Aggressive Customers

[Dan W 57]

Had a lovely experience Recently, gentleman enquiring about a car we have in, starts politely asking for discount when we say its priced the cheapest within 90 miles for its age and mileage and we are not prepared to discount that car.... the verbal abuse starts....... and continues for about 10 minutes........ the line that tipped him over the edge I think was when he shouted at me WHAT KIND OF A BUSINESS DOESNT KNOCK £500 OF A CAR !!, I said a successful one now f**k off we are not prepared to sell you car at any price now leave.

any others had some lovely experiences like this recently

Edited September 15, 2017 by Dan W

[It's me 615]

i wouldnt say that because they know where you are but you dont know where they are

these kind of people might keep a long time grudge

be polite say sorry but let them go do one elsewhere

Edited September 15, 2017 by s and b
this post was directed at Dan

[umesh 336]

Felt like saying it a few times , but have to keep cool and " sorry decline " and walk away ! No point in getting agitated. 

[Mojo121 229]

I had a guy turn up yesterday, bid us £700 off and only remember his DPF and ESP fault when I took his for a drive. A perfect car apparently...

I do very few favours for people now and don't trust any customers... everytime I do I get burnt.

[Arfur Dealy 823]

I've told a few morons with tick lists and torches to leave unceremoniously in the past. They wouldn't get pass my qualifying now     

[grant8064 219]

4 hours ago, tradex said:

 

We find the cheaper the car to worse the manners, not sure what how others find it?

 

I concur...though sometimes the ones on the lumpier stuff on the forecourt can also seem to have a deep sense of aggressive entitlement.

Never any point getting involved in dealing with anyone that has a whiff of aggression IMO. Politely decline the sale. When it comes to negotiation I do nobody any favours because we're not friends. Price is in the window, that's the price.

[BHM 994]

3 hours ago, Mojo121 said:

I had a guy turn up yesterday, bid us £700 off and only remember his DPF and ESP fault when I took his for a drive. A perfect car apparently...

I do very few favours for people now and don't trust any customers... everytime I do I get burnt.

Unfortunately that's the car game & it's seen as perfectly acceptable to blatantly lie. Very sad but I trust no one nowadays.

As for "customers" & "cheap stock", one man's cheap stock might be another man's top of the range so what price range are we taking when we refer to cheap cars/difficult customers?

[metcars 397]

There are still huge amounts of punters that actually believe cars are priced with a profit margin of 90%, and in that case you can afford to take a huge chip without hurting.

[grant8064 219]

42 minutes ago, BHM said:

Unfortunately that's the car game & it's seen as perfectly acceptable to blatantly lie. Very sad but I trust no one nowadays.

 

Took in a Berlingo today...I've driven it three times already because I didn't trust the guy but was fine each time.

Jump in it today and the eml is on and the carpet around the OBD port is all ripped up. Guy must have had a friend erasing the code every time he came in and lost patience today because it was handover time. 

Most customers are nice enough but guys like this spoil it for everyone with their greed and dishonesty. 

[Mojo121 229]

48 minutes ago, BHM said:

Unfortunately that's the car game & it's seen as perfectly acceptable to blatantly lie. Very sad but I trust no one nowadays.

As for "customers" & "cheap stock", one man's cheap stock might be another man's top of the range so what price range are we taking when we refer to cheap cars/difficult customers?

Yup.

Had an otherwise nice old chap the other week telling me he was chopping his Ford Focus 1.8 TDCI because it has SPORT on the back and his insurance was too high because of this. I realised I was being told a tale when he let slip his son was a mechanic and he'd done the belts on it 6 months ago (why invest that money? what has gone wrong to make him want to shift it on?) but decided to play along and give him some advice about his "local, convenient, no hold music" insurance company. He comes back that Saturday without his Focus saying I'd promised him £700 for it (his requested px value which I didn't attempt to knock). What I actually said was if it's as he says and checks out on a test drive I'd give him £700. Anyway, he brings it back and I do a test drive and I miss the whistling it's balls off turbo. I realise the turbo is knackered when I use it to deliver his new Octavia later that day; not that it really mattered because his car was worth £1700 so we were able to knock it onto someone in the know who'd do the work and still make a profit. I couldn't be bothered.

The poor chap clearly felt so guilty he wouldn't let me leave until he gave me a tenner for delivering it to go and have a drink on him, gave me a hug and a box of sweets for my brother's kids. I felt like I'd kind of done a good deed when I helped him do his tax online and he had me do the sums on his account from an ATM print out and he had £400 left in the bank...

Suppose the moral is in desperate times it's every man for himself.

[metcars 397]

23 hours ago, Mojo121 said:

Yup.

Had an otherwise nice old chap the other week telling me he was chopping his Ford Focus 1.8 TDCI because it has SPORT on the back and his insurance was too high because of this. I realised I was being told a tale when he let slip his son was a mechanic and he'd done the belts on it 6 months ago (why invest that money? what has gone wrong to make him want to shift it on?) but decided to play along and give him some advice about his "local, convenient, no hold music" insurance company. He comes back that Saturday without his Focus saying I'd promised him £700 for it (his requested px value which I didn't attempt to knock). What I actually said was if it's as he says and checks out on a test drive I'd give him £700. Anyway, he brings it back and I do a test drive and I miss the whistling it's balls off turbo. I realise the turbo is knackered when I use it to deliver his new Octavia later that day; not that it really mattered because his car was worth £1700 so we were able to knock it onto someone in the know who'd do the work and still make a profit. I couldn't be bothered.

The poor chap clearly felt so guilty he wouldn't let me leave until he gave me a tenner for delivering it to go and have a drink on him, gave me a hug and a box of sweets for my brother's kids. I felt like I'd kind of done a good deed when I helped him do his tax online and he had me do the sums on his account from an ATM print out and he had £400 left in the bank...

Suppose the moral is in desperate times it's every man for himself.

Maybe the turbo wasn't the only problem

[XFS 70]

On 15/09/2017 at 6:08 PM, Arfur Dealy said:

I've told a few morons with tick lists and torches to leave unceremoniously in the past. They wouldn't get pass my qualifying now     

I probably loose out on a few sales because I have a very low threshold for knobheads. If their first question is "what's the least you would take" I usually loose them as my immediate response is, "if that's your first question then you are looking for a cheap car rather than a good car and I,m probably not your best bet. However, If you are looking for a good car perhaps we can start the conversation again?"

Having said this, I am pretty happy with the customers I get, they tend to be nice people and if they make the effort to view 9/10 times they buy. I don't discount, but I gave an old guy a fifty pound note yesterday as a "luckpenny" as he and his son were such a pleasure to deal with.

[Max Branning 149]

I do still discount on cars as i believe its part of the banter of dealing. I usually work so much in to the price to start with that i can work with. I must admit i am always disappointed with customers that do not try and get a bit off as i will negotiate on virtually anything !

I managed to get £200 knocked off some carpet last year in the shop after the salesman told me it was just not possible sir, manager comes out and after a bit of tip tapping on his computer he managed it somehow !

If the customer drives away feeling like they have saved money and got a great deal they will be less likely to come back moaning, that is my opinion but i am sure others will disagree.

Any customer that gets aggressive in any way is told to leave, luckily it does not happen often.

 

[Stephen 21]

Yeah course he did we've got good margin in carpets and underlay etc usually 50/70 percent, all industries are different but flooring is always one where's people want discount similar to cars I guess