I'll probably catch some flack for my view of this experience, but what has happened to the ambition and drive from individuals and businesses these days? My apologies in advance for the lengthy dissertation.
These are a couple of shots of our local Cad/GMC dealer when I took my truck in for service this morning. I've done business with them for many years and bought several new vehicles from them. My service writer is a top notch guy and always takes very good care of me. The sales side not so much, well, at least the last couple of years.
So the service guy gets my truck in the shop and I head to the show room to check out the latest. There are a total of four cars on the floor two of which are already sold awaiting delivery. I make two full passes across the floor stopping to look at some brochures and trying to garner some attention with practically licking the paint off of the sierra denali pictured. I was within 10' of six sales guys and two sales managers as I meandered around. Hmmm. Went back to the lounge had a cup of coffee and went back to the floor and did it all again plus walked the lot where they only had a few work truck models to look at. Came back through the lobby past the same sales guys to the lounge watched a little TV and then went to the showroom again. Made another pass. None of them even looked up and I couldn't stand it anymore. Walked up to the two sales managers and said excuse me, can you give me an idea of what you might have on order for 22/23 Sierra Denali's? One manager began checking his computer immediately and the other one (the boss) started in with oh it's going to be hit and miss on getting any of those anytime soon. The one on the computer piped in and said we've got five 22's on order and three of those are already sold and we have no idea when we're going to actually get them. You have a color and engine in mind. Yes, tricoat white with a 6.2. I have a white one on order with a 5.3. Probably will never get another 6.2 as those are being discontinued (or something to that affect?) Then the big guy said if you want to get anything at all you'll just have to place an order and wait.
I remained polite and in kind of a joking manner asked, good gosh man how are you keeping these sales guys employed and fed with no inventory? The big guy again, we had a staff of almost 20 sales guys but had to trim it down to 6 or 7 of our best guys. Me again remaining polite and respectful I said, best guys? In the past hour I walked this entire floor and your lot past everyone of you four times and not one of you thought to offer any assistance or ask if I needed any help. I said if anyone would had given me the time of day they would have learned that my 18 Denali with 30K miles on it that I bought new from you is in for service and that I am a prospective buyer for a 23 model. He starts apologizing profusely while the other manager signals one of the sales guys thats been sitting on his ass the whole time to come over and introduce himself with the all too common car sales guy pitch greeting. Too late, I was already walking away as I was telling the sales boss that I was in no way being derogatory, but only offering an observation from a customers perspective for his and his sales teams consideration. He continued to apologize as I continued to say no need and no worries. He still never took the opportunity to ask me if I was ready to make a trade with my truck.
I'm not trying to be petty, but I just don't get what has happened to peoples drive and ambition in providing customer service these days. It's not just these guys, it's everywhere. My wife hates it when I feel the need to speak up over crappy service. Anywhere. Because I will. I never raise my voice. I'm never impolite or disrespectful. I don't single an employee out and will usually ask to talk to the manager without drawing attention of the issue from others. I just ask the "have you considered" constructive criticism kind of questions as suggestions for improving their service. I was in sales for 35 plus years. If we received a call from a customer saying his feet hurt half of our team would call him to ask how they could help ease his pain. But heres the difference we (I) prided myself and our team on our sales and customer service skills to the point that if a customer had an issue, we were probably already aware of any potential dissatisfaction and calling him to resolve before he/she called us.
I don't know if what I'm witnessing more and more these days is just a lack of caring, lack of training or pride, ignorance, no situational awareness, or just not giving a shit about customer service. But complacency is rampant and appears to be the new norm. Or perhaps I'm just turning into a too critical grumpy old man.Go ahead and flame on if you wish. I can take it
Hard to see in the pictures but there are six sales guys in those cubicles with two managers set back behind them. One more thing FWIW. There was a time 40 years ago while between careers that I sold cars for about a year. We had 23 sales guys. If your tire hit the lot there would be 4 or 5 of us tripping over each other to be the first to have the opportunity to talk to you to the point that we hid between the cars and would jump in front of your car when you drove byYep, we were everyones stereotype definition of your favorite car salesman. I had never sold cars before, but I left after a year with the salesman of the year award when I did.
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Originally Posted by TroyBoy30
