[samyD]

Completely agree with the observation.

Had similar experiences during my car purchase last year and refrigerator & washing machine purchases this year.

Slightly

IMO, this observation perfectly applies to ALL job profiles irrespective of their sector/industry. I find people nowadays are becoming more and more casual in their approach towards everything. This leads to ignorance and lack of knowledge in all fields. The concept of personal growth and building a strong base of knowledge for your future is obsolete now. Most of people tend to know 'just enough' to survive the day.

[TheStRyder]

Some of the SA's will say anything to close a deal.

In the initial launch days of the Kushaq after taking a test drive of 1.0 Tsi I was chatting with the "Senior Sales Consultant" and happend to ask her the reason for not providing 6 airbags in the automatic variant when they could provide it in the manual one.

The response I got was " Sir the automatic variant is very intelligent and the gearbox does not allow you to drive dangerously hence it is much safer than the Manual with 6 airbags"

Obviously our conversation ended there itself and I walked out of the showroom

[KL01toKA03]

I think it is common in car sales and service to tell anything to push the customer to buy a car or to sell useless and high margin addons during service.

During sales the lies might be to exaggerate the features compared to the competition, or to promote variants which they have in stock. During service they will try to include all sorts of optional items by default, and it will be up to the customer to check the manual and decide what to strike off.

There may be a few individuals who are ignorant. However, the number of people who act ignorant for selling something is much more.

[J4J]

This is normal in sales, I won't call it ignorance. He just wants to push what's available with him and that is what he is being paid for.

When I was looking out for a car, one SA wanted to push for a lower spec model with better discounts and insisted me to go with the non ABS option. His logic : "Sir, In your driving experience have you ever used ABS even once. So why go for it." This was in 2016 when ABS was not mandatory.

They just want to sell what is available with them at the earliest. Nothing else matters.
With the limited knowledge customer has, 6/10 people will believe in what they say.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by red_nemesis

- I don't think it is going down, but rather a consequence of increased customer expectation.
- most customers believe they are well-informed themselves.

- Good point and not just expectation but also knowledge, earlier we use to just believe what was being told but today it has changed with better access to information.
A good thing IMO.
Also if I am staying where I am and everyone else has moved up, I have gone down, relatively that is.

- There will be two sides to this story too, some of the customers would think that they know a lot but some better informed SR will be forming the same opinion about them
As long as we're getting better collectively, its okay.

[Nithesh_M]

With some manufacturers deleting features silently via website brochures, it is very difficult for any advisor to keep up with monthly updates across various models.

As long as they tell you boot space, engine spec, dimensions and basic features right you should be satisfied.
Manufacturer changes interior options at its own whims and fancies like Ford and Mahindra did.

[saisree]

My very recent experiences. Last week we were out for some Car Shopping and TD's for my friend who wanted to replace his Volvo S60 D5. We were looking at MG Hector and SKODA Superb L&K

MG Showroom @Perungudi, Chennai
We were looking for Hector and the new entrant Astor was available there. The conversation went on like this
Friend - Why do you have a Turbo Petrol Engine?
SA- Turbo give more mileage and consumes less petrol.
Friend - How is that?
SA - The turbo will push the car faster, while consuming same amount of petrol a NA engine does.
Friend - Ok, lets see the Hector.

SKODA Superb TD
Friend - What is this DSG on the gear knob
SA - Double Shift Gear
Friend - What is the use of it?
SA- Since this being an automatic, It will skip gear when it sees the RPM and Speed or good for shifting and thus improving the mileage.
Myself - I was aghast on hearing this and explained both the functionality of DSG.

OT - We are bowled by that machine SKODA Superb L&K version. Looks nice inside out, decent power, loads of practicality, nice on budget and is the No 1 contender for the replacement. We have TD'ed Jaguar F Pace, Corolla Altis, BMW 2 Grand Coupe, Range Rover, Tiguan, Carnival

[Kosfactor]

Me : What is this S button here for?
SA : There is a small turbo that gets activated when you push that button.

Nano GenX AMT.

[Nalin1]

I think we should be expecting these experiences when out for shopping !.

I will be pleasantly surprised if a Sales Advisor turns out to be well informed, ready with answers to anything shot at him, well versed with the latest technology and so on .

I think they do get trained on a regular basis, but how much do they stress on all aspects of customer service and not just completing the sale?

[GTO]

May I drop a link to an old iconic thread started by Sidindica (Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships)? . Read it page-by-page this weekend and you will be rolling on the floor.

Originally Posted by sidindica

(All the points that I am typing are 100 percent correct.)
Will just go to some points that salesperson mentioned when I went as a "serious" buyer of i20 crdi at samara hyundai, defence colony, Delhi:

• sir, tyres are 15" and alloys are 16"
• power is 80 nm torque.
• GC is 160 inches!

Originally Posted by vj_torqueaddict

This is about an incident that happened to my friend. The "Always On" headlamp rule had just been announced and most of the scooters were already coming with this. My friend was not fully aware of this new rule, and had been to purchase his new scooter.

Friend:Sir, I dont see the headlamp off switch. How do I switch it off.
Sales Rep: It gets automatically switched off when there is too much sunlight outside.
Friend: Oh, cool!

Its only after purchasing the vehicle that my friend realised about this.

Originally Posted by yatin

This is going to be OT unless you count salespeople in too.

When I took delivery of my Palio Stile in 2008, it struck me to ask the salesman to show me the provision to attach the tow hook. The guy didn't know, he asked around, nobody knew. So he tells me: Sir, this is such a reliable car, it will never need towing, so they haven't given that provision

Originally Posted by dezrskb

This is about the test drive of Audi Q3 which I took recently. immaculately dressed sales executive is sitting next to me.

