LINGsCARS

Well to me used cars are very hard. New cars are very easy, I'm selling peas from a pod. I struggle to see how used cars (where every car is different with so many variables) can be sold efficiently. That's why I prefer new cars, they are apples and apples. I can bang the same good deal out multiple times like a machine gun. For instance, I did about 30 e-Golfs in the same batch as the one in the film above (not all from Listers as I spread my risk) - Ling

A lot of that is wrong, halfpenny, I think the message from "Gaz" above proves I am not out of the equation after delivery. i build a real friendship with most customers. I'm their first port of call for any help. Of course I'm selling, the customer talks to me and orders the car from me. A lot of people don't test-drive these days, they choose a car like a fridge. Do you "test drive" a fridge? There are no bad cars these days, my customers tend to want "a good deal", we ping pong some cars and they say "yeah, I'll have that one". they only have the cars for 1-3 years, after all. My communications are MASSIVE. Here's an example, Steve, who had an e-golf. Look at the delivery from Listers Listen to how much I saved him over his local dealer. he did test drive at his local dealer, so that vindicates you a bit. He says the handover is "head and shoulders" above Tesla.

Distance selling regs apply to me, too. Occasionally, some asshole returns a car... little can be done about it. Cooling off waivers are fine, but frankly the customer will always win. But again, this is why the customer relationship needs to be about more than the car. I really engage with customers. An example is this customer who "works" in Afghan, and "lives" in Liverpool. Had an Evokki and a GLA Merc. Here's a message from him over the weekend. These customers are friends, not just customers. I was suggesting a payment holiday for his contract. he sent me a pic, too. You must say: AMAZING. How will this customer "Gary" EVER EVER hand a car back to me? Hi. Ling , hope you your family and staff are all good , I'm currently still in Afghanistan and ok ...I have no return date yet , we are taking shelter in our camp base and adhere to the social distancing and rules of engagement...still on mission ...all my dogs (k9 military) are confined to cages and only go out for a few hours a day ...my family remain in their Liverpool lockdown jail ..and cannot go out stealing things meanwhile my Mercedes stays on the drive crying for my return ...lol all the mileage will be ok ...ha take care stay safe ...my payments will carry on as I am still ok financially at the moment as I get paid a bonus per body bag, hah. thank you for the updates ....Gaz

I think ford are just slashing costs left right and centre. As ever. It would be better if their engines stopped blowing up. That's why I was concerned re the breakdown stuff.

Ford are always tight as hell. A paramedic customer (Andy, who is had a new Focus from me) noticed last month (March) that Ford had changed policy on Breakdown Cover for its new Ford cars. Ford had scrapped it completely for cars on Ford Lease documents, unless the customer took an overpriced IMHO full maintenance contract. Well, I made swift contact with my pal EDMUND (the President of the AA) and just 2-days later, Ford UK magically make the change to their penny-pinching policy. (Except for Motability customers, they still have to get out of their frukin' wheelchairs and PUUUSSSSH!) It's nice to have friends like this, and the customer ANDY (and many others) is REALLY pleased. Glad Ford saw sense. And EDMUND deserves his OBE

How to tee a customer up for delivery with pre-loaded goodwill: I send one of these before every new car, Picanto or Range Rover. My point is, don't make it all about the car! Customer interaction goodwill is key. Buy goodwill. It's massive. See a bigger PDF here https://www.lingscars.com/images/lingo/safety/safety-card.pdf I even send them a movie, you can play it from my server, here: https://www.lingscars.com/images/facebook/safety.mp4 (Can't put it on YT as the Lady Gaga music is copyright) I haven't come across ANY racism, apart from this: Clearly this small-minded stupid person doesn't know what he/she is talking about. The ignorance is massive, the prejudice is juvenile xenophobia. It's very sad that these people exist in the UK. .

99% of customers are reasonable, also bear in mind I tee them up to be reasonable for the delivery. This is car-as-consumer good, a new car but it's like a fridge. Small cosmetics tend to get bought out (eg a case of wine for a chip on the bonnet is usually fine). It's a lease car, who cares? If there are driving issues (rare), take it to the nearest franchised dealer for warranty work, easy. My customers are REALLY happy. They know they are getting a (cheap) new car deal - I tell them "I'm Chinese not Catholic, I can't do miracles"

Casper: ***TOP OF THE COPS*** (from last year)I had a lovely surprising phone call today from Winton Keenan, Chief Constable of Northumbria Police. He's "DA MAN". Winton was saying thanks for the help I gave his officer PC Christian Storey (who went well above and beyond his duty) amassing the pages and pages of evidence against the "Nigerian" car fraud scammer. We agreed it would be a result if we nailed this fraudster. How great to have the Chief Constable on the phone... he took me by surprise! I sent Winton a LINGsCARS WAH! mug, with my own mug on the side, he looks pretty pleased with it! I'm also dropping a full box of WAH! mugs to Whickham police station, for the canteen. Thanks to PC Chris Storey for all his efforts.

