[aadya]

Customer is no "KING" and salesmen are no "Slaves". After all they are human beings with family and self respect. But they are not probably fortunate or intelligent like many of us to climb the societal ladder and to attain a non judgmental behavior. When somebody feel they are King(as customer) they should dress like one.

Can somebody here can confirm would they visit a showroom situated in a Slum, instead of posh malls? Would somebody deal with a pan chewing, lungi clad salesman saying "what is sold is important than who sells it?" Or would we visit a showroom if it is crowded by non-real buyers who keeps walking around to qwell their curiosity?

I do not defend anybody disgracing anybody based on their appearance or attire. It does not harm to dress decently fitting the occasion. I am waiting for King customers here dressing in bermuda and slippers attending a family wedding, saying "our presence is important than our appearance"

If a farmer dresses that way it is the way he attends a function or temple or his workplace. We, at least most of us who do not miss a chance to impress peers, even go to the extent of buying a 3 pointed star with our hard earned money to showoff, need not "un(der)dress" and show a poor half-baked salesman who does not know our bank balance, in bad light. Once we have an initial rapport i don't think they would behave harshly to us.

I have bitten by this dress bug and been shooed away from some places during my college days. Nowadays due to my stature many people even blinks when I am seen (unintentionally) in places of importance even in sweaty and dirty sports attire. But I make sure to dress presentable(is the word I use) when I go to new places.

If we are not dressed suitably we can just introduce ourselves as so and so and tell our intention for entering their premises(even a showroom is their premises) they should be happy to oblige.

PS : wearing helmet for the brickbats about to fly on my way

[landmaster18]

I am a lifelong Telugu-speaking Hyderabadi who has been living in New Delhi for the last 6 to 8 months now. Have noticed that the attitude of salespeople is quite varied. The ones I spoke in Delhi were far more polite, far more customer-centered and it genuinely felt that they were trying to put you on a pedestal. The ones in Hyderabad - I had the complete diametric opposite experience, not once but in almost every phone call I made (post COVID - so while scouting I am calling up car showrooms to pick up details, instead of going there all the time!)

I am generally polite and nice to people, especially the ones who provide service -like the waiters in the hotel/ uber drivers/ salespeople/ newspaper guys etc. I had an intuitive feeling that my being nice was taken as a sign of weakness in Hyderabad, while in Delhi they just felt a greater need to reciprocate the niceness shown on phone. It was a general observation I had in Delhi- even in local vegetable shops and mother dairy outlets. Maybe my sample size is too small, but I am not aversive to make that observation

[Mechb63]

While I do not approve of a salesman disrespecting some prospective client, not only on basis of looks, but a little empathy goes a long way.

Salesmen generally rely on their sales incentives and bonuses to keep their households running over the minuscule basic salary that they get. In a competitive environment, where poor performance would leave you with no job, I can see why a salesman would rather use their time on someone who would benefit them.

Even if an error in their judgment, a salesman would definitely not have the time to look back and repent it, rather even if you buy the car from their colleague, they would feel no remorse as no efforts of the salesman were wasted.

Additionally, I have observed that it is those dealerships that have a lower footfall that would be where you get a patient salesman, explaining everything and promoting a test drive to you.

[nthomas1]

I am remembered of the below quote from Mahatma Gandhiji, Hope same is imbibed in to the minds of these sales people who do not value customers,

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption on our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider on our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

[imp!]

At any showroom I've been to, I tell the salesperson upfront if I'm seriously in the market or not. I've never had a bad experience with Mercedes or BMW, more often than not sales person will genuinely offer a test drive with a broad smile saying don't worry sir, if not today then tomorrow you will call me. I usually decline these politely. I'm not in the business of wasting someone's time.
I've also been treated poorly at showrooms that churn out mass market cars. Honestly? I don't care, I do what's convenient for me.

[richie4u]

Not trying to play the devil's advocate but here I am on the other side of the story. I am in the car sales business and infact all the automotive training received by a sales person for every single brand has a projection of the customer with a 6 figure salary, wearing branded clothes and a lifestyle that makes every sales person judge you from head to toe just because they are taught to do so! So its basically not their fault.

