d have walked out if it wasn’t for Lorraine, who persuaded me to stick with it. Eventually they did sell me the Jeep at the price we’d agreed to!
But why did it have to be so bloody painful? It should be a marvelous thing – driving a shiny new car off the lot. Instead, by the time I got my Jeep, I hardly wanted it anymore. The dealership’s horrid tactics left me feeling angry and disappointed and had ruined the whole experience. These are NOT the emotions that should be evoked in a good Customer Experience.
Customer Experience at its Worst
The really appalling thing is, my story is neither unique or unusual. Everyone who’s ever bought a car has a story like this. In fact, I have a story like this, involving awful negotiation tactics, missed deadlines, and a Lincoln salesman who had the gall to complain when I didn’t rate him a perfect “10.”
I also have a story of a great car buying experience, and it was at CarMax, the used car company. CarMax doesn’t haggle over price. The car costs what it says it does. You can browse the lot and focus on features and value, without dreading the confusing and stressful negotiation to come. Buying from them is a pleasure. CarMax has been wildly successful. So has Tesla, which also offers cars at a fixed price, bypassing the dealership model altogether.
So why do most dealers still subject us to this painful and sleazy negotiation process? Don’t they understand how much we hate it?
According to news accounts, they are starting to, though they’re moving at a sloth’s pace to do anything about it. Luxury car makers in particular are rolling out some encouraging new initiatives aimed at making things better – albeit only for the select few.
Lexus, for example, introduced a fixed-price program called Lexus Plus last year. Among its perks, the program ensures that you only have to deal with one person throughout your transaction. If you’re lucky, your local Lexus dealer is one of the 10 participating nationwide.
Lincoln, meanwhile, aims to make car buying more convenient for its most affluent customers, who it says are pressed for time (unlike the rest of us?). If you can afford its Black Label program, sales people come to you, and you deal with one person from beginning to end.
But Will They Really Change?
The luxury car makers are taking steps in the right direction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the changes will trickle down to the rest of the industry.
The reason is that truly improving the car buying experience (or any customer experience) requires the right mindset. Change means developing a companywide belief system that values customers and sees exceptional customer experience as a key factor driving value and loyalty. Salespeople and finance directors and that mysterious manager in the back office must be empowered to do what it takes to make the experience terrific.
Most car dealerships are light years away from this. Compensation and incentives are based on sales volume, and that is seldom a winning strategy in any industry. And the crazy thing is, we’ve seen that car companies can be successful and profitable while still making their customers happy.
I love my Jeep now. But the next time I need a car, I’m going to CarMax.
What’s your worst car buying experience? Please share it in the comments section below.
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Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of six bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX
Automotive Mgmt. Pro with 20 yrs experience, combined retail and corporate development. Visionary on both granular and 30k ft level, and proven track record of top performance across both team and stakeholder levels.
7 年I have worked in the automotive and retail industry for nearly 25 years, and spent 15 months Training into a “market priced” guest experience model. It is an extremely challenging culture to install but is the only way the dealership model will be sustainable going forward. After my involvement in the training department at the company, I was asked to work with the management team at one of the company’s most successful luxury lines. Upon transferring I had the opportunity to put all of the processes and more importantly fulfill the guest experience into play on the floor. The store had so much traffic, that at one point I was helping guests myself. I have to tell you, once you are able to positively communicate the proper message, the result is nothing short of miraculous. The job becomes much more positive, and the guest is moved from adversary to advocate. A large part of implementing this culture means installing not only the culture itself, but overcoming fear, prejudice and other ‘pattern thinking’. The learning curve to someone who is actively attempting to make a living, and who themselves have been challenged and trained by the buying public requires not only the associate to buy in, but management as well.
Outlier at Origin Works
7 年Spot on Colin, I planned to buy a car and had a test drive. On the way I asked why the price was such an odd number (say ￡17,527) and was told 'we have some very smart accountants who make sure we have the lowest price on any car, so there are no discounts. So one day later I offer ￡16,721 ( a deliberately odd number) which lo and behold was 'reluctantly' accepted after a very period of waiting. Go back the next day to be presented with an invoice for ￡18,000+ So what is this about? I ask 'Oh Sir we have a duty of care to you and these are some essential insurances' I nearly walked out but simply said 'go away and return with the price we agreed' I noticed some smirking in the watching sales people, clearly the 'Boss' had said 'watch this' BUNCH OF PETTY CROOKS all of them
Sales Associate
7 年Post.
Sales Associate
7 年I used to work down the street from a large CarMax in Kennesaw and I loved it because they'd warm the customers up for me to sell them.... bottom line most customers want to negotiate even though they're not very good at it and seem to dislike it hence the original
industrial cleaner at sbfm,
7 年Depends on the service