Me: Tell me frankly now. Whats the real reason for not providing a proper full spare tyre? why a donut tyre which you can't drive as fast as the stock ones?

Sales person doesn't know what to say. He thinks thinks and then says...
"Sir, the full sized spare tyre weighs 25 Kilos!! When Audi designs the cars, they pay lot of attention to dynamics and aerodynamics of the car... this much extra weight would disturb the driving dynamics !!!"

Me: ......Im stunned. Then I recover and ask him-
"so tell me then.... Today there are 2 passengers weighing 65 Kilos are sitting in my Q3. Tomorrow another weighing 100kilos comes in and sits in one of the rear seats. is my Q3 going to topple???"

Now he is clueless

[Varun_G]

One more blast from the past

While taking a TD of Tata Nexon AMT, I told my friend that Tata deciding to equip Nexon with an AMT gearbox is a poor decision. Should have gone with better auto transmission options such as CVT, DCT, AT, etc. Instantly, the SA interrupted and said Sir this AMT is fine tuned by TATA and it is as smooth as any other auto transmission in the market. Tata Cars is not a fool to install inferior auto transmissions in their new cars. AMT is more fuel efficient and reliable than the competition

[TorqueMonster]

A few months ago, I was in search of MPV's for an eventual upgrade which got cancelled. Despite my opposition, the family was hell-bent on the Ertiga so went to the Maruti dealer. They were responsive unlike most dealerships, but while explaining the features, they told that the car has 16 inch Diamond Cut Alloys, while I'm sure that the Ertiga has 15 inch Black Alloys in ZXi +, and the same alloys in silver for the ZXi. And also conveniently diverted to a different topic when my father asked why a 10 lakh car shares the same platform as a Wagon R. We ended up shelving plans for an upgrade eventually.

[balenoed_]

Ah! Good to see a thread started on this.

The other day I was at Mahindra service to drop my car for service and just casually visited the next door show room to check on XUV7OO. Quite a lot of hilarious moments:

1. The sales executive had a hard time in making Alexa obey the commands but no luck. And then he went on saying, "Alexa.. please open the sun roof", still no response and I asked do you have to say "please". He said yeah, sometimes it works . And we all took turn in giving the voice command, but still no response and finally the sales guy concluded that probably it responds only for American accent. Also added that it could be also due to poor satellite coverage in that area and being indoor.

2. When asked what is the difference between 4WD and AWD, came his quick response: for 4WD you need a stick (gear lever) to engage, like in Thar. Here in AWD, all the 4 wheels gets engaged without the need of using a separate gear lever.

3. And lastly the sales advisor pointed out into an empty space near the radiator and says, within here lies the radar that prevents accidents.

[RavSam]

Since I previously worked at a dealership in sales, here are a few pointers:

Did I have good knowledge of cars, variants, technology and features? - Yes, because I used to just ace their half yearly product knowledge tests.

Was I able to sell tonnes of cars due to my knowledge? - No! In fact almost all the other sales persons (yes, I'm ashamed) who had just the basic knowledge were able to sell a lot of them. Much more than I could, at least.

The women sales advisors had more conversion rates too. I am not joking! I have literally seen people/buyer not being able to reject a model because the female SA was good looking and pro at people skills. (Imperial Blue sound track plays in the background)

What were they good at? People skills! Convincing them that THIS is the best car and there is NOTHING else like it.

Saar, this is the best car! Best horsepower. Best features! This is the Best Brand! You will look like a king in this. Best accessories, best lowest loan interest. And all that bull poop! They would go as far as giving them some cheap accessories from their own pockets for free if there were no freebies available.

I just couldn't do that. If a customer asked me sane comparison question I would actually give them correct answers whether our product was better than their other considerations or not. I don't ever remember giving false info or just saying "our cars are the best". May be that's why they weren't sold. :P

If I were in some other upmarket dealership perhaps like Mercedes, BMW or anything else that's premium, I am still not sure that my car knowledge would translate to sales.

Bottomline is, those sale persons are there to make sales and explain you "basic features". Not technical features. They do try to learn horsepower and torque numbers by heart but that's about it!

Asking very company specific questions like why did X company not provide this and why they share platform and that is like asking a school teacher why certain chapters are included and some not in your kid's syllabus. The teachers don't write their own school books and like that, the SA's don't manufacture it and neither they would convey your specific query to the company. Max they can do (if they can at all) is when they have a meet, they may say why customer rejected a certain product due to a feature. For other specific queries and requests one can only use such portals or email and other things.

OTOH, the used car evaluators were just excellent in this! They know each and everything there is to know because they are buying cars from you and giving you money and hence such mediocre knowledge would lead to losses.

So when visiting a dealership, don't expect the sales advisors to be very knowledgeable (I am not saying all of them are not). Most probably the product manager (not the sales manager or team leader either) will know more about the vehicles. Get the knowledge and info from the web, go to the showroom with someone who knows cars well for product feel, TD, loan and accessories. That's it.

People and enthusiasts like use will only get irritated when SAs give out wrong info about something you already know correctly. Don't test them like you are a Quiz competition host.

When I was buying my own car I was just counting the time till the SA stopped giving me info about what I already know. Well even then he told me 2-3 things which I did not know or could not have discovered on my own. Peace!

[GreasyCarb55]

Originally Posted by TheStRyder

The response I got was " Sir the automatic variant is very intelligent and the gearbox does not allow you to drive dangerously hence it is much safer than the Manual with 6 airbags"

Obviously our conversation ended there itself and I walked out of the showroom

Just reading this in the form of text on my laptop screen had me staring into nothingness for a good few minutes out of sheer disbelief

I can't even imagine the what it would be like hearing that in person from the "Senior Sales Consultant".

If that was the answer from the "Senior Sales Consultant" then I wonder what the regular "Sales Consultant" would have said to you .