Customer Service Starts with Hiring and Training!

Two weekends ago I was in Chicago for Steve's birthday and I stayed with Marilyn.  We went for brunch with her friend Allison, who told an interesting story about her new car shopping experience a few weeks before.  We were driving around in her new car, which was comfortable and lovely.

Allison is in sales for a well-known software company.  She doesn't look like a spoiled suburban wife with furs, botox, a personal trainer, or flashy jewelry.  She looks like a normal person, like the rest of us.  She wears sweaters and jeans on the weekend, like everyone else in Chicago.  And she decided one day to buy herself a brand-new Infiniti.

Before Allison went out to buy her Infiniti, she did her research online.  She found similar cars and figured she would do a little comparison shopping at the Lexus and BMW dealers.  She determined the right price to pay - cheap enough so that she wouldn't get taken for a ride, but enough to allow the dealership to make their profit.  She knew she wanted an Infiniti because, she figured, it had some good features and her cousin worked there and could get her the friends and family discount, save her $10,000.

Allison and Marilyn walked into the Lexus dealership, and were greeted by an older salesman.  He asked her to tell him, honestly, if she thought she would be walking off the lot today with a new car, and Allison said no.  This was the first place they looked and she had more research to do. They asked to test drive the Lexus Allison had researched, drove the car around a little.  The salesman asked for her name and phone number so he could follow up with her, and she shared it and she and Marilyn took off.

Then, they went to the Infiniti dealership where they were greeted by a young salesman.  Allison asked to test drive the Infiniti she wanted, and the young salesman looked skeptically at her and said "That's an expensive car", asked her if she was sure she could afford it.  Clearly he had already decided the answer was no.

Shocked, Allison answered yes, at which point the salesman told her to fill out a form where she had to include her personal details.  Allison looked at the form and saw that it was a credit application that required her social security number.  We're always hearing that we shouldn't share that number with just anyone. She said she wasn't comfortable giving out her social, that she just wanted to test drive the car, and that she didn't want to do a credit check yet.

The salesman told her that in that case she and her "partner" wouldn't be test driving the car today.  Her partner?  Allison realized that the salesman had just called her a lesbian to her face - incorrectly. Indignant, Allison asked the salesman if he wanted to sell a car today.  I can't remember what she told me he said, but it was something other than "of course, forgive me" -- something like "only to someone who is actually going to buy one".  Rude, and way off base.

One thing led to another -- I can't recall the gory details -- but  the salesperson continued to mock and make fun of my friends, and assume they weren't really in the market for the car.  After asking whether it was a requirement to provide a social security number before test driving a car, Marilyn found the answer was no and they went for a short drive. 

The salesman was still rude to them when they got back.  Thanking him for letting them test drive the Infiniti, Allison asked if he wanted her phone number to follow up with her about the car and the features once she'd had a chance to do some more research.  "No," he replied.  "Are you sure?" she asked. "Yep," says he.

Fuming, my friends left the dealership to talk it over.  Did Allison want to buy the Infiniti anymore?  No way.  And, as she put it, she could get it from another dealership, but she'd still need to get it serviced at the one near her house and didn't want to give them her business.  She'd rather pay ten grand more and get the Lexus from the friendly salesman.  Which is exactly what she did.

The story doesn't end there.  Allison knows a top technical executive from Nissan, which owns Infiniti.  She called him, and he put her in touch with a senior executive in Sales and Marketing there.  She received a personal call and spoke at length with him, telling him the story.  He apologized profusely and asked if there was anything he could do to get her to change her mind and buy the Infiniti. 

Allison said no way, but she'd appreciate an apology from the dealership, and she soon received a call from someone senior at the dealership to listen to the story and apologize.  "I don't know who you know, but we got a call saying we needed to contact you right away", the  representative said.  Allison is in sales, and she wanted to make sure everyone at the dealership understood that while a satisfied customer tells a few friends, an outraged customer tells all her friends (and now it's on the web).

You can bet the young salesman heard about it afterwards.  He heard she had friends in high places, despite her humble appearance.  He heard she went straight out and bought a Lexus, too.  The personal customer service from the Nissan exec and the dealership rep couldn't make up for the young man's mistakes, though Allison appreciates the effort they made.

In most cases, the parent company never hears from the annoyed would-be customer who got turned away, because the would-be customer doesn't know any executives there.  Even the dealership would have likely been unaware.  As consumers, we help companies when we go out of our way to teach them.  Salespeople at the dealership level are pretty low on the totem pole, but careful hiring, training and supervision is essential for brand reputation and shouldn't be neglected.  Apparently it's time to pay closer attention at Infiniti.

Comments

[Sam Nelson]

I dunnno -- it seems to me that the moral is, if you're going to oppress someone, just make *sure* that they're really a member of a disempowered class, and not just lounging around in jeans with a female friend.

Don't stop being prejudiced, just be prejudiced a little more carefully.

[Russell Nelson]

It's amazingly difficult to get feedback from customers or even would-be customers.