Unresponsive Dealerships

[LarryB]

I've submitted my build to a handful of dealerships both local and recommended by the forum but haven't heard back in a week despite following up on pricing. Have you guys noticed this as well? I'm assuming the high demand of cars plus the pandemic caused some of this.

There is never any excuse for not getting back to a customer. I would reach out to the Sales Manager / GM of the dealership directly and voice your displeasure in a polite manner. As both a former salesperson and sales leader, this is usually the most effective route.

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[ResGuy68]

There is never any excuse for not getting back to a customer. I would reach out to the Sales Manager / GM of the dealership directly and voice your displeasure in a polite manner. As both a former salesperson and sales leader, this is usually the most effective route.

I've fired quite a number of customers and adopted filters to avoid countless more. I would support any business taking similar steps if the business case warrants.

Responding to mass RFQs for internet sales are a low-margin, low-certainty endeavors. A 5% chance at a $1000 gross margin sale doesn't support 1-2 hours of SG&A expense required to mature the prospect.

If the poster is able to communicate clarity, certainty and concern specific to that dealer. I'm guessing that they'll start to get responses back. (I certainly did when I ran my RFQ process last month).

Otherwise, why is it that only the customer's time matters?

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I should note that I do not work in the automotive space. In fact, in my industry, I've more often been the "purchaser" than the "seller." I've fired and been fired by customers. I've held no I'll will in either instance.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I've fired quite a number of customers and adopted filters to avoid countless more. I would support any business taking similar steps if the business case warrants.

Responding to mass RFQs for internet sales are a low-margin, low-certainty endeavors. A 5% chance at a $1000 gross margin sale doesn't support 1-2 hours of SG&A expense required to mature the prospect.

If the poster is able to communicate clarity, certainty and concern specific to that dealer. I'm guessing that they'll start to get responses back. (I certainly did when I ran my RFQ process last month).

Otherwise, why is it that only the customer's time matters?

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I should note that I do not work in the automotive space. In fact, in my industry, I've more often been the "purchaser" than the "seller." I've fired and been fired by customers. I've held no I'll will in either instance.

Don’t take this personally, but yuck. Who would want to live in such a low-touch, metrics-driven world?

I have no doubt this is how it works with business-to-business transactions, but it shouldn’t be the only way things are done in the consumer sphere.

The dealer has no idea how many inquiries the customer is sending out. Maybe it’s 30. Maybe it’s three. I know that when I ordered my $60k XR last month, I reached out to three local dealers and they either didn’t respond or were overly slick and cocky. Felt like I was purely a commodity.

Wound up ordering from Gupton. Daniel didn’t baby me. But he was responsive and forthright and he quickly earned my business.

 

[JL MADDOG]

Can dealers even price a build on a 2022 unit yet?

 

[Big Mama's JL]

if you make your purchase out of state be careful about sales tax. here in ny state they will not honor the tax you pay in some states which could require you to pay sales tax again to register your vehicle.

 

[ResGuy68]

Don’t take this personally, but yuck. Who would want to live in such a low-touch, metrics-driven world?

I have no doubt this is how it works with business-to-business transactions, but it shouldn’t be the only way things are done in the consumer sphere.

The dealer has no idea how many inquiries the customer is sending out. Maybe it’s 30. Maybe it’s three. I know that when I ordered my $60k XR last month, I reached out to three local dealers and they either didn’t respond or were overly slick and cocky. Felt like I was purely a commodity.

Wound up ordering from Gupton. Daniel didn’t baby me. But he was responsive and forthright and he quickly earned my business.

I agree that that the Gupton experience has been wonderful (I went with them myself). They've been able to transition to the low-margin, high-volume model quite effectively.

I see the Gupton model as requiring: (i) a relatively well informed customer {limited handholding}, (ii) workflow specialization only possible due to high-volume, and (iii) high order conversion rates.

I can empathize with other dealerships who haven't been able to achieve the same "niche" as Gupton. For many of them, internet inbounds likely represent an unwanted distraction and waste of resources (i.e. expenditure < return).

A an aside, I am of the view that streamlining of the dealership model is long-overdue and that the Gupton's of the world are the way of the future. Dealerships are low-value intermediary that introduces substantially higher end-user costs. I expect there to be continued cost compression and consolidation as most of these dealers are forced to exit the space.

I think we'll start to see a world where many purchasers don't even bother to RFQ the legacy high-cost dealers. It's simply so much more convenient (and a better value) to simply use the volume dealer as your one-stop shop.

 

[Joe98]

haven't heard back in a week

I spent 15 months researching cars before I placed the order for myJeep.

The following comment refers to all dealers and all brands:

If I arrive at a dealership unannounced, they all want my name and phone number.
If I try to contact a dealer by email or phone I never get a response.
If I book a car for a test drive, when I arrive there is no record of my booking.
After all that I receive unsolicited phone calls from dealers I have never heard of.

It is a wonder that any cars ever get sold!
.

 

[Joe98]

The other thing with dealers is that they have little knowledge of the cars.

This is understandable as in any dealership there could be 10 separate cars and each car comes in 4 models making 40 separate models!

