Josh, Land Rovers, and the "Numbers Game".

Ever walked away from an experience just demoralized at the state of the sales person on the other end of the deal.  It’s a reminder to not “be that guy”…

Here is my story — the email I sent back to the sales guy:

——–

Josh,

This is a horrible sales process.  I am not sure if it is incompetence or if you are intentionally trying to “dupe” me.  I am assuming the former.

Here is what happened:

I went to your site looking for pricing on the the following vehicle you had advertised online:

When I clicked through to the link, I saw the following information:

I was impressed that you might be willing to offer me an “ePrice” that was lower that advertised, so I took the bait and clicked through.

So my guess was right, if I traded you my email address, you would send me a lower price and and have access to my personal information for future specials or other “what not” that you could mass email market to me.

For me, having a cheaper price was important enough to trade you my personal email address.  Who  knows — maybe you have some offers to send me that might be of interest when I buy another car.  My primary car has just at 100,000 miles right now, and I’m starting to look around.

But, back to the topic.  I filled out the form and was excited that the feedback indicated that you would be providing me a better price.

So I went to my email and refreshed.  I figured that you might have a built-in 10% discount (or something like that) that you would automatically send to me.

I was eager to get a slightly cheaper price so I pushed the refresh button — once, twice, maybe three times (I forget exactly).

I started to get a little annoyed, but then I thought, “Wait a minute.  Maybe this isn’t automated.  Maybe they are really working to reduce the price of this vehicle for me.  (I was a little chagrined that I had thought badly of you guys.  After all, this is the South, and hospitality is our specialty…)

But I digress.  A few hours later I got an email from you or your team…  Not sure.    (Not sure if you’ve read this recently.)

That’s OK.

I started reading it.  I was actually skimming it pretty fast to find out what type of discount I could expect.

I didnt’ see any numbers so I honed in on a few paragraphs to see if maybe I had lost track of the reason for this email.

I re-read item #3 about you giving me the best pricing “up front” and then in a “should I be annoyed…. what is going on?” state of mind, I decided to wait for you to contact me.

And soon thereafter you did.  This is what you sent me:

I have to come in to see you instead of getting a lower ePrice?

I feel duped.  I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you took my attention for granted.  Now I feel like a fool.

I know it’s a “numbers game”  and I am just a number.  But I think you could easily improve your numbers.

1. Think outside the box.
2. Be genuine.
3. Treat me like the individual buyer that I am.

I wanted to buy something from you and you pushed me away.  That’s not the way to generate more revenue…

Dan Waldschmidt

——–

Before you jump on Josh’s case, think about what you did last week.

Who did you help halfway?

It’s a lesson for all of us.  Don’t be that seller.

You won’t find many buyers…

–An UPDATE–

This morning I got this email from the Sales Manager at the dealership.

It has the “right language”.  Right? It’s just more of the same.

And when your buyer is skeptical and annoyed to start with, more “emails” like this don’t really work.

–ANOTHER UPDATE–

My “good” friend at Big O’ sent me another email.  Does this sound believable?  Am I really going to buy a car from these guys…..  ever….. ever?

This is the problem with “sales automation” — in the wrong hands, it builds an army of raving enemies.  It’s lazy and sloppy and horribly out of touch with the reality of my buying a car.

Shouldn’t we be building more trust?

–STILL ANOTHER UPDATE–

Despite the prior drama, the marketing team at Big O decided to actually try to sell me a car for 60 days. I sent and email asking to unsubscribe.  At a certain point it all becomes a little surreal.  I’m not going to buy anything, just stop pestering me…

–STILL ANOTHER, ANOTHER UPDATE–

I get an email with a signature from Josh but a reply-to from “Rusty” asking if they were being a pest.  I sent a short email just asking that they remove me from all further communication.

This saga started as naive and impersonal and then graduated to another degree of sales insanity.

–AND ANOTHER, ANOTHER UPDATE–

…no words to say…

If I get more emails, I will keep them to myself.  Enough is enough.

I hope you get the point:

You can’t pre-package empathy.

Do unto buyers as you would like to be sold to….