Tuesday, March 18, 2008

When the service is actually pretty good


I have purchased my last three vehicles from the same dealership. No, not these three...only the middle one is mine. My purchases (two Subaru Impreza WRXs and one Land Rover LR2) have provided me with good transportation and reliable vehicles. What's been better though has been dealing with my rep at Marino's Auto Group - Andy Boyes.
Sure, Andy is a personal friend but that's not always a guarantee of good service. In fact it can make the situation downright awkward at times but not with Andy. Where Andy sets himself apart from the hordes of car salesmen is with his candour, honesty, reliability, and genuine enthusiasm for his product.
This is a hard business. Margins are low. Expectations are high. People enter the relationship assuming they're about to be manipulated and misled.
In my experience, Andy in both his pre- and post-sale relationships is an honest man. That's why he's good at what he does and why I'd recommend him to anyone.
We should always make the time to support people who do their jobs well. Hence this posting.

1 comment:

Len Rosen said...

When I turned in our Ford Villager many years ago and went across the street to buy a Mazda MPV I was surprised by the lack of customer appreciation by Ford, and the exact opposite by Mazda. The Ford dealership didn't care that they were losing a customer. They didn't try to recover us in any way. So we walked. When you consider Mazda is owned by Ford you would think Ford dealers would learn something from their Japanese cousins. Here is an illustration. A week after getting the new MPV we were called by the service department to ask if we were happy with the vehicle so far. A day later we got a special delivery that contained a box of cookies and a poem. The poem's theme was "we are here for you, not you for us." We've been back 3 times over the years to upgrade our vehicle. The level of appreciation has remained constant throughout our B2C relationship.