Customer treatment?

[partking]

After years of pushing the advantages of factory parts and servicing at dealerships, I retired and became just another customer. The dealer quoted me $150 for a part with a $100 MSRP (easily found on the internet. They quoted me 1 hour for an installation that a trained monkey could do in 1 tenth with a rusty screwdriver. They sent me a coupon for a quick lube and then told me they only do those on weekdays and need the car for the whole day. And they recommended new brake pads when the existing ones had years of life left. Now I service at an independent. And I buy parts from him too. He gets 15% back of book and charges me retail; way better than the list plus 50% bump the dealer charges retail walk in customers.

I read lots of rants about how mean the customers are to us. Maybe sometimes we have it coming?

[Jaybee]

Wow, you said a lot. How often we can get caught up in our own little world. We worry so much about our processes and procedures, and profit margins that we feel entitled to,we forget about the customer. This business does not exist without them. Maybe, we need to step back sometimes, and ask ourselves if this is the way we would want to be treated ourselves? We rarely get to find out why the customer stops coming in. Sometimes we have met the enemy and it is us, but never see that.

Just my two cents,

John