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I thought I’d share this little story with you of what happened to me this week! Just lining a car up that had come into stock , a beaten up old mpv pulls up , a guy jumps out heading towards me shouts “ what does a Chrysler C300 do to the gallon†a bit taken back I said “ No Idea..but but let’s have a look “ we went into the showroom and towards my office .. As he walked in he spotted a SAAB Convertible and started to walk towards it. After a few minutes he said I like this, I’m sure my missus would like this.. I printed the details off then he went on to the question of MPG on the Chrysler. I looked it up gave him the answer, As he walked away I said why don’t you bring you misses let her have a look at it. Last night he rang up asking how much for his PX , and telling me a figure of the least that he would take against my SAAB, I rang him back and said I’d love to offer him what he wanted but he was unrealistic in his expectation , it would be £500 less IF the car was as described. Earlier today they came down , looked at the car in more details and I inspected the PX, Told them my offer is the best I can do. They said we’ll go and think to which I say when you’ve give it more thought and want a drive give me a call and I’d get the car out ready for a test drive . 2 Hours later i got a call, when can we have a drive? I asked when did they want a drive? Well it’s raining now and you have to move all those cars.... I said give me 20 mins the car will be on the front . Sure enough 20 mins they apologised that I had to move 3 cars out to get that one out and my showroom was looking a bit wet/ dirty – I said its only water- I can soon clean that up! Take as long as you like ... Deal done! They went on to say the reason why the asked me about the MPG was their friend had told them about me but didn’t trust the garage where the Chrysler was for sale! How bizarre! Having sold them a car it just makes me wonder , would I have sold them a car IF I hadn’t bothered to look up the MPG ? OR if he hadn’t come into the showroom and spotted the SAAB?

This is the percentage of Car Dealers that DID NOT even bother themselves to follow up a car enquiry sent via e-mail, which was actually a Mystery Shop by one of the team at Car Dealer Magazines as part of their shortlisting to find out who was going to become Used Car Dealership of the Year 2013. Why am I telling you this, you may ask? The reason is, we won, Jim Reid Vehicle Sales won the Car Dealer Magazine's Used Car Dealership of the Year Award for (51-100cars stock) Yes we were shocked to win a National Award, but we were more shocked at the fact that only 70% of dealers actually called or even replied by email to what certainly looked like a genuine enquiry. That is a shocking fact especially considering that someone within the dealership thought their sales team was at least good enough to get a nomination, shocking! So what causes this? Mismanaged? Lack of motivation? "Too busy !"? On the day in question I was actually on the sales floor myself, as my sales manager was taking a well earned holiday and my salesman had his day off! So you could say I mismanaged the sales floor but still managed to get back to that sales enquiry quicker and more professionally than any of the other nominations. I just find it amazing, what are your thoughts, does this come as a surprise to you?