Ta. I give that shite away for free. My mugs are famous... many famous people have my mugs. I think we've been down that track before. heh I also do badges.. and t-shirts. Apologies in advance for the under 13's and over 85's.

Next relaunched their website today, and the demand was so heavy it crashed. The people in this thread dissecting why car sales are not possible need a slap with a wet fish. (metaphorically). I've just taken an order for a Golf Mk7 and (Ford of Britain boss Andy Barratt will b pleased) a Ford Focus Hatchback 1.5 EcoBlue ST-Line (120bhp)... there *IS* demand out there. MetCars might have it right: Adapt or die But the key is engaging with customers online as plain jane adverts won't cut it.

James, the context is: This is an old advert (not current at all) created by me. It's a 4 sec YT clip FFS. I'm obviously not selling Golf Rs to forum users. In the current climate I'm sharing attention grabbing ideas, in the hope I'll get some ideas, back. That "KELLETTS" movie someone shared the other day was put to good use, thanks to whoever. I got on BBC Have I Got News For You over the weekend. For zero £££. You can't buy that 30 secs if you wanted to, and if you could, it would cost £25,000 minimum. I'm looking for ideas to use, I thought someone might post a "touche" and I could steal it? I'm offering ideas for free, however, it seems the forum is just full of people who think anything out of the ordinary = BAD and anything entertaining = UNPROFESSIONAL. They just post moans and groans. Without £10,000 a month to throw at the Autotrader, the cupboard is bare for any marketing ideas from these other contributors on the forum. My bad. What's up with everyone? How miserable can everyone be? It's as if everyone has given in. All the discussion is whinging and moaning. Doesn't anyone else like free marketing for cars? I'd dispute most people on here are car dealers at all, a lot sound like whingy old salesmen from the 90s. - Ling

You may as well just inject yourself directly with CoronaVirus, it seems.

Online sales are entirely possible. My customers (mainly) sign finance docs online. Often my new cars never physically hit a dealership. they are delivered by logistic companies to a home address, from a compound. For instance Citroens are PDId and delivered by GEFCO direct to home addresses from Sandtoft and Sheerness etc. No need for a franchised dealership, even the fleet people I deal with are at a remote location (and from home, at the mo). Why are most dealers making it so difficult to keep their businesses going? Some seem frightened to even answer an email. BOOOOOO! Here is an encouraging email from an enterprising PREMIUM BRAND dealer explaining deliveries are ON. Thunderbirds are Go! I don't want any weak-willy replies to this post. Keep your pathetic "can't do" attitudes to yourselves. ta.

Oh, just to mention, I managed to get on the Gold Standard/Holy Grail of TV marketing shows: Have I Got News For You. I'll take a bow. This FREE marketing = web traffic. Web traffic = sales. Do you gettit, yet?

It doesn't have to be like that. On my own website, I give customers a fully transcribed conversation with nothing ever changed or deleted. Every single word and discussion is saved and available to both parties, so customers can read it ALL any time they want. No one else in the UK does that. I convert car quotes into PDF so they are static info (not dynamic info that can be changed or altered). I show car pricing from different suppliers (anonymised) together, so customers can see the alternatives, clearly. I show different brands together so customers can compare across brands. Easy comparisons are what give the customers the confidence to make choices and decisions. This stuff that treats customers like adults, not idiots... is so easy to do. If you want to. It's completely because Hyundai management have sat round a boardroom table and asked themselves: "how can we PREVENT customers seeing competing dealer pricing on our cars?" that they have come up with this "solution". It really stinks IMHO. The real shame is that it stops the internet selling of their cars (which is what they reckon they want to achieve when they say "our customers are able to find all the information they could possibly need from the safety of their own homes.") But then they prevent it.

2008

How hard is it acceptable to make it for customers? That's a lunatic approach. Name me ANY online shopping service where you have to take multiple screenshots and then have quotes deleted in order to compare pricing? Nuts, and bordering on stifling price competition.