I learnt the differences by downloading the brochure, and then put the important details on a spread sheet for each model. In the end, I knew more about my car of interest than the dealer did.

 

[summer4x]

I would disagree.

This is a terrible time to peg the ask. However, new car prices are flat or only slightly elevated for the informed shopper who is willing to wait (i.e. 7-8% off invoice on a new order w/ the volume dealers on this site).

On the other end, used car prices are at record highs. I'm getting quotes for my 2016 Wrangler Unlimited which are $6-8k higher than pre-covid.

The net round-trip cost (I.e. buy the new and sell the old) is as low as it has ever been... again, for the savvy, disciplined shopper.

You're adding an inflated sale price to the mix. I'm talking strictly buying.

 

[grim]

How would I know which one is an affiliate dealership? I'm guessing Gupton is one but they're unresponsive as well.

Your best bet is to call Gupton directly. I got no responses from any dealers but a direct call to Gupton resulted in closing a deal in a few hours today.

 

[LarryB]

I've fired quite a number of customers and adopted filters to avoid countless more. I would support any business taking similar steps if the business case warrants.

Responding to mass RFQs for internet sales are a low-margin, low-certainty endeavors. A 5% chance at a $1000 gross margin sale doesn't support 1-2 hours of SG&A expense required to mature the prospect.

If the poster is able to communicate clarity, certainty and concern specific to that dealer. I'm guessing that they'll start to get responses back. (I certainly did when I ran my RFQ process last month).

Otherwise, why is it that only the customer's time matters?

-

I should note that I do not work in the automotive space. In fact, in my industry, I've more often been the "purchaser" than the "seller." I've fired and been fired by customers. I've held no I'll will in either instance.

I do understand the point of spending your time wisely. I am a business owner now, and I wouldn’t want my sales team (most of which make north of $150K) to spend time on low-volume/margin deals. However, no one says you need to have your expensive talent respond to every customer request. You can hire summer students to initially respond, ask simple qualifying questions and sort the deals, if you are truly experiencing that high of a volume.

I will never forget one day when my then 3-yr old son and I were looking at a Bentley at a dealership that was in an auto mall. The salesperson came out and opened the door for us and spent a few minutes with us. I felt a bit bad, letting him know that we honestly didn’t want to take up a moment of his time as we weren’t in the market for a 200-300K vehicle. He responded that, “one day, you might be and I want you to think of us.” Now that I am in a stronger financial situation (15 years later), they would be high on my list if I ever made such a purchase.

One day, the local Jeep dealership may not be swamped as they are now and as people have long memories, bad treatment may cost them in the long run.

 

[Franklin_Stower]

I emailed a build request to Criswell in MD for confirmation of the pricing they've clearly spelled out on the forum, and at the same time emailed the local dealership outlining Criswell's pricing and asked if they would match. Local asked for a little more clarification on how the pricing work ed then didn't respond after I followed up. When I take delivery, I'll give a full write-up on Criswell, but the initial response and all follow-up has been quick and clear. Very happy so far.

Placing orders with these discounts is low margin, but my experience at most (but not all) dealerships is sales people with some time on their hands. A sales manager can figure out who to give these orders to with the knowledge of an additional $1k coming in for very little lost productive time. I feel like ordering is going to be a part of the business model in the future; time for more dealers to catch on.

 

[char05]

Your best bet is to call Gupton directly. I got no responses from any dealers but a direct call to Gupton resulted in closing a deal in a few hours today.

I've called and left voicemails. Still nothing

 

[char05]

Thank you guys for your replies. This was just a quick probe to see if anyone has been experiencing the same things as I. Received a lot of good feedback

 

[driventoadventure]

For what it is worth, when I was ready to order my build I reached out to four separate Jeep dealers. The second was four days after not hearing from the first, the third and fourth were a week and a half after not hearing from the first. I told each one that I was ready to order, included the link to my order and that I was also looking for some extra parts and installation to purchase at the same time as delivery of my vehicle. The second one got back to me after two days - I went back and forth with them for two days and then they said they would get back to me with a price once they had a conference call about parts availability. Then the first one got back to me two days after that and it took three days to get an appointment and place my order. Just over two weeks after placing my order, the second one reached out to me asking if I was still interested (mind you this is twenty-one days after the last time they communicated with me.) The third and fourth never responded to me despite that with one of them I named another customer of theirs as a referral. As another data point, the first one I contacted (and ultimately placed my order with because they were the only one who let me get to that step) was the one that Jeep sent me to when I clicked the "Get a quote" button from my build, and we still got it wrong requiring a change in build later that day because of the Jeep configurator site not working worth a shit.

Meanwhile, I still get junk about the vehicle and "are you ready to buy" from the brands we looked at this time last year when we bough my wife's car...

I can't figure out if they just are prioritizing hard sales instead of custom orders - so they can get a quicker sale; or is there a common CRM among Jeep that is the limiting factor. The second dealer I reached out to implied in our correspondence that they were waiting on me but I wonder if that is just a salesman tactic. Maybe they are just that overloaded with customers in Colorado? Either way the lack of communication is beyond frustrating. It took me cajoling the dealer for several days to get my VON so that I could contact customer care for my VIN and use the tracker here.

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