What a hateful experience it really is.

 

I used to enjoy looking around and chatting to sales staff, but the pressure is on to clinch a deal now it seems.

 

"What will it take to get you to sign today then Sir?"

 

Well getting out of my face and ceasing to badger me for starters, and no, i REALLY don't want to see the sales manager either.

 

Too late, he's here now, all smiles and £ note symbols coming up in his eyes every time he blinks like a bloody cash register.

 

When will they learn that intimidating tactics and making you almost feel obliged to purchase are REALLY not the way to conduct business.

Might work with some easily pursuaded sheeple, but not for for me thanks.

 

Sale lost, shame.

Edited 5 April, 201412 yr by Mr Ree

I guess this is what they mean by trying to qualify prospective customers, but sometimes they get it wrong.

A lot of it is down to chemistry at the end of the day. Some people will just rub each other up the wrong way and if you get off to a bad start, you're not going to be doing business. Luckily there are plenty of car dealerships out there.

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When we bought SWMBOs current car our local dealer didnt listen to what we wanted, and tried to sell us what he wanted to sell- result lost sale and we bought what we wanted from a dealer 70 miles away.

 

I had done my homework, new the spec I wanted and what I wanted to pay for it.

 

When we had to change my daughters car last year we went to look at a car we found online at a fairly local branch of a National chain. When we sat down to negotiate a price it turned out the windscreen price was their basic staring point- within a few minutes th "essentials" had added nearly £1k to the price. I calmly explained that I wanted to by the car, not all the extras like car mats, full tank of fuel, extended warrantly etc, stated a price to change that I was prepared to pay and walked away. 24 hour later they phoned and surprise, suprise, they could let me have the car for the price I wanted. Daughter loves the car (2006 Fiesta  Zetec that had genuine 18k on the clock when we bought it) very reliable and comfy car that should do her for several years.

 

Frustrating therefore when I get my lease car changed- know I have to try to get test drives out of dealers who wont get the sale, so need some little stretching of the truth, as have encountered difficulty getting test drive when I state it is a lease purchace outwith my control, then I have no control over the deal or which dealer it comes from.

 

Never mind- only a week left till I get my new lease car delivered

Worked the other way for us, salesman didn't know what hit him on Saturday. Suggested buying the wife an MX-5, so had done a little research on price and decided what we wanted to pay. Walked in to the dealer and had a look at a few colours to confirm which one she wanted and that was it. He was so off guard he even forgot to take our details initially. Can't abide having my time wasted, so if there was any sign of not getting close to where we wanted to be we would have walked and gone elsewhere.

I cant stand it when the salesmen just dont seem to give a **** about the cars they are selling....

 

OK, I know what I want to purchase and have therefore have done a fair bit of research - No, I dont expect you to know the part number of every nut and bolt.....but a little knowledge about the car and an acknowledgement of "right, the customer knows the spec.... lets get the figures right" would be a great start.

 

I find this is a person problem, more than a dealership issue..... Very nearly bought a DS3 top spec for SWMBO (despite it costing around 80/mth more) because the sales bod was down to earth and couldnt do enough for us whilst we were there....

When we got my wife's Fabia from Crawley Down I was a bit worried about it would go but the sales person came over as genuine and even saved me some money by pointing out that Sat navigation was, for local driving, covered by her phone.

No pushing of extras, just confirmed what I wanted and got a sale.

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Skoda have been the best for me so far. I looked at a vauxhall before and the sales staff were so pushy it was unreal. I basically had to tell him his cars were too expensive. End of chat.

Skoda on the other hand were down to earth, relaxed and allowed me to take control of the deal. They never even bartered back, I literally part ex'd for the amount I wanted and bought the car for the amount I wanted. In fact, the monthly price came down by £7. So win win for me. Very easy evolution.

Skoda have been the best for me so far. I looked at a vauxhall before and the sales staff were so pushy it was unreal. I basically had to tell him his cars were too expensive. End of chat.

Skoda on the other hand were down to earth, relaxed and allowed me to take control of the deal. They never even bartered back, I literally part ex'd for the amount I wanted and bought the car for the amount I wanted. In fact, the monthly price came down by £7. So win win for me. Very easy evolution.

Some might say that if he wasn't bartering back and agreed readily to your demands, you didn't push him hard enough!

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Glad to see I am not the only one who hates the sales tactics. I went into the local Skoda dealers and all the salesman could say was " What will it take to get you to sign today then Sir" no matter what I said to him he would not stop asking the same question. In the end I left and went to an alternative garage. Is there a school for salesmen that tells them if they ask the same question over and over again, somebody might buy the car? Certainly I will not go back to this Skoda garage.

