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Old 15th January 2011, 20:24   #406
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

I believe that the Sales people should have knowledge of what they are selling, what the competition is, what are the relative pro's and con's and despite the cons, they should be able to highlight the pros of their product.
With what we have as salespeople, I usually just ask them the relevant discounts and freebies applicable. I hate to see people prove themselves to be the fools they are.
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Old 15th January 2011, 21:17   #407
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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Originally Posted by drive_or_die View Post
Was not able to give this picture the perfect home (thread), so sharing it here as the owner mentions incapability of car dealership to correct the alignment. (Found this pic on Facebook). The car seems to be a Honda Civic.

Mods, please move this picture if this thread is not the best option.
This one conveys the fix that the buyer is in once the car is bought and delivered. You can't trust the A$$ to try his best let alone take the ownership of a bad piece. Going to consumer court is one thing, but then, I assume, you need a third party opinion to prove that you are right when you say that the car is giving trouble. Any legal opinion on what should be done when you say you have a vehicle problem and the company says there is none?

This reminds me of my colleague who was lead to believe that his 2009 Honda City will display the exact mileage he will get. After a number of visits (Chandigarh), change of the Meters and various measurements, they conceded that the variation is within "acceptable variation".

And that reminds me of the Tata salesman (Chandigarh again). I was inspecting the Tata Safari on display (top end variant) and pointed a painting defect on the vehicle to the guy. There was a paint trail from the roof about 4 inches long (like when you have about a cc of liquid running the slope). The answer I got was "Saar, this is a 10 L car, if these things are not there, it will be selling for 15 L" . Does paint quality really cost that much?
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Old 15th January 2011, 21:29   #408
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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Originally Posted by gharika View Post
And that reminds me of the Tata salesman (Chandigarh again). I was inspecting the Tata Safari on display (top end variant) and pointed a painting defect on the vehicle to the guy. There was a paint trail from the roof about 4 inches long (like when you have about a cc of liquid running the slope). The answer I got was "Saar, this is a 10 L car, if these things are not there, it will be selling for 15 L" . Does paint quality really cost that much?
That is shocking. Tata's paint quality has actually been fantastic for the last few years...

I bet that the display safari but have been damaged by the dealer and re painted at the work shop..

Last edited by AbhiJ : 15th January 2011 at 21:32.
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Old 15th January 2011, 21:34   #409
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

We are still getting After-Sales-Service from the guy we bought our Swift from, including going with us to MSM, even though he no longer worked for Maruti.

He shifted to Hyundai, and subsequently to Nissan.

Of course, he wants us to buy our next car through him, where-ever he is at the time --- but the whole point is that he considers the selling relationship to be long-term.

I'm not saying he has never given us any bull. He and I do not, for instance, agree on whether Teflon coating is worth anything, but at least he understands that customers are the life blood of the industry, not just people to be bull-ed for five minutes and then forgotten, whether they buy or not.
Quote:
That is shocking. Tata's paint quality has actually been fantastic for the last few years...
It is shocking that the showroom manager is not making sure that every looks (at least) perfect!

Last edited by Thad E Ginathom : 15th January 2011 at 21:35.
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Old 16th January 2011, 18:51   #410
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

Others are also taking a note of low auto-literacy of salesperson.

Today I watched Autocar awards-2011 in Bloomberg-UTV & the jury (Narain Karthikeyan, DC, Shapur Kotwal, Manvendra Singh, Hormazd Sorabjee) was discussing the same point & came to the conclusion that with a high staff turnover, training will not be considered as an investment with good return !!!

Guess what there is an award for best dealer in India this time.
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Old 19th January 2011, 08:55   #411
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

One more from me.
My father in law bought a Figo from the ford showroom on Mathura Road, Faridabad on the auspicious day of Dhan Teras just before Diwali. (2010). He decided on buying the car at around 1 pm, called the sales girl to get the car ready for delivery the same day. Showroom was supposed to close at 4 pm that day.
He called me at a 10 minutes notice, so that I can take him and mother in law to the showroom in my car (as he would drive back in the new car). We reached showroom at about 2:15 pm. father-in-law had discussed about a Silver color Figo on phone.

