Buying Advice A dealer looking for your input

[James Loehr]

I am a Kubota Dealer in the NE area. I have been at this for over 6 years now and absolutly loving the results. Great people that have filled my customer slots and a great product to equip them with. But I dont want to get comfortable with where I am. Like any good dealer I want to make sure I get better and giving people the buying experience they deserve.

Here is my scenario: I spent 6 WEEKS with a guy discussing a tractor. He was clueless and that is more than fine. I took at least 4 hours every week to get him on different machines driving around and using the attachments until we found the machine he was comfortable with and we both felt would do the jobs he had lined up. We then moved onto discussing attachment options and then getting his wife on board and excited. All in all it was going great, ( I even stayed 3 hours after close one night ). When the time came for him to buy he had me write up a formal quote and I gave him the best price I could, i did that right up front. Three days later I call him up to see if there were any more questions I could answer for him and I find out he bought the package from a dealer in PA because he butchered my price just to dump the tractor.

My question to you guys ( the buying market ) : Is service no longer important to people? Is a cheap price more important than Unbeatable service?

I wish you where my local dealer. There are three of them within one hour drive from me. I purchased from the closest (5 miles) and after four failed delivery dates I asked for delivery or my deposit returned. They gave me my money back. The next closest would not give me the time of day. The next dealer(45 miles away) seemed like someone you would want for your best buddy. I waited for and watched him spend about a half hour while he was showing an elderly couple how to use there new push mower. I was very impressed with him. When I tryed dealing with him he just could not compete becouse Kubota puts there small dealers last place for getting popular selling tractors. The wait was to long and at too high of a price. Except for this dealer the rest would rather sell large equipment and Kubota is what they do when they nothing else going. Don't change what your doing becouse of one sale. Again I wish you where my local dealer.

 

[PILOON]

From my experience, I discovered that there are some folks that you just don't want as customers.
If they start off as price shoppers, they will always be so, even on the smallest items.
Sounds like the type that no matter what you do, you'll never please him.
Have seen the most pleasant, best dressed, well educated successful looking gent turn out to be the most undesirable client you would ever want to have.

Give me the best deal and I'll send you all my friends--Shire, and they are all penny pincher's like you.

I'm in a hurry do me first---and I always am late and never plan for my needs, and I'll always want that same last minute rush service.

This is an old machine that I purchased for rock bottom price just to play so I want parts and service relative to my purchase---sure, but labor and parts are relative to today's economy.

What? those tire prices are more than I paid for the tractor?--

People talk a lot and that client , with time will send all his friends to that other dealer and soon that other dealer will have nothing but nickle and dime clients like him.

You sound like a good hard working honest dealer and I know it hurts when you put in all that effort, your ego is hurting.
I know the feeling, just be thankful you lost the sale as that lost client will probably haunt the selling dealer to death on warranty issues like paint chips, paint blemishes, any hiccups or burps that don't accurately meet specs.

I honestly think you'll end out ahead on that one.

 

[Bamacummins]

I think this behavior is just typical of the times. People want something for nothing and don't care what you put in to the sale. Examples: social security, healthcare, and other government subsidies. When did we forget that a man should stand on his own two feet, help those that need help, treat others as you want to be treated, ..... and the list goes on.

Now, I care as much as anybody about price and saving money, so I had decided after many comments here on TBN, that I would probably buy from Barlow in KY. (BTW Steve was great in trying to make this sale) He was within a 3 hour drive and I wouldn't pay state sale tax. But, in TN, whether it is enforced or not, you are required to pay the sales tax here if you didn't pay sales tax in the other state. For me, that amounts to ~$1000 on my purchase. YOU ALL DO KNOW THAT LOCAL TAXES PAY FOR YOUR SCHOOLS, ROADS ETC, RIGHT? AND IF THEY DON'T GET THEIR MONEY IN SALES TAX (IN TN ANYWAY) THEY WILL GET IT SOMEWHERE ELSE.

My local dealer was only $500 higher and I wanted to keep him in business and service issue needs would be close as well. Many stated not to be concerned about that part, Kubota's are great and rarely need service, they are required to service your tractor under warranty and .......

Well, for $500 plus taxes, I chose to buy local. They treated me fairly, were honest about selling them as cheap as he could and compete with everyone else and GUESS WHAT, I have had my new BX 2660 to the dealer twice now for service. Once, my fault. Second, a bad hydraulic leak. Both times would have cost me over 6 hour drive time to the other dealer.

And guess what, Eric at Tag Equipment (Chattanooga), knows me by name and does everything he can to fix my machine and keep me satisfied.

 

[dodge man]

Morgan Tactor, you sound like a good dealer, and can take pride in that. Just posting this, shows me you are trying to learn.

As I'm sure you have learned by now, some people treat everything like a commidity. If gas is 10 cents a gallon cheaper at the other gas station, people will go there. I am a land surveyor and work for a engineering firm. We provide a professional service. Some people still treat us like we are a commidity. When people go to a doctor with a serious illness, do they ask about price? "Gee doc, can you cure my cancer for 1000 bucks less, the guy across town is cheaper". All you can do is educate the public, but with some people it doesn't matter.

