A story of how Toyota lost one customer

[snaronikar]

As far as I know, Toyota (or rather Japanese car manufacturers) does not do this kinda negative marketing nor encourage this kind of negative marketing. I have worked with them quite long time. Maybe the sales guy was inexperienced and did not know what to tell the customer when asked about the competitor...

[abhilashvk]

the guy who was selling me the palio - knew nothing of the car, nor of any car. he actually was told me the door has 3 stages of opening. :O

Palio Stile does have 3 stages of opening. I have seen the same with Skoda Octavia and laura also

[drkunaldas]

Mods: Do not know if this is right thread...please shift if reqd.
Today i went for TD of Corolla at Galaxy motors, defence colony, new delhi
TD experience was good and bad
Good: nice salesperson and experience. explained everything in detail
Bad: Unfortunately the TD car )Demo car) was bad. it was a H2 manual. the gear box was horrible. even my 9 yr old santro has a better gear box. even the ride quality was poor. over slight bad roads in delhi (south delhi roads are better than other place). I thought Toyota must be having atleast better demo cars. i was really shocked and taken aback. i did not expect this from toyota.

[vasudeva]

You went for a TD. In my personal experience with Corolla and Civic, I got the car at home/work and did not have to go to the dealer.

Cannot say much about your experience of Corolla. Maybe the TD car was bad and/or maybe the car did not match up to your expectations.

[shatrughna]

This is an interesting thread and I have also had all the mixed experiences shared here. Now I collect all the info from the magazines, internet, reviews and then only go to a dealer except in case of new launches/ pre launch. In such case, I never have to ask anything to the sales person except for price and discounts and completing formalities for test drive if required.

Despite this sometimes, these people speak out something which shows most of the time they have very limited technical knowledge. May be because its their bread and butter and not passion as is the case with most TBHPians here.

No worthy manufacturer would encourage negative publicity about its competitors but its inevitable. The marketing / sales guys invariably have to do their jobs in case of neck to neck competition and hence , sometimes such things happen. We should choose our cars ourselves and not get carried away/ off by what salespersons say about their car or other cars.

[maxbhp]

Originally Posted by megger

My experience with Deccan Honda was very nice. When told the sales person Prabhu I am also considering Cedia, he never bitched about the car. He said Cedia is also a good car and Honda has very reliable engines that require very low maintenance.

I think it all lies in the maturity of the sales person that deals with you.

Yes but more on how capable a man is to judge a customer's knowledge in cars.
For eg if you start talking about CC PS GW BHP SRS EBD EPS , the sales guy will get a hint about the knowledge of the customer ,after that point he will be fair in his comparison .
But if the SG comes to know that the prospective customer knows nothing about car the old rule applies.
SALES GUY : "Whats wrong with a corolla ?
1000 Km/Litre mileage
Mach 2 Topspeed
and no maintainence for 20 yrs
Why do you want to consider CEdia and Civics ? and more over car names begining with the letter "c" commands very low resale value."

[speedzak]

Originally Posted by maxbhp

and more over car names begining with the letter "c" commands very low resale value."

Doesn't Corolla start with a C too?

[alto99]

Originally Posted by speedzak

Doesn't Corolla start with a C too?

In his post it starts witha "c" and other start with a "C"

[Vivian_c]

Working as a sales consultant at Maruti showroom itself I can understand all of this very well. Nice to read about various dealership experiences . Talking about the salespersons - I would like to say that they undergo only a 3 days official training programme by Maruti which is just a very basic introduction about the auto field , they do cover their vehicle range and finance and some comparisons with competitors.


Now when this comparison was happening there came a point where the Getz Crdi was being compared to the Swift Diesel and the maruti guy happily told all people sitting in the room that the getz is slower to 100kmph than the swift - Now me bring the smarta$$ in the room I argued with him that how can the getz be slow when it has 110 bhp and 25kgm while the swift has 75bhp and 19kgm ? He was hell bent on proving that the getz is slower than the swift and made a reference to the Overdrive shootout figures.. I told him that the figures that he has taken must be the petrol Getz and not the diesel, still he didn't want to accept the facts.

One more deadly revelation to me was that the Alto has more legroom than the Indica I was utterly shocked by this and decided not to say anything.

Negative marketing is the ugly part of this business and those salespersons who are not informed well fall in this trap. Except a few like me..

[simplyself]

Whatever the strategy of sales people to woo in a customer, the buyers do not make choices depending upon the way the sales person talks about the competition, except, may be when there is really little to chose from.

And one should see the Mahindra sales people to understand how lucky one is vis-a-vis visiting the Toyota/Honda etc. May be they behave that way in the secure knowledge that they do not have competition to some of their products.

[Shan2nu]

I'm sure every manufacturer has this but i was lucky enough to read the manual that Toyota provides to their dealers, for the sales guys to read about their own product and the products of their competitors.

The facts are so biased. They switch from bhp to ps just make their cars look a bit more powerful. And even though their car might be 2nd last in a particular field, they make it a point to avoid discussing the other better cars and corner the one which is worse than their product.

Shan2nu