[Reddog99]

I was hoping to see if I could order a Fiesta....
Over the last three days, I've wandered thru three of San Diego's Ford five dealers and was only approached by a salesman at one. And that was an iffy thing, as I was about 15 seconds from leaving there before a sales person struck up a conversation with me. At each dealer, I spent a half-hour sitting in cars, reading displays, and wandering around looking interested. I had hoped to stop someone and ask if they were in sales, but they walked past me and avoided eye contact as if I had, "NOT A BUYER" tattooed on my forehead.

I've got two more dealers to visit. Maybe I unknowingly radiate bad vibes? I'm kind of astonished. Maybe I ought to go in and ask for the manager right off the bat, ask for a person to be assigned to me....

 

[focusse]

I've experienced similar instances at various dealerships. I just end up going inside and asking the receptionist to page a salesperson for me. I remember years ago as soon as you pulled onto the lot someone was right on you but this doesn't really happen anymore. Times have changed because I think a lot of people now buy from an internet or fleet manager and the regular floor salesperson is becoming somewhat obsolete. All dealerships really need now is just someone standing outside offering test drives.

 

[Chan]

Probably has something to do with Ford's sales being up 43% or whatever so they're not as desperate as lets say Toyota dealers. Going dealer to dealer really is something you don't have to do. Send out a mass email/fax to all your surrounding dealers for them to send you an offer. Saves you time and gas. It's not like these Ford dealers are Mercedes or Lexus dealers where they give you free bottles of Fiji and have someone cater everyday.

 

[PowerShift]

Why is this a bad thing? You get to evaluate the cars without being disturbed. If you want to talk to someone you can. This is much better when than being attacked by a salesman when you just want to look.

 

[Eurek]

Why is this a bad thing? You get to evaluate the cars without being disturbed. If you want to talk to someone you can. This is much better when than being attacked by a salesman when you just want to look.

Boy do I agree with this!

 

[Reddog99]

Why is this a bad thing? You get to evaluate the cars without being disturbed. If you want to talk to someone you can. This is much better when than being attacked by a salesman when you just want to look.

If there was car that I wanted to look at, I certainly had plenty of time. But I actually wanted to order something and finding someone to talk to was a different story. They made themselves unavailable. Hell, I'm 60, and it's not as if I haven't got the means to buy. These dummies are missing out and they don't have the sense to know it.

 

[TeamFord]

(The below comment is not SPAM, I am just trying to help you guys out)

That's why I recommend you come to Team Ford Lincoln Mercury in Las Vegas. I have already offered any reservation/retail orders at dealer invoice. Come to Vegas, stay in a nice hotel and drive home or drive home that day. We were the #1 Ford dealer in Nevada for 2008, 2009, and I am the resident Fiesta Specialist. I even have a Blue Flame SES hatch on order already.

I have trained our personnel on the Fiesta. Matter of fact, we have to take a Fiesta test almost every 2 weeks when they update the video on our corporate site. I have a perfect 1300 score as of today

Need a quote, PM me.

 

[GhiaFan]

@Team Ford, I am sure your offer is appreciated but your state of reality seems somewhat obscured by the fact that not all posters here are in or near Las Vegas. I would suppose if your dealership principles start offering up prepaid air & hotel package as part of the Fiesta purchase experience, then you might get some bites, or offer free delivery anywhere in the USA for buyers purchasing the car via internet, phone etc.

Maybe the fact that you are the #1 Ford dealer in Nevada has clouded your sense of reality. Please do not take this comment as a jab, but as a reality check for you to consider.

@reddog99, not to defend unattentive salespeople, but I would like to make a suggestion to you, phone or email the dealership and set up an appointment. This way you can visit the dealership when it is convienent for you and also for the salesperon to clear time in their schedule to give you their uninterrupted attention.

 

[Reddog99]

I finally took focusse's advice and walked straight up to the receptionist and asked for a salesperson. She seemed somewhat shocked that I would have the nerve to do this, but did call a person over. This person then proceeded to act as if I was out-of-line by asking if I could order a car before it was in the showroom; "Do we really want to order a car?". I replied by asking if he really wanted to sell a car. What a dork!

