Customer Service is alive and well... just gotta know who to come see.

 

You'll never get customer service if you don't know how to enter a reply correctly

 

Well if you go to BMW of Bellevue, customer service will be the same all the time.

 

I work at a dealership in the Seattle / Tacoma area and pre qualifying a client is the quickest way to not sell anyting. One of my best clients never comes in looking like money and in the last year has bought $400k in cars from me.

The only time I may say somthing about credit before a test drive is if the car is over 400 hp / $85K and after talking with you for 15 min or so you seem like you just want to play then I may ask you for a credit app. But any professional sales person will talk to you about the car and can figure out if you are real or now very quickly.

Sales is a contact sport, the more you contact the more you can make. But a good sales person will talk to every one and do what he needs to to sell the car and weed out the B.S. test drives, which you can always smell from a mile away.

I don't have an Aston but do know where a beautiful DB9 conv. is if you want the number and shop owners name PM me.

 

What's worst is even if you are somehow successful at getting someone's attention to talk about a car and if very very lucky test drive you quickly learn that the person knows nothing about the car you looking at buying! It is interesting how with so much more information made readily available via the internet the once so-called experts we used to rely upon for information about products and services are not looking like such experts anymore.

 

I've been reading this thread with great interest. Its easy to see it from both angles if you've been in this "game" long enough. A most excellent story I love to recant to others.............
Back when I first got out of school, I got this feather up my butt and decided I wanted to go check out the new Benzes at Phil Smart. I parked my beat up Mazda 323 with 167k miles on it out in front of the main door and proceeded to walk right in. None but one of the 5-6 salesman even made eye contact or approached to ask if I had questions. I have since in the last 20 years bought at last count 14 cars from him. Best part was that when I left, I had a parking ticket on the windshield......as I stood staring at the ticket, the salesman came running out and took the ticket from me saying his boss would pay for it. Well that boss was Phil Smart senior himself. PS senior retired from the business some years ago...........but what an incredible lesson in customer service I witnessed first hand.

 

If you still have that feather I'd love to borrow it seeing as how its gotten you where now are and all.

 

Great story, Kuzi!

 

Interesting thread and great story, Kuzi. I think the moral of this story is that in this area, those with the means don't always look like they have the means.

If my wealthy friends are any indication, they all look and act like they belong behind the barista bar of a local coffee shop, yet they are packing 7 and 8-figure accounts from their dot-boom days. It's tough to be a premium/exotic car salesman in this town and down in the silicon valley, but I think it would behoove them to screen in rather than out and put their instincts to the test.

 

Trial and error my friend.......trial and error. And lots of both.

 

great story!

 

there is a HUGE different between a golf outfit and jogging outfit.

golf outfit = upper class, more likely.

 

one thing that I notice also, salesman don't get any training at all on the "customer service" part. sometimes they ask stupid questions or questions that are irrelevant. Like yesterday I came in a Magic Toyota dealer and looked at Toyota Tundra for my bro-in-law. one of the salesman came up and asked me "r u gonna trade in that Mercedes?" - i drove in my '07 S550. i think salesman sometimes have no knowledge about the cars out there and its value.

 

Doc you would be shocked at some of the trade-ins that come in.

A friend once took in an M6 on trade for an '04 Audi A4. Guy was getting rid of a car and getting his daughter a car. Needless to say, there was remaining balance that went towards a Q7...

 

i know, but who would really trade a full size LUXURY sedan vehicle for a Toyota TRUCK? if i was to trade for a truck, i'd trade in for GL450.