Car Shopping: A Generation Gap?
For the past several weeks, my son has been driving around in a shiny, new car. As you can imagine, he is very proud of his new purchase. Love that new car smell!
But finding the right car got us into some crazy experiences.
Since my son didn’t have an easy way to visit car dealers on his own with only his bicycle for transportation, I drove him on a number of his car shopping expeditions. I’ve had some odd experiences in the past in new car dealerships, but I was dumbfounded by these sales guys who didn’t seem to want to sell a car!
Let me tell you about the most outrageous experience we had. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon a few months ago. We headed to the local Toyota dealer to look at a Scion. Scion is the brand that Toyota specifically established to bring younger buyers into their dealerships.
I parked my car and we headed across the parking lot to the bigger Toyota building to find out where the Scions were. Along the way we stopped to look at some of the new Prius, Corolla and other vehicles parked next to the building. We were met in the parking lot by a 50-ish looking salesman.
My son introduced himself. I introduced myself by my first name. No family relationship was mentioned.
“I’m here today to look at a Scion tC,” my son remarked.
“Don’t you want to look at any of the other cars here?” the salesman asked a bit peevishly.
“I saw you and your Mommy looking at the cars. We do that, you know? We watch you from the windows.”
Wait…what?
How inappropriate was that! And it gets worse…
The salesman tried to get us interested in a Prius C, but my son insisted that he wanted to see a Scion tC. The salesman had us climb into a relatively new Prius and drove us… too fast…with his unbuckled seat belt alarm loudly buzzing…to another lot two blocks away where the Scions were hidden. I didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry. Was this guy crazy?
The shiny new Scions were tightly packed in a lot behind another building. I scanned the area around me wondering how the salesman was going to get the car my son wanted to see out for a test drive.
Simple solution… he didn’t bother.
“You know you shouldn’t be thinking of a sports car that will cost more to insure. (The Scion tC isn’t exactly a sports car.) Isn’t that right, Mommy?” the salesman lectured, trying to make me a participant in this totally weird conversation. I stayed silent.
Then, he proceeded to tell us about his no-good nephew who made his brother buy an Infinity which got keyed (damaged) the first day the nephew took it out for a spin and cost a fortune to repair.
Wow! I couldn’t believe the salesman said that!
My son silently signaled me that we needed to get out of there. At that point, I was ready to run back to our car.
We allowed the salesman to drive us back to the main dealership, lecturing all the way about irresponsible, young men. My son said goodbye to the salesman and we made a quick getaway.
“What just happened?” my son asked as we drove away.
Check back next week for Part II
BIO: As the Chief Marketer at Customer Rush Marketing, CK Wilde helps businesses get and keep more customers. She focuses on Content Marketing, Driving Web Traffic and Converting More Prospects into Customers. Get a free assessment to boost your website’s results (link to http://www.customerrush.com/services/assess-your-web-presence/)
Car shopper image courtesy of Microsoft Office
__Etiquette is an attitude.
Rosalinda Randall is an Etiquette and Civility Consultant. Her California-based company is Your Relationship Edge. She provides on-site workshops for your sales team, administrative assistants, new hires, exit package, managers, high school and colleges. She brings a modern attitude and a little humor to the age-old topic of etiquette.