I asked about what color interiors does that Figo have. (we didnt have any issue with the red interiors or the black ones). She told us, she will call and ask. She called someone and replied to us that its black interiors within say 15 seconds of we asking the question. We were surprised at the quick response. Her talk on phone was like. "Arey haan who figo ka interior color kya hai?. (delay(2sec)); thekk hai bye" (what's the color of interiors of that figo? Alright Bye)

When the car came to the showroom from workshop at about 3:30 pm, i noticed the interior was red and I promptly pointed this to her. She kind of scolded the guy who drove the car there and asked "arey tujhse poocha tha naa kaunsa interior color hai, ab jaa wapas change karke la" (I asked you what interior color was this car, now go change it)

The reply was amazing " Kya change karoon Car ya Interior? (pause) Aur madam mere paas to phone hi nahin hai " (what should I change, Car or Interior? and I dont even have a phone)

We still accepted the same car with red interiors and were happy that a delivery was made within 3-4 hours of telling them that we will buy the car on the same day.
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Old 20th January 2011, 13:41   #412
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

While checking out the ANHC at a Honda dealership in Delhi, my BIL casually asked what do the "S" & the "V" badging mean. Before I could open my mouth, the salesperson explained that "S" stands for SASTI (Cheap version) & "V" is VADIYA (Good version), and he wasn't joking.

I didn't ask what "E" stood for.
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Old 20th January 2011, 13:50   #413
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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While checking out the ANHC at a Honda dealership in Delhi, my BIL casually asked what do the "S" & the "V" badging mean. Before I could open my mouth, the salesperson explained that "S" stands for SASTI (Cheap version) & "V" is VADIYA (Good version), and he wasn't joking.

I didn't ask what "E" stood for.
Jokes apart, could you tell us what does it stand for? I just thought its some notation and doesnt have any specific expansion.
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Old 20th January 2011, 18:18   #414
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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Jokes apart, could you tell us what does it stand for? I just thought its some notation and doesnt have any specific expansion.
They are proprietary variant names given by the manufacturer(Honda). Based on the variant features, as end users, we can only tell them as Base variants, Mid variants & top variants. What astonished me was his ingenuity at cooking up a name.
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Old 20th January 2011, 19:23   #415
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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What astonished me was his ingenuity at cooking up a name.
The prime rule of a salesman. Never stand answer-less in front of a costumer. It looses their confidence in the product. The sales man was pretty good in this regard.

The trick might not have worked on you, but I bet it would have worked on other 90% of the car buyers. They just need an answer . .

How I wish companies spend a bit more to educate their salesmen, so that Indian customers get what they need, and not what 'they' sell.
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Old 20th January 2011, 23:20   #416
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

My prime rule is "don't dump cow excrement on me". Nothing looses my respect faster than that.
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Old 21st January 2011, 01:05   #417
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

Saw this at Ace Honda in Noida when I went to pick up my car from servicing.

It got changed before I left. Which was nearly an hour later.
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Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships-img20110120000011.jpg  

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Old 21st January 2011, 07:40   #418
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

^^ LOL, for a moment I thought it was a newly launched Civic / Accord crossover
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Old 21st January 2011, 08:36   #419
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

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Originally Posted by koolavi88 View Post
Saw this at Ace Honda in Noida when I went to pick up my car from servicing.

It got changed before I left. Which was nearly an hour later.
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Originally Posted by mooza View Post
^^ LOL, for a moment I thought it was a newly launched Civic / Accord crossover
Good that you didnt ask why did they put "Accord" there ! They might have replied that the next generation Civic is called Accord !

I had been to Trident, Advaith & RNS motors in Bangalore for test drives 2 years back. Out of these the Trident guy impressed me the most. He was quite well trained. But I had a googly for him as well, though not intentional. I went to test drive Santro and I was asking about the smiling grill which was sold as an accessory [just one chrome strip grill instead of stock multiple horizontal grills]. He declined that it was the only grill coming and no accessories though website showed it as accessory. Also later when I decided to buy Swift D, he tried to persuade me saying that Swift like Getz, doesnt have ABS even when I said I have chosen the optional ABS version !

Now I feel probably after a face lift, they would have changed it, may be the website was not updated !

Offtopic: Advaith & RNS folks were pretty good too - no non-sense guys. I scared the lady in Advaith with 1.2L Getz TD; She sent some one else to assist me during Verna CRDi TD ].

Last edited by swiftnfurious : 21st January 2011 at 08:40.
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Old 21st January 2011, 13:19   #420
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Re: Comedy of Errors at Indian Dealerships

Took a TD of Scorpio yesterday, the Sales Lady who had come along with the vehicle mentioned that the service interval for Scorpio is every 5k Kms and she was supported by the driver who came along with her.
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