Ofcourse it doesn't work that way! Let me give you an example, I work for a top selling automotive brand, A sikh gentleman arrives in a beatdown Maruti in jogging shorts, a tee with a sweat mark and dusty sneakers. Same time at that very same moment there is another customer who gets down from a BMW 3 Series wearing the best brands possible. It is but natural that the later customer got a better welcome right from the security till the Sales Manager even coming out of the cabin to greet him. The twist in the tale, I met the sikh gentleman as all others were busy with the swanky guy and found out that he was the head honcho of a real estate company and was just back from his exercise trip and he bought the most expensive vehicle cash down within one hour of the conversation.l

Its always not the fault of a salesperson at the end cause we are taught from childhood to judge. As a customer its also your responsibility to be presentable and have the decency to respect some else's time and effort which is lost when you yourself do not try to make it worth his time. Cheers

[VaibhavShatna95]

The only bad experience I ever had was in a Kia showroom when no one even bothered to attend. I was underdressed and went with whatever I was wearing at home but I don't think they had enough people to handle the volume of customers.

Haven't seen anyone judge their customers by appearance though in Delhi after all in a few years I think we will have more cars than road in the capital :P

[sea_eagle]

This thread will age-well.

My two cents: Suppose, two prospective buyers walk into a showroom, the salesman, more often than has very little time to decide who he want as a customer. Sometimes, he goes with the outer appeal and a few other times he takes a bet with whatever his gut tells him. This very choice, will determine if he will make his incentives that month/quarter or not. So, I think we should cut the salesman some slack here. After all, he is making a living in the process.

As far as treating someone with less interest - It's a very subjective and individualized experience. I don't think we should generalize brands just because one salesman behaved wrong. Take it with a grain of salt and go to another showroom in the city or another city.

When I bought my Bonneville in 2015, the Triumph dealer in Bangalore was least interested in selling me a bike. So, I decided to look for alternatives and bought the bike from a dealer in Chennai. At the end I bought what I wanted despite the bad 'sales' experience.

[kiran_aithal]

Funny experience when I went around to get my X4 in Bangalore

Researching the threads here, got to know that BMW was offering 10 lakh discount on X4 in Mumbai (ya, that was 1.5 yrs ago.. not anymore). Called up Navnit motors near Electronic city and registered my interest. Surprisingly, nobody called back for next 24 hrs. Called them back and they apologized and all that and a sales rep called back. I went straight to the point - which car I was looking for, discount that is being offered and what is the best price he could offer. He said he would come back, but never did. Finally, after some drama, we decided to meet to have a look at the car in the showroom and discuss. And when I went, it looked like he was doing me a favor - No test drive or demo car., showed me a car which had come for servicing and tried to push a white color 20d X4 instead of what I was asking for. To top it all, he told that he was expecting me in the Lavelle road showroom (then what the hell was he doing in Electronic City at that time).


Next day, called up the dealer Deutsche motoren. And the experience was exact opposite. Test drive vehicle was got home, all requests accommodated and deal closed in 4 days.

[giri1.8]

Have had decent experience so far, I am a regular window shopper, but I inform the sales team immediately that I am in no mood to purchase anything and will just have a look and leave.

I don't insist on someone explaining the features or anything, as I can just find it online.

If I am helping someone in car purchase, usually sales representative treats me equally well, they even insist on letting me TD even if don't show interest. Only not so good one was with Tata where I actually handed them the cheque and bought the car.

Coming back to topic, did the guy in question buy any car at all? If I was in his place, would have simply walked into a rival brand's showroom and bought home something nice.

[Cliff9091]

My experiences with luxury car dealers have been fair so far, during the the purchase of my father's Audi A4, the color we wanted was not in the Audi Bengaluru stock, the dealer traced a car in Chennai and loaded the car on a flatbed the same day. The SA came to our house to collect the booking amount and few charges to transport the car, He was Mr Santosh from Audi Bengaluru Central, this happened in 2015.