*** HYUNDAI UK CLICK TO BUY PREVENTS PRICE COMPETITION *** It's one thing to trumpet "Hyundai Motor UK has updated its digital car-buying service Click to Buy as part of the company's response to the Covid-19 lockdown." Ashley Andrew, managing director of Hyundai Motor UK, said: "Our decision to focus on Click to Buy comes at a time when our retailers and our customers need more flexibility than ever. Even with their doors closed, retailers are still able to find introductions to new customers, and our customers are able to find all the information they could possibly need from the safety of their own homes." But it's quite another thing to put it into practice.They are very afraid of allowing proper price comparisons for their customers. Hyundai are still terrified of upsetting any of their dealers, so they make it almost impossible for customers to compare any dealer pricing. Hyundai say: "our dealers can price their own cars locally - simply click the view more cars button when you're presented with your initial results." But, they make it hard for customers to compare that pricing by demanding: "We ask that you open an account to view local prices so you can save your quote from your chosen dealer." ***YOU CAN'T COMPARE THESE LOCAL HYUNDAI DEALER PRICES*** Customers are prevented from seeing competing dealer pricing, back to back. Hyundai say: "Click to Buy will only allow you to see pricing from one dealer at a time. If you would like to change dealers, to check their price ...any existing quotes will be deleted." DELETED! - Wow! Hyundai even have an FAQ that answers the customer anticipated question: "I changed my dealer and my quotes have been deleted?" ==== This kind of backward thinking over open price comparisons is one reason why this service will fail. Customers need good information to make decisions, and an important part of that information is to be able to rationalise a buying decision by comparing prices over various supplying dealers. How else to make a confident buying decision? Otherwise, a customer is using blind faith to guess they are getting the best price offer. Therefore, they WON'T **CLICK to BUY!** It's one thing, and bad enough, to allow just one Hyundai dealer's prices to be visible at one time... but to actively DELETE quotes saved from a particular Hyundai dealer, just because a customer has the temerity to want to view the prices at another particular Hyundai dealer ...is terrible. It borders on price-fixing in the way it discourages viewing price competition between dealers. It's certainly designed to suppress any price competition. Treating customers like this... stinks. When the MD of Hyundai UK says: "our customers are able to find all the information they could possibly need from the safety of their own homes.", he's wrong. It should read " Hyundai PREVENT customers being able to find all the information they could possibly need from the safety of their own homes, by deleting quote information if they choose to shop around for better prices." Hyundai deliberately make things difficult by preventing customers finding the best prices. This is NOT how to make a digital buying service successful, Hyundai.

You are hitting the nail on the head, there. These idiots are in every country though... not just the UK. How anyone's country of birth affects anything is nonsense..., unless they are unreformed holocaust deniers, or Japanese Imperialists or right wing neo-nazis or left wing socialist nutters, or Tommy Robinson types making the claims.

David Horgan, you still haven't said where you are, where this town is where the locals are turning on the Chinese takeaway? The Chinese people there are probably from Hong Kong by heritage, and probably have never set foot in China. It'll be the slanty eyes that are kicking the locals off, eh? I guess the locals are binning all their kitchen appliances, their lawnmower, their lightbulbs, their Tv and media centres, their computers, laptops and monitors, their electric toothbrushes and their mobile phones, as well as all the remote controls, their fridge, dishwasher, a lot of their clothes, their spectacles, their calculator, their camera, etc etc and most of the rest of the contents of their houses.. These people are going to have very simple frugal, xenophobic lives, soon. Nice to know you've decided on the "blame". It's a shame everyone else doesn't have such fantastic worldwide access to evidence and facts, like you do. Your wisdom and knowledge is amazing.

Being Chinese, I have equally if not stronger feelings about Japs. As a race, not individually. Germans are not Nazis, but Japanese are still Japanese.

Complaining about your free calendar was the last straw

Bastard, hope you choke on your next fortune cookie.

My family are fine. Where on earth are you talking about David Horgan? Where are those people boycotting Chinese restaurants? Where is your "local level"? Which town? I wouldn't worry about those stupid people, you find them everywhere. I don't believe that at anti-Chinese stuff at all. Nor do I believe the Chinese Government have covered anything up, just that they are misrepresenting the pandemic death figures. You'll be blaming 5G next. China is China, not much anyone can do to change it. Good and bad like any country. - Ling