Whilst collating some of my friends and colleagues experiences with car dealers recently, I turned up some entertaining and sometimes amusing anecdotes.
One friend of mine, upon entering his local Citroen dealership said that he and his girlfriend spent the first ten minutes in the forecourt, "running around like Benny Hill" as they tried to avoid the over enthusiastic salesperson who had spotted them as soon as they put a foot on the tarmac. The phenomenon of the pushy salesperson is not necessarily puny to that of the car showroom, of course. Indeed, you can't seem to step foot into any high road clothes store anymore without some spotty faced assistant with a impossibly vacant expression request if they "can help you".
Car Sales
Whether it's a shop or a showroom though, if whatever asks me in the first ten seconds I arrive, "What are you seeing for today, sir?" I cannot help but rejoinder angrily: "I don't know Yet, that's why I'm Looking!".
The same friend had also experienced other pushy car salesperson that had been especially accommodating when my friend had been browsing around a brand new Ford Focus and a shiny new Ford Mondeo. Sensing their interest with a predatory instinct, the salesperson spent a good fifteen minutes explaining the features of both models, even though they hadn't yet been inquired about. When my friend admitted that though he would have loved to purchase one of those models but his funds only extended to less than a third of what even the most basic model would have cost, the salesperson's demeanor changed dramatically and he for real walked away within seconds.
Not all the experiences encountered by my friends were negative though. Thankfully, one was almost the excellent example of customer service. An experienced salesperson approached my friends, a married incorporate seeing to buy a low priced used vehicle. He offered assistance but left them to browse the forecourt, request them to give him a shout if they needed anything. When they took him up on the offer to find out more about financing one of the cars that had taken their interest, the salesman spent a good deal of time explaining how the finance offer applied only to the basic model and not to the car the incorporate had for real looked at. The car was out of the couple's financial reach. However, the salesman's honest and informative approach, whilst not generating a sale on that singular car, ultimately led to the incorporate returning to the same dealership a fortnight later to buy other vehicle.
Trusting a good salesman, it seems, for real does help car dealers get sales, after all. Maybe they should all take notice: honesty pays in the long run.
Car Dealers - How to Deal With Pushy Sales people