Horrible dealer service experience

[alvam]

Originally Posted by Psalm40

The huge discrepancy between dealer service neve ceases to amaze me. I think your story is all too familiar, but we all also have stories of superior service at other locations.
1.) When I had my Nissan GT-R, they would drop everything and get you in and out, as long as you had an appointment and the GT-R tech (usually one per dealer) was working.
2.) We have two local Mercedes Benz dealers, one about 15 mins farther than the other. I always went to the farther out guy out of habit. They were great. Always had a new MB loaner for as long as you needed/wanted it. No hassle, no paper-work. I thought I would try the other dealer. I let them know I needed a loaner when I made the appointment. I show up at the appointment and they look at me all crazy when I ask for the loaner...they say that I can rent one from there "rental" desk which is a card table with a 18 year-old-girl sitting at it....I finally got the car (for free), a 4 year-old stripped IMPALA which was filthy!

What really amazes me is that the dealers don't take this opportunity for free advirtizing. You have a CURRENT BMW OWNER's full attention. Give them a great new BMW to "test-drive" for the day. Ask them what they would like to drive..."Oh, I see you brought in your 3-series wagon today, maybe you'd like to drive the new X-3 for a few hours, I'm sure you'll really enjoy it!" The customer comes back to their 5 year-old 3 wagon after speding the last 5 hours in a brand-new X3 and you just might have a new car customer! Seems simple....

Obviously this is a passionate topic for me.

I would agree with all you are saying but what I am finding is that service delivery on almost anything nowadays is going by the wayside and secondary to actual lower pricing. IMO the retailers think that because of the competative nature of getting a sale means a lower margin they are sacrificing customer service for that lower cost. In tough ecomomies I can see how they would believe that could be a smart strategy but the reality is that when you spend the kind of coin we do on vehicles like these we expect an enhanced customer experience instead of the typical dealership one.