My last one was an Audi and as an automobile it is just awesome so I headed to the store which sells Audis. I walked in and immediately receptionist welcomed me and asked how she could help. I told that I would like to potentially buy one and she asked me to wait until until one of sales reps were available. Minutes passed and again some minutes passed but no one came to serve me. I could see three sales reps without serving any customer doing something with their computers. Most likely it was something very important but still I felt awkward for not getting any attention.
Finally one twenty something approached me. He was wearing a suit and a tie - and not feeling very comfortable doing so. So I said I would like to buy a car with a price ticket close to 50k and gave additional details how I would like to do it. Most interesting was that what ever I said he didn't take the opportunity to sell the car but did the opposite. All of his comments were around the idea how it is not possible. So I briefly commented that "hey I am a walk-in customer and have an intention to buy but it seems you don't want to sell". No change in his behavior.
Finally he said that maybe you can get the car from the used cars area because one of your criteria is to get the car immediately - and with his hand showed where to find those. Then he just left and didn't even take my contact details.
I walked to the area and didn't find what I was looking for. Too many miles in each available model but the sales rep was really service oriented. So I headed out.
Car dealers in Finland have always had this reputation of being arrogant and most important just selling cars not taking care of customer relationships and not being service oriented. But you would think that when so many company from other consumer industries has invested into these areas raising the general bar what customers expect their service level to be - car dealers had done the same. Or even just taking very basic idea of selling - to find ways how customer is convinced to buy.
Unfortunately no. This industry still seems to be in the 80's distributing cars not selling and taking care of customers. Even in the recession shaken Finland nothing has changed. Of course this was just an experience from one dealer but the stories I have heard from others unfortunately give more proof points.
And have you noticed if there is an ad on available position at one of dealers first qualification criteria is previous experience from the industry. That is one way to keep things how they always have been.
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