How to Lose a Sale

[jducoeur]

Before I forget, a bit of name-and-shame:

No shit, there we were, at Watertown Toyota a couple of weeks ago. We've pretty much decided that it's time to get a new car -- while the old one still drives okay (and has some resale value), it's ten years old and was pretty bottom-of-the-line to begin with. We've been talking about a Prius for years now, and decided sometime back that this was the year when we were going to upgrade.

I'd done my research, so Kate called ahead, made an appointment, and specifically listed the three models that we wanted to look at hands-on.

So we get there, get assigned a salesperson, and it quickly becomes apparent that:

• Despite claiming to have listened to her, nobody at the shop had actually prepared for our arrival in any way.
• The salesman had absolutely no idea what he was doing -- indeed, he clearly knew less about these cars than I did from an hour of online research. So he kept disappearing to pass questions on.
• Only one of those models was even on the lot, so he kept having to run off for long periods to "the annex" to fetch cars.

During the second instance of the latter, after he'd left us twiddling our thumbs for 15-20 minutes (and we had been there for 1.5 hours of what had been planned as a half-hour visit), we finally gave up and left. Only as we were storming out the door did anybody else show the slightest interest in talking to us.

The most generous interpretation of the situation was that the salesman was brand-new. But even that doesn't really excuse it, because he was clearly almost completely untrained. So while I'm willing to forgive the salesman a little, I'm not willing to forgive the shop.

And seriously: this was a nearly-guaranteed sale. We weren't going to buy on-the-spot, mostly because I wanted to mull it over between the three interesting models, but we were all prepared to write a check in the next week or two. As it was, I left with steam pouring out of my ears, vowing never to enter the place again.

The day was salvaged by Kate pointing out that Herb Chambers Toyota was just down the road a bit. So we walked in unannounced; got assigned a salesman instantly; he immediately took us down to the lot to look at the models we wanted; he was able to speak intelligently about the various options and tradeoffs; and he was able to discuss the availability situation. (Which turns out to be pretty tight: manufacturing has been hit by the crisis, and a lot of people are buying cars right now because they don't want to take the T.) Guess where we're probably going to buy from?

So take this as an implicit side-by-side review of two dealerships. Strictly anecdotal, but wow, the difference was striking...

Comments

[cvirtue]

No excuse for the first place. Sheesh.

[ailish]

FWIW, it's about the same distance to each of those dealers for me. Once I was pretty sure what I wanted, I checked online inventory at both, and Herb Chambers had the car I was looking for, while Watertown Toyota didn't. It sounds like that happenstance saved me from a potentially bad experience. Anyway, I ended up buying from Herb Chambers, and it was less painful than I generally assume car shopping to be. (I dread the in-person aspect of car shopping.) This was last December, before the Pandemic changed the world, but the first service visit I had (while sales was still closed for isolation) was handled well.

[loosecanon]

A reminder that if you have a costco membership, they may be able to solve any negotiation concerns you may have, their car purchasing department is robust. I have not used it but have had many good reports.

Same here

[jedirissa]

We had a very similar situation with the Bedford Volkswagen several years ago. We didn't make an appointment ahead of time, but we got there and said something like "we're interested in manual transmission station wagons and want to take a look at the 2015 jetta." And the guy sat there at his computer looking over the website trying to sell us a used model of various cars for ~2k less than the new model that weren't manual transmission or weren't jetta wagons. Jonathan tried to explain several times we didn't want a used model, we wanted a new model because the price differences weren't enough to make us want a used model. If we'd wanted to sit and shop on the website, we could have done that from home.

IIRC he was confused by the fact that they didn't have a manual transmission on the lot? But we just wanted to look over the interior and see if we liked it better than some subaru model we'd looked at earlier in the day. Finally we convinced him to let us look at the interior of the jetta wagon they did have on the lot.

We left with no intention of back. We then went to the VW dealership a coworker had recommended (a 50 minute drive from our house vs the 10 minute drove of the original). The guy there showed us the one car we actually cared to see and when we talked about we might want it in a different color he told us we didn't need to go to another dealership, he could get it on his lot in 2-3 days. He got the sale, despite being a little pushy on getting all the paperwork done on a specific day once we'd agreed to the sale.

We were nearly a sure sale. We knew exactly the car we wanted. The Subarus were all large and boaty in that generation. The jetta was not.

Fortunately the nearby one has an excellent service department, so they get our car for maintenance.

[luscious_purple]

FWIW, I have a friend who moved from MA to northern VA in 1994, and he still drives the 1993 Accord he bought at Herb Chambers in 1993. And it still has the "Herb Chambers" license plate frame on it. Just a miscellaneous data point. If he'd had a bad experience, he probably would have ditched the frame long ago. He tends to be fanatically loyal to companies he likes, and vice versa.