by Joe LaMuraglia
Saturday, May 9, 2009 – My brother is currently in a situation that many consumer find themselves in. He leased a 2007 BMW 328i for his daughter and she drove it without any concern for the mileage. He now has four months left on the lease and has only 250 miles left before he starts incurring mileage over charges. He has asked me to help me decide what to do. He already knows that he wants a black VW Jetta TDI sedan with DSG (automatic) with tan leather interior, sunroof and iPod adapter. Figuring that out is easy thanks to online car configurators. The difficult part, and the stuff that we as journalists forget, is actually taking the next step and contacting a dealer to make arrangements for your current vehicle and then actually finding the car you want.
I told my brother he had a few options:
1. Continue to drive the car and just pay the mileage charges at the end off the lease
2. Buy the VW and park the BMW until it is time to turn it in
3. Trade the BMW in for another BMW
He quickly discarded the third option as he wants to reduce his monthly expenditure. So I began to track down the information to help him make a decision between option #1 and option #2 above. The decision is dependent on the per mile mileage penalty and the anticipated mileage driven in the next four months.
Herein is the catalyst for this story; as an automotive industry veteran, I haven’t had to personally deal with a dealer in over 10 years. When I worked for an OEM, I ordered my car and it picked it up at HQ. Now, I take delivery of press vehicles on a weekly basis and the only time I go near a dealer is to drop a family member off for service. I began the data gathering this morning and am appalled at how difficult it is to deal with the dealers in question. So, I decided to share my experience with you and hopefully, learn some new tricks to help your next dealer experience be less painful.
BMW
I’ll begin with the BMW. I called Prestige BMW in Ramsey, NJ at 9:15 this morning and asked to speak with a salesperson. The less-than-pleasant woman that answered the phone replied that they didn’t get in until 10 AM. I’m sorry, WHAT? In this economy, one would think that salespeople would be available 24 hours a day to help a customer. Apparently, Prestige BMW thinks otherwise.
I called again at 10:05 AM and was transferred to a voicemail. I promptly hit “0” to get back to a live salesperson and the operator rudely asked me to “hold please” while she found someone that could put their doughnut down long enough to answer my call. I was connected to, let’s call him Hank, and spent the next few minutes explaining that I needed to know the when the lease was up on my brother’s BMW, what the per mile mileage overage charges were. “Hank” clearly went through dealer training and asked for my name and number “in case we got disconnected”. Fine, I understand that. He took the pertinent information and promised to get right back to me.
Here is where I began to get a little pissy. I know “Hank” has access to the information I need but he’s been trained to make sure I get into another BMW. He even went so far as to say that if I came in today he’d be able to get me into a new lease easily. After explaining that I was not interested in another BMW and just wanted the information, he said he would have to pass me on to “Zale” and she would be able to help me.
“Hank” called me back and said “Zale” would get back to me this afternoon or Monday. I requested a call back TODAY. Let’s see if “Zale” can be bothered.
There are so many things wrong with this scenario, I don’ t know where to begin. “Hank” should have realized that I wasn’t a hot prospect and after the first call, gotten back to me with the data that I needed. Even if I didn’t purchase another BMW from him, I may have friends are family that might be interested in one and I could recommend them to “Hank”. After this experience, THAT will never happen.
Now, nobody that I am dealing with knows I am an automotive journalist. However, EVERYONE one in customer service these days should assume that their customer base has reach far beyond their immediate friends and family. With the advent of Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs, MySpace, Yelp and other social networking sites everyone’s sphere of influence has been magnified. Any bad experience can be distributed across a personal network in mere seconds and each comment and criticism is likely to stay on the network to be searched by future customers. You also never know; the person you are dealing with might be a journalist with a national website 🙂
VW Jetta TDI
There is some good news thus far in this quest. My experience with Joe Heidt VW has been better so far, at least from a communication point of view.
After getting frustrated with the fact that VW.com doesn’t allow you to located the vehicle you’ve configured (Knock, Knock VW…it is 2009!). I began searching for the particular Jetta that my brother is interested in. The various VW dealer sites were not much better but at least I could filter my searches by Make, Model, Transmission and fuel type. Joe Heidt VW had at least four black Jetta TDIs with automatic but I couldn’t tell if they had a sunroof or what color interiors they had.
I gave in and sent an email via the dealer website. I generally don’t like to do this until I am ready to buy as many internet sales people will inundate you with emails. I received a note back from Carl at Joe Heidt VW within 2.5 hours. Personally, I thought that was too long but the Twitterati assured me that 2.5 hours was excellent response time. Carl answered my questions and has thus far not been too aggressive. Kudos to Carl. Guess where we’ll be buying that Jetta?
I’ll add more as the saga with BWM unfolds. One of the lessons of this story is; don’t be like my brother and lose your contract in addition to being oblivious to the mileage on your lease car. If you do have a lease car and want to get out of it, visit sites like www.leasetrader.com or www.swapalease.com. Both are great resources if you have mileage left on your contract and simply want to get rid of your lease early.
Stay tuned!