Glad to see I am not the only one who hates the sales tactics. I went into the local Skoda dealers and all the salesman could say was " What will it take to get you to sign today then Sir" no matter what I said to him he would not stop asking the same question. In the end I left and went to an alternative garage. Is there a school for salesmen that tells them if they ask the same question over and over again, somebody might buy the car? Certainly I will not go back to this Skoda garage.

Yes. well not a school as such, but certainly some training courses will include training on high pressure searching techniques and questions to be asked.

 

Questions asked must not be able to be answered as a simple yes or no.

 

My main Ford stealer is privately owned, and the gaffer is thoroughly evil.

If ANYONE comes on his pitch or into the showroom, he fully expects the sales staff to close a deal, and who-betide them if they don't.

 

Needless to say, staff turnover is extremely high

Edited 17 April, 201412 yr by Mr Ree

I used to work for comet and the higher management would push the exact same sales tactics on the sales guys to use in order to push extras.

I've sat in a room with sales people when they think no one is listening (who cares about the IT guy right?), and they simply don't understand why people don't buy what ever crap it is they are trying to shift. It really is just a state of mind that they get in to where they believe what they are selling is _THE_  _BEST_ _THING_  _EVER_ and why would anyone not want to buy it. And the amount of bitching about 'time wasters' is funny too, probably the punter walked out saying the same thing about the sales monkey who wouldn't let them have a nice browse of the goods and made them sit down running sums with him for 2hours when they really didn't want to buy...

Some might say that if he wasn't bartering back and agreed readily to your demands, you didn't push him hard enough!

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That's exactly what I thought after, always wish id pushed harder! But I guess they wanted rid of it. 16k for a 2 month old diesel vRS with 4k on the clock, estate too.

That's exactly what I thought after, always wish id pushed harder! But I guess they wanted rid of it. 16k for a 2 month old diesel vRS with 4k on the clock, estate too.

Well it doesn't matter if you paid what you were happy to pay I guess. I was only playing!

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My bmw dealer was perfect as far as 'selling' is concerned.

After spending an hour and half on the premises for first appointment, being shown different cars in the range, driving one I wanted to drive, and of course drinking the free coffee, the closest he got to directly trying to sell a car or close a deal was his concluding question, "So, the next steps are up to you really. What would you like to do?"

Needless to say, I brought a car from him once we got down to haggling and sorting a price we were both happy with.

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Edited 17 April, 201412 yr by sotonjoe

Glad to see I am not the only one who hates the sales tactics. I went into the local Skoda dealers and all the salesman could say was " What will it take to get you to sign today then Sir" no matter what I said to him he would not stop asking the same question. In the end I left and went to an alternative garage. Is there a school for salesmen that tells them if they ask the same question over and over again, somebody might buy the car? Certainly I will not go back to this Skoda garage.

 

 

Many moons ago, I used to work for a high street chain selling photography gear. When I joined, staff were hired based on their knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject, and the only 'sales technique' was to answer any questions prospective customers had about the items. Basically, if you could demonstrate it well, and make sure any advice was correct, and resulted in good value for money, people would buy.

 

As I worked there, the business changed, as did the sales patter, which was enforced from a script and regularly checked by mystery shoppers. I believe this is how most sales places operate now, whether it be cars, washing machines, holidays or pretty much anything else.

 

I find the best way to appraoch a sales person is to explain that I used to work in sales and disarm them. "What would it take for you to make your sales target today sir?.. ah, I see... you'd best knock a fair bit of the price of that one then, hadn't you?" 

 

Most sales people are bored, and under a lot of pressure. Striking up a conversation about them, what they like, etc goes a long way to extracting the human out of them in many cases. They're more likely to want to genuinely help a customer they actually like.

Edited 20 April, 201412 yr by inventory-photo

Nothing worse than going in to a showroom and they start with the lines from "My first big book of selling".

 

Some of them catch on that talking *******s isn't going to work and turn back into humans, usually the older guys. But many just won't give up.

 

When I bought the VRS I fell out with one salesman and another was so laid back I had to ask him to sell me the car (he made a lot of sales without trying, had no patter at all).

 

SWMBO had a fairly pleasant time buying her Beemer, they were quite human and not push. Willing to deal even though it was one of the cheaper cars on the lot.

 

Much as I like cars, I hate buying them.