Here's my sales story that didn't end well...
The following email that I sent to the "Internet Business Development Manager" pretty much says it all:
Dear Ms. xxxxx
My wife and I are no longer interested in buying that car. Please let me give you a bit of background information that will explain why.
On August 17 my wife and I drove to Kings Ford in Cincinnati to look at another Ford CPO Mustang GT Premium. That car was Guard in color and had every option your Mustang has plus it had the Enhanced Security Package. It had 890 miles on it and the asking price was $37,000. Before we even began to negotiate our salesperson offered us $4,500 for our car and cut $500 off the Mustangs price- $32,000 plus tax, title and license. I foolishly decided to go home to think about it and the car sold soon after- on the same day I decided to buy it.
I next located your car on Autotrader and-before driving up-my wife and I decided that if we could make the same deal($32,000 plus TTL) we would buy it- even though your car had less equipment, double the miles, and was painted a color we did not like nearly as well as Guard.
When we arrived and asked for you we were told you were in "Internet Sales" and that we would need to work through a salesperson- even though I had set up, as you put it, a "VIP appointment" with you. When we sat down with your salesperson we were informed that the CPO certification was not included in the "internet price" and further that our trade was only worth $3,000 because of "damage to the rear." (I later learned that the upcharge for CPO coverage was buried in small print at the bottom of the ad) Secondly, my car has no damage to the rear and has never sustained any damage to the rear.
In addition, my wife and I did not appreciate having to ask in order to get our keys back and to further find that our car had been moved around the corner out of our sight. To top it all off, as we were leaving the manager(Mr. xxxxx I believe), stated, "Give me a number I can take to the General Manager"- even though I had told our salesperson five minutes earlier that we'd accept $34,000 out the door and use Ford Credit financing.
In short, we spent five hours of our time traveling to and from your dealership only to be treated in a dishonest and rude fashion- and as a result we do not wish to deal with Joe Blow Ford either now or in the future.
By the way, that letter was sent in response to an email from Ms. xxxxx making a counter offer within $500 of our number and offering to have the Mustang driven down to us and our trade picked up.
Contrast this with my visit to a BMW dealer four months later: I had made an appointment with the Internet Sales Manager at the BMW dealer as well- but when we arrived the car was sitting in front of the showroom; we were greeted by a young salesperson and before I finished giving him my name he said, "We've been expecting you! Let me tell him you are here." The ISM copied my license and gave me the keys, saying he didn't need to ride along because he knew I was familiar with the car. When we got back the USM appraised the trade- hitting my number on the nose. The ISM wrote up an offer, I countered at $500 less. The deal was accepted and that was that. I think the whole process took less than 45 minutes.
Needless to say, I gave the ISM and the dealership the highest possible survey scores and also gave them positive reviews on Yelp, Dealer Rater, Edmunds, and Google.
And I hammered the Ford dealer on those same pages....
