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Glib pitches aside, an old-fashioneddose of personal service seals a deal
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Buying a car isn’t just looking a chrome, dashboards and leather. It’s also about dealing with dealers.
In the West, car dealers often are the butt of jokes. They are stereotyped as pushy, oily and untrustworthy. In China, one usually expects nothing less.
I certainly met a fair few car salesmen in my odyssey to buy a new car. Since dealerships are prohibited by carmakers from giving price details over the phone, I had to visit many showrooms.
The time, transit fares and shoe leather I spent on that effort paled in comparison with the nerve-wrecking experience of haggling.
Operating under a certain price autonomy, car dealerships certainly have become creative about contract language. Some cloaked charges under fancy names that left me feeling at a loss. In addition to the standard ticket price, insurance, taxes, there were also general service fees, the ambiguous car registration fee and then that magical last column: “other charges.”
The controversial fee for pre-delivery inspection, which is now officially considered the responsibility of carmakers and dealerships instead of a value-added service, still appeared on some of the contracts.
“Did you know that four BMW dealerships recently got fined for using this in the form of price alliance to manipulate the market?” I said, glaring at a Ford showroom salesman.
“Well, I know that’s how things are done here,” he shrugged.
After awhile, I got tired of all the price breakdown rubbish and started getting straight to the point. “Let’s just talk about the overall price,” I would say. “I don’t give a damn under what name you charge me.”
Some salesmen, especially those representing Volkswagen, took a stronger position than I had expected in negotiations. They were polite, professional and proud.
“That’s because their products are stronger,” according to my parents, who are diehard VW fans.
Several days after my first round of dealership visits, I started getting bombarded with follow-up phone calls following highly standardized procedures. I mustered all my patience in dealing with them and promised the salesmen to give them top scores if I were contacted by a carmaker for a customer review.
Robotic salesmen
Everything they did was right, by the book. Right to the degree of being robotic. Salesmen selling machines have become machines themselves. I yearned for a more human experience.
Which brings me to reason I finally decided to buy a Mazda.
One day, after getting the cold shoulder from a Volkswagen salesman, I happened to pass a Mazda showroom nearby. On impulse, I dropped in.
Though I had made no appointment, I was greeted warmly. I looked over the models and was presented with an incredibly simple breakdown of prices and charges.
After some negotiation, I received a relatively good offer, though it was still 2,000 yuan more than the best offer I had found, at a store farer away from my home.
I decided to go home and sleep on it. I waved good-bye to the salesman and went to climb into the borrowed 10-year-old, manual clutch VW Santana that I was driving.
“Poor you,” the salesman said, looking at the car. “That car would be difficult for a woman like you to drive. A manual clutch is tricky.”
I had to agree and told him about some scary problems I had encountered. Three flameouts that day, including one on the elevated road during rush hours.
“This car is good for its age. But it is not the right one for me,” I said.
The salesman looked at the Santana’s windshield.
“It’s kind of dirty,” he said. “That means poor vision and possible danger. Here, let me clean it for you.”
I stood there awe-struck as he wiped the windshield clean. No matter how ridiculous it sounds, that was the moment when I decided to buy a Mazda. In the blur of all the dealerships I had visited, only this one stood out in my mind.
As China’s car market slows, there’s probably a lesson here for car dealers. Selling a vehicle isn’t just about price lists and rote follow-up calls.
It’s about establishing a personal relationship and sense of trust with consumers — factors that are important when a buyer considers after-sales services, a stable source of revenues that can make dealership business healthier, and more able to stand the volatile market climate.
Price aside, I prefer to take my car to someone I feel comfortable dealing with. And on that day, at that Mazda shop, I was happy to start down that road by accepting the most expensive car wash I will probably ever pay for.
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