damning the dealers

[AlanJ]

Good to see some positive feedback about dealers on the forum in recent days but I am somewhat confused as to what constitutes good service and prompts a feedback reponse:

If a forum member gets bad service from one member of staff – damn the dealer (and by default all who work for the dealer).
If a forum member gets good service from one member of staff – praise the dealer (and again by default all who work for etc....).

Now how does this work as it is normally just one persons actions on each occasion that condemn or praise!

 

[cj10jeeper]

But that's the reality of it. The actions of each individual can and usually do represent the face of an organisation at moment. Not fair - perhaps, hence most of these things are taken with a pinch of salt and weighted over many different peoples experiences.

Bad alway carries better than good too. There was something on the news about John Lewis who are widely regarded to have excellent feedback, but one employee was reported to be picking pear bits out his teeth while handling a custoemer ... That one made some TV news headlines

 

[pvr]

If I review a dealer, it is over many years and over many departments. Generally, if one department makes up for the shortfall of another, I would still rate the dealer as "good". If it all falls apart, I then make the change.

As an example, the dealer I used to go to (Chandlers Hailsham) for about 7 years had an excellent service department where I was very happy with. It went wrong in general when a lot of people started leaving, car returned damaged, sales guy not matching or anywhere near matching the price of a new car to another dealer, service desks calls never returned and so on. My review went from "overall good" to "overall bad" so moved away from them.

My current dealer, Vines of Gatwick has also had quit a list of issues during delivery, damage to cars etc but whilst I can get some of the guys in service / sales to make up for those short falls, I will stay there (5 years so far).

 

[Smokin]

I agree with pvr, it's not just one person or department, it's the overall service and attitude. I had a run-in with a salesman (idiot) but the other people in the sales department made up for him. I never have a problem with service or parts. Matter of fact, I took my car in yesterday for the yearly oil change (no charge), did some errands and came back. They hadn't gotten to my car yet but that was my fault-I had said I was leaving the car but I came back before they called to tell me it was done. My service adviser moved my car up in the order of service and even had them put it in line as priority for a wash afterward. Fortunately, this is not unusual behavior for this dealer.