MR

DISGUSTING SERVICE

At one time dealerships weren't as synonymous with simple crooks, but times have changed. Here's the issue. Once there were skilled sales people who knew their vehicles as they worked at their dealer with long term goals for repeat clients. Some of these people were successful enough to start their own dealerships. In the shop, technicians were skilled journeymen who built a clientele of families who ended on them to keep their vehicles safe and sound. Somewhere the values when from earning money with a long term mind set, to bringing in the end of the month numbers at all costs. The old generation of owners died off, passing their businesses to their children who never had to earn anything. Some got bought up by corporate powerhouses. The problem is that there is enough money at the top for a few people to live very well, but not to live rich. For the children who never learned the value of skill and hard work, cost cutting to fund their own bank account is a no brainer, but sets the facilities and the staff up for failure. For the corporations, the add another ten levels of six figure paycheck hierarchy on top of the dealer cost structure without adding any value to the operation, and cost cutting is the only solution. The first casualty is payroll as it is the highest expense. Sales and service advisor payplans are manipulated to value the quick buck at the cost of the relationship with the customer. Skilled technicians are phased out for lower paid glorified oil changers who are incentivized to drive per ticket sales, and lack the ability to actually diagnose and fix anything. Employees at the customer contact level are run through the revolving door and see no value in taking the time to build anything lasting. Now the foreman is the guy who pushed the most brake jobs per ticket, the service manager is the advisor who oversold the most superfluous work, the fixed ops manager was the one who pushed to hire people for less money and not maintain the equipment. The sales manager was the one who shortcut the most used car refreshes and pushed the most customers into vehicles they didn't need. The GM is that same sales guy, but now he is in charge of both sales and fixed ops, and the latter he has 0 experience with and balks at the labor costs he never had to pay in sales as it was all commission based. The corporate structure above only sees numbers and skewed surveys to guide their staff of people with a dissapointing lack of industry experience manage fine tuned growth and development with the precision of a drunken chimp at the controls of a wrecking ball. There are still a few people in random places who still take pride in the quality of their work and not the quantity of the paycheck. But they typically are fighting an uphill battle against the tides of incompetence and deceit. And yet in all of this, the most qualified people to work on your latest example of technological triumph, are found at the dealer sometime simply due to exposure to the brand. But, just remember, laws are influenced by the dealerships lobby who claim they are doing it all for the customer's interest.