I have had people price shop my services so many times, it makes me sick some times. I try and tell people why I cost more, but it is often a lost cause. They go cheap, and some times they come in latter wanting me to fix the mess they have created by going with a cheaper price. How would you feel if on a $30,000 tractor, someone sold it to him for $10,000? That is the kind of thing that happens to me all the time. The problem is that these people are getting 3 times less work than we would give them. We don't jack the price up just for the heck of it, we price the job to provide a quality service, but some people just look at the bottom line.

At $600 less, that is less than 2%, that would bother me, but I bet the guy is patting himself on the back for saving that money.

Good post by the way, it got a lot of people thinking, and that is always a good thing.

 

[art]

Morgan, don't take it to heart! It's not you as everyone is different and working sales I've been sold out for less even with on site demo's and the only flaw was the $100.00.

You can only be polite to them and try and smile or you may never get a return on your investment.

 

[KeithInSpace]

...he'll probably be a little upset, knowing it's about him.

There are those you just can't satisfy, no matter what is done.

Personally, I have no idea who could fault a dealer for wanting/trying to understand how to be a BETTER dealer.

If the summary response here was "No, friend, nobody gives a hoot about service-after-purchase...low bidder wins.", then that is something he could take, digest, and adjust his business practices to accomodate. Or stick to his guns and find a way to make that solution work. Or call it a day and buy a Subway franchise.

Any business owner trying to understand the market he serves is a SMART business owner, in my book.

 

[Lyrch75]

Another question, I know other dealer "dumps" his and you sell your but how come the other dealer sells for cheaper than you when both of you pay the same price for the tractor? I think there is the real question us buyers want to know the answer to.

Dumping for most of us business owners means that someone is selling below cost. This is done when you need to free up operating capital that is tied up in inventory. I have done it on occasion, and will probably have to do it again someday.

 

[spike23]

There are those you just can't satisfy, no matter what is done.

Personally, I have no idea who could fault a dealer for wanting/trying to understand how to be a BETTER dealer.

If the summary response here was "No, friend, nobody gives a hoot about service-after-purchase...low bidder wins.", then that is something he could take, digest, and adjust his business practices to accomodate. Or stick to his guns and find a way to make that solution work. Or call it a day and buy a Subway franchise.

Any business owner trying to understand the market he serves is a SMART business owner, in my book.

True again, which holds for quite a few of the statements being made.

However I think that Morgan, especially as a dealer, should understand the power of the internet (that news spreads fast.) Will he lose this guy as a customer if he sees this thread? Probably. Will he lose future customers because of this? Possibly. How many people join TBN and research before buying a tractor? I'd be half afraid to even check his dealership for fear of get a thread started about me if I didn't buy from him.

And while his post is about "service over price", he singled this guy out. And he singled out the PA dealer who "butchered his price just to dump the tractor." Hmmm... let's think of a PA dealer who has been known to ship out of state (frequent contributor here.) While I can't be positive that's who the guy went with, there's a good chance, right? How many of you would be a little peeved if he would have said " a dealer down in Kentucky butchered my price"? Would we all know who he was talking about? Or think we knew who he was talking about? And we would also know good customer service doesn't just come from Morgan Kubota.

My last 2 cents- as a dealer, he should have picked up the phone, called the local Deere dealer, and talked about losing to an out of state dealer. Not post about it on the internet. Kind of like people who post about their bosses being stupid, and then wonder why they get fired the next day.

 

[KeithInSpace]

...he singled this guy out. And he singled out the PA dealer...

A good point, you make.

Could have had the exact same conversation about a customer that chose another dealership several hundred miles away over a few hundred bucks. That would not be as direct a jab, as you said, to a frequent, positive, and helpful contributer to these pages. Whether it is that dealer or not, we are left to fill in the blanks. Even if it is, I would not immediately assume it was done intentionally. His 'best price' was better. What's he going to do? Shove a customer out the door? NOT sell him a tractor?

I guess that part of the discussion reduces down to the unknowns:

Did the other dealer undercut the price out of malice? Because the other dealer wants to rule the earth and torpedo all other dealerships within a 2,000 mile radius?

Or did another dealership happen to have an exceptional deal on a particular tractor that's been on the lot for too long? And that particular tractor HAPPENED to be EXACTLY what the dear customer was looking for? And in this case, the customer thought himself pretty lucky to save $600 so he could get a necklace for his wife for Mother's Day?

Heaven only knows. I certainly hope for the OP that none of this is ever held against him. I don't think the intent was to rat anyone out or cause any angst or turmoil in the dealer community. But that's me...the hopelessly naive person that doesn't see the bad in ANYONE until they come after me with a knife.

 

[Jaylegger]

I suppose one could surmise that after being in business for 6 years and these simple facts of sales have yet to be learned, it's all over the crying, or "but the".

As such I would suggest all dealers to assume all potential, rare and valued, customers be treated as a waste of time. Sounds like a sound business model. You could always tell the guy to GFH then go home and kick the dog and reap those rewards.