Recently while looking for a Luxury SUV to replace my scorpio, my father and I went to test drive the GLC in Sundaram motors, the SA was very helpful and explained everything in detail and also insisted that she bring the car to our house another day for my mother and sister to test drive.

On the contrary when I went to checkout the XUV700, the SA's in the dealership paid no attention and were least bothered, this was Sireesh Auto, but when I visited India Garage in Marathalli the SA was very enthusiastic even when I told him my intention was just to have a look at the car and not buy it, he even gave the price lists, expected waiting period to carry home.

This clearly shows it varies from dealer to dealer and how the dealership trains its staff to treat customers and not discriminate based on appearence, age etc

[naikpranav]

I don’t know what some of these salespeople think. A couple of weeks ago my parents and I drove in my new Taigun GT+ to vitesse in Worli (a Maruti dealer) to see a base model alto For my parents. The lady must have thought we’ve come for some amusement, and also was reluctant to show us a swift. We ended up really not liking the celery, and driving off to VW and getting a new Polo the same day. Too bad for Maruti.

[MaheshY1]

Originally Posted by tmtitash12

Four years passed since then, and now I have booked my jeep compass Trailhawk from the same showroom and Mr Debangan (the same sales exec) was there to tell me that he knew one day i would be back to their showroom to buy the car. It was a wonderful experience with jeep and Audi.

This is how with a positive experience, we will even feel inclined to buy an inferior product. And it works wonders if the product in question has the go to match the show.

From what I have read online, Tesla people also do this very well. They don't want to go with the typical dealership model because dealers are always chasing short term profits. When Tesla run the whole show, they only try to change the perception through the "experience centres." The brand keeps gaining mind share and the sales happen automatically.

Off topic
I remember back when I owned a 3GS, I got a no-questions-asked replacement phone with just 1 month left in warranty. I was experiencing a faster battery drain. Turns out, it was because of an app running GPS in the background. Given my shallow social profiling at the time, if I were an employee there, I'd probably have not entertained a customer who looked like me and wanted a solution for an 11-month old phone - unless the company process required me to do so.

These little experiences create long-term relationships. Since then, I have spent more than 10X an iPhone 3GS's worth of Apple products. Even if they flushed my potentially faulty phone down the drain, they got way more business from me. Of course, it also helps that their products are solid, to begin with.

In contrast, I remember my experience with the Samsung service outlet. When one of the keys on my cheap netbook came off, Samsung wanted to charge me for the entire keyboard replacement. A technician was heading out for lunch break overheard me arguing. He fixed it literally in 2 min with his tools before stepping out. No cost. Samsung's process probably required the rep to upsell instead of look for a suitable cost-effective solution.

[vDragon3]

People judge and it definitely will take more years to treat every customer as potential customer. If it was me I would decide 80% of the product to buy before entering the showroom and test drive is only to reaffirm the decision. And in case of bad sales person wouldn’t hesitate to escalate with the max possible level. Buying the car is one time experience but a good car will give peace of mind throughout the ownership.

[neeravnaik]

Empathy to all kinds of people should be a big part of training for sales people. You can see good companies doing this. It is interesting to see how airlines staff deal with first time flyers or those not fluent in English. I have seen Indigo staff being very patient and empathetic to everyone even if they are under time crunch.

There can be just no excuse for bad behavior no matter who is the customer. There are ways to deal difficult customers or people who are not serious without showing superior attitude. This is how a company brand is built and not just on your products alone. While bad showroom experience should not put you off your decision but definitely makes you wary if not about the company at least the dealer.

In my experience in luxury showrooms in Bangalore

Audi - Felt like the sales person was poorly trained and the whole vibe was of a company not that keen to sell cars and ultimately the showroom is closed now
Mercedes - Ok experience but very reluctant to offer test drives somehow. Feels like they just want to put off people a couple of times before considering as serious buyers. It seems like they have a “profile” of people they want to let in.
BMW- Very knowledgeable sales person and relatively friendly atmosphere. I did end up buying from them but more for the product but still the competition did not make a compelling case and made it an easy decision.