My Dealer

[Guest]

I was very pleased that my iQ passed its first MOT yesterday and felt a fuzzy warm feeling envelope me... okay so that's going a bit too far. The people who work there call each other by name. They are not 'colleague's' like in most supermarkets these days, nor are they comrades, they are quite likely co-workers at worst, but friends in work at best. I like the way they do business with me, and having seen them deal with other customers I am impressed. Often these days we hear about poor service, ignorant dealers, and so on. So, for those of you out there dealing with your dealer, how about a little league table to see which of them get a glowing or at least a good rating from you. I rate my local dealer as Excellent.

[tarquin]

My dealer at gallows corner Romford essex is truly excellent not only the sales team, service team but also every person in the spares department bend over backwards to help me

(They do have a couple of dodgy mechanics that maybe should have retired as they are not up to speed on modern technology) but i suppose it shows they look after and support their staff

David

[acetip]

THe servive dept may be very good and also the spares staff.but never trust sales staff at any dealers.

They may seem very nice to your face but they are just out to make as much money out of you as they can.

Thats their job.

[tarquin]

This is true. But if i compare this dealership with my friends Vauxhall dealership that let him down all the way through the purchase of his car and had a stand up arguement with the salesperson who called my friend a liar in the middle of the show room and the manager had take them in the office to calm the salesperson down!!! Then the professionalism at my dealership shines

David

[DFish]

I have a very good parts and service department at Sidcup, it's a shame that a member of their sales team was such an idiot when I was looking to make my purchase that I ended up at another to get my wonderful little iQ.

Fish

[tonyishuk]

(They do have a couple of dodgy mechanics that maybe should have retired as they are not up to speed on modern technology) but i suppose it shows they look after and support their staff

David

Nah !! Probably they know more about PROPER motor cars with none of this electronic stuff, where the younger lads are lost without a computer to tell them the back wheel has a punture..

Rgds

One for the oldies

[Red Yaris 54]

THe servive dept may be very good and also the spares staff.but never trust sales staff at any dealers.

They may seem very nice to your face but they are just out to make as much money out of you as they can.

Thats their job.

I have never found that to be the case with my local dealer THURLOW NUNN at St Ives Cambridgeshire......the Sales staff (Particularly Paul Meakin) go out of their way to be helpful and are not greedy when it comes to giving the customer a good deal.

Paul has become a good and trusted friend to me and my son over the years that we have known him and is totally open and honest regarding any dealing.

It is always a dangerous thing to give generalisations on the forum about sales staff.........

[Lorna2]

I would rate my local dealer Donnelly & Taggart to be excellent. Any staff I’ve met over the years have always been very friendly and helpful, nothing is too much trouble. There’s always a friendly face, and someone with time for a wee chat. And any work is always carried out to the highest standard. So a good experience all round :)

I'm not surprised by Tarquin's friend's experience at the Vauxhall dealer. I wouldn’t have a good word to say about my local Vauxhall dealer either.

[Lorna2]

THe servive dept may be very good and also the spares staff.but never trust sales staff at any dealers.

They may seem very nice to your face but they are just out to make as much money out of you as they can.

Thats their job.

Really? So if you were to take a sales job tomorrow, would you all of a sudden change from being a normal decent person, into a a devious one, out to rip off your customers?

If you treat customers like dirt and rip them off, they will buy elsewhere the next time. So it actually makes better sense from a sales point of view to treat your customers well, then they will be happy and buy again, and tell their friends what a nice place it is to buy from. Good customer service is invaluable.

:)

[Guest]

David, I agree about Vauxhall being rubbish, in all departments. However, not every garage is the same -I know you aren't saying they are- and in my experience over a period of eight years and maybe another 2 years with another two Vauxhall's, I saw good and bad, sometimes from the same garage. Naming and shaming my worst dealer experience was with a dealers in Northwich, Cheshire -whose name I cannot recall now, how typical!

They were rubbish, so much so that they had to do the cylinder head on the 2000 GSi engine twice, as they made a right mess of it first time around. Not everything had been tightened correctly, and then when it was supposed to have been back in for a check that everything was okay after about a week or two of doing no more than 70mph -which I think was about 3000 to 3500 revs- they told me it didn't need it! That was a call from their service department. So, shortly after that I took it back and told them what happened and that it wasn't right -the engine was laboured, not much power etc. So they checked it over and said it had not been brought back in like it should have been, so it was my fault! It was all sorted in the end I got the head done for free. But it created a lot of bad feeling on my part. I didn't want to use them again, so I went to another garage my borther used to work at instead.

One would think that, as Lorna hints at above, keeping customers is more important than making money, to a degree I appreciate. Customer relations is key, or people don't come back. It's the same throughout business worldwide. Reputation stands for a lot more these days than it used to. Those with a poor reputation, like Vauxhall for example, are going to go the way of SAAB.