Congress passed a law a few years ago that
really “shook up” publicly owned companies. It’s called Sarbanes-Oxley, named
after the Congressmen who sponsored the bill. Basically this law says that the
CEO and other high echelon management of a public owned company cannot get off
the hook from wrong doings because he claims he didn't know what his
employees were doing. I believe the same rules should apply to all businesses,
even if their stock is not publicly held. The boss should always be held
accountable for the actions of his employees and this should apply especially
for car dealerships.
Most of the employees that the customer
comes into contact with in a car dealership are paid on commission. Those
employees get a percentage of the profit that the company makes on the
transaction. Car sales people, service sales people (also called service
advisors or assistant service managers), parts sales people, and the mechanical
technicians who work on your car are mostly all paid on commission. This method
of pay tilts the relationship between the customer and employee in somewhat of
an adversarial manner. The employee wants the profit to be as high as possible
but the customer wants it to be low. In a car dealership that has talented,
fully engaged, and ethical management, this potentially adversarial relationship
is kept in a fair balance. Without the oversight of upper and middle management
and careful hiring practices, some employees will exploit a customer to
increase his commission.
What brought the subject of this column
to mind was a call I received yesterday from a 78 year old widow from Ft.
Pierce. She called to thank me for writing my column and to tell me that she
wished she had read some of my columns before she bought her 2005 used Mazda.
This was the first car she had bought on her own. Her husband had always taken
on this responsibility. She paid the dealership a huge profit on her purchase.
She was sold a maintenance package that she believed cost only $25 but it
really was $2,500. She was rushed to sign the papers at night because the dealership
was closing. In the morning, when she realized the mistake, she drove back to
the dealership and asked to back out the sale but was told it was too late. She
was told she had signed all the papers and that they had already sold her
trade-in even though she had not given them the title. When she asked to
speak to the General Manager, three different employees identified themselves
as the General Manager. I get a lot of sad calls like this.
The owner of that dealership should know
what’s going on. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt by saying that he
doesn’t know because if he does know it’s even worse. The owner should look at
the big picture and the long term view of his business. You can take advantage
of customers and benefit in the short run, but you eventually “pay the piper”
when your bad reputation spreads far enough. Most of the bad things I hear
about car dealers from their customers are not illegal things. They are simply
unethical and not the way one human being should treat another. Refusing to
refund the money of an elderly, widow after she realized that she had been
taken advantage of is not illegal, but it sure “stinks”. Jim Press is the top
executive for Toyota over all of North America and he is also the only
non-Japanese to occupy a place on Toyota’s board of directors. He was quoted in
the book, The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker, as saying “It’s what you
do for a customer when you don’t owe him anything that is the true measure of
character. It’s like sticking up for somebody who can’t defend himself”. I
really like this quote and I have it engraved on a plaque which I give out each
month to the employee who wins the “Above and Beyond Award”. This award goes to
our employee who does something for her customer above and beyond what the
customer would have expected.
If you have a bad dealing with your car
dealership, do your best to contact the owner. This is impossible with publicly
held dealerships like AutoNation and United Auto Group, but you should be able
to talk to their General Managers. If it’s privately owned dealership, don’t
give up until you see the owner.
My car purschasing experience with Earl Stewart was great. Garry w/ 2 R's DeArmond was a very great sales man. His excitememt throughout the whole process helped to keep motivated even when i doubted the final purchasing outcome. I also admired how his co-worker, Patrick Jacks, was able to help me in completing this process when Garry wasn't available. Garry also informed me of his job promotion to corporate in which I cant wait to inform my job about such great benefits for them with car purchasing through this corporate fleet program specials. I would definitely tell anyone who is car seaching to go to Earl Stewart, but whatever you do don't settle for a vehicle you dont want to make your purchase worth it.
ReplyDeleteDear Montilya,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for taking the time to post your compliments to Garry and Steve, two very important members of my team. I've taken the liberty of emailing your post to all 143 of my employees so that Garry and Steve serve as role models for us all.