What he really meant was that ordering would be thru the 'fleet sales' department and thus he wouldn't get a cut, so he wanted to be uncooperative.

 

[LMTech]

I finally took focusse's advice and walked straight up to the receptionist and asked for a salesperson. She seemed somewhat shocked that I would have the nerve to do this, but did call a person over. This person then proceeded to act as if I was out-of-line by asking if I could order a car before it was in the showroom; "Do we really want to order a car?". I replied by asking if he really wanted to sell a car. What a dork!

What he really meant was that ordering would be thru the 'fleet sales' department and thus he wouldn't get a cut, so he wanted to be uncooperative.

I don't know how the dealer that you went to works but the dealer that I ordered with was done straight through a salesman who does get a "cut" he handled all the paperwork of writing up the buyers order and I just gave him a copy of the build and price sheet of the car that I wanted and a copy of my reservation number. He then took that to the sales manager who put in the order with Ford and gave me a copy of the order build sheet which I approved that is what I wanted. I put a deposit of 200 dollars and now I am waiting for the car to show up. I have also talked with my salesman 3 times since then about other things that I wanted to know about and if he doesn't know the answer he finds out and calls me back. If I could make one suggestion that might help you out it would be to go straight in an talk to the sales manager directly and ask him which salesperson you should deal with. In order to find out who the sales manger is just look for the guy in the office that all the other salespeople are going in and out of regularly carrying paperwork.

 

[Mark Kleis]

Reddog - Give Bob Nichols a call. The guy is a Fiesta fanatic that I deal with regularly as a Fiesta agent. He "Gets it."

Tell him Mark Kleis sent you.

Bob Nichols
Drew Ford
619 668-7787 direct line
619 847-8176 cell phone

 

[Reddog99]

Reddog - Give Bob Nichols a call. The guy is a Fiesta fanatic that I deal with regularly as a Fiesta agent. He "Gets it."

Tell him Mark Kleis sent you.

Ironically, I did go to Drew Ford today. They've been #1 on my list of places not to buy for the last 30 years. Every time I've gone there I've been confronted by arrogant salesmen who think that their product is somehow better than the dealer across town. I once had them try to charge me a $1000 premium for a Ranger because it had 4WD! Needless to say, I've never purchased a vehicle from them.

Despite that, I went there today and had the pleasure of talking to a genuinely nice person in fleet sales. Just goes to prove that they aren't all jerks.

 

[TeamFord]

@Team Ford, I am sure your offer is appreciated but your state of reality seems somewhat obscured by the fact that not all posters here are in or near Las Vegas. I would suppose if your dealership principles start offering up prepaid air & hotel package as part of the Fiesta purchase experience, then you might get some bites, or offer free delivery anywhere in the USA for buyers purchasing the car via internet, phone etc.

Maybe the fact that you are the #1 Ford dealer in Nevada has clouded your sense of reality. Please do not take this comment as a jab, but as a reality check for you to consider.

I have taken all of this into consideration. First, by selling at invoice I save the Fiesta customer anywhere from $700-$1500 depending on options and packages. Where AFAIK most dealers are selling at MSRP. This is worth a plane ticket or 1-2 nights in a hotel easy. If I tried to sell @ invoice, then add the hotel and flight I would be losing money to sell them, nobody sells a product for a loss unless there is a way to recoup it later like PS3, Xbox, and things like that.

If you think selling at MSRP and throwing the other stuff makes more sense, then I can do it that way. My way you know exactly what you are paying for. I could get a Southwest ticket for probably like $80, the hotel next door is about $50. That's a $130 value. So you would you like that or $700+ savings?

Being #1 in no way has "clouded my sense of reality", it just goes to show that we run a great dealership and treat our customers very well.

 

[Marc]

Ford trains dealers to sell subcompact | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

 

[PowerShift]

They need to focus more on basic customer service training and less on Twitter.

 

[golf strom]

They need to focus more on basic customer service training and less on Twitter.

Bingo!

Excellent observation!