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Do your local car dealerships get it?

MINI Garage

Leading MINI website MotoringFile has an opinion piece on the difference of respect held for customer satisfaction between the MINI we don’t see, head office, engineers and the like and MINI’s public face, its dealers:

This week I had the chance to hang out with some folks who work at the dealership level, and I had a completely different experience. Frankly, I was more than a little shocked. In short, most of them were all about the money. During our entire conversation, not once did I hear any of them mention customer service, or think that one thing or another would be better for the customer. Customers simply didn’t come up. Their only concern was how they were going to sell cars.

We see this as a much bigger picture than just the MINI brand. Indeed, AUSmotive’s experience with our local MINI Garage, Rolfe Classic in Canberra, both as a former customer and motoring hack, has been nothing short of excellent.

What’s interesting here is the disconnect reported by MotoringFile between the wishes and desires of head office—where customer satisfaction is key—and the dealer in question where the focus was not so much on the people, but more the numbers of units sold.

Of course, all manufacturers want to sell more cars year on year. Yet MINI positions itself as a lifestyle brand where the focus is on fun. Customers are right to expect the brand experience to match the expectation built by MINI’s generally excellent marketing.

As we said, this is not just an issue concerning MINI. I’m sure all readers will have horror stories from dealerships of all persuasions. And when you do find a dealer who treats you with respect and gives good service, pre and post sale, you want to give them more of your business in the years ahead. It’s just a shame there seems to be so few salespeople that understand that.

[Source: MotoringFile]

NOTE: We have sourced the image above from Stephen James MINI in the UK. We tried to find the most generic image of a MINI dealership we could and there is no intention from AUSmotive to implicate them in this story.

5 replies on “Do your local car dealerships get it?”

This is all true. Unfortunately even for the dealers who do care about customer service, meeting the factory-imposed targets is of utmost importance. One month of below average sales could mean the difference between the sales department breaking even, or making a big loss. Dealer margins are abysmally small, and if dealers didn’t have to worry about manufacturers dividing up their market share by increasing the number of dealerships in their area, or missing their (constantly increasing) sales model-mix targets and therefore their bonuses, I’m sure customer service could be the number one priority.

As someone who is currently waiting for a ‘built to order’ mini to be delivered through Rolfe Classic, I have to say their service to date is top notch.

My current car is a VW and my previous a Holden and it’s nice to come back to a brand and dealership where they take the time to meet the needs of their customers and go the extra mile instead of treating you like a dwindling profit margin.

You pay a premium for a mini but in my book it’s worth it

In contrast to my positive Mini Garage Canberra experience, another Garage in Vic who shall remain nameless, was absolutely CRAP. This goes up their Mini tree to Mini Aus who were so unhelpful.

The end result of all of this is that I have just this week cancelled a Mini GP order that we have had for over 2 months. Went out and bought something else today, screw you Mini, we won’t be back.

I have to agree that Rolfe Mini in Canberra was excellent throughout the sales experience and the service via Rofle BMW, although very expensive, has been excellent. They really do go above and beyond.

Unfortunately for us, our 2010 Mini Cooper S has been full of problems including a number of components failing, the dreaded death rattle from the timing chain, and numerous rattles and therefore we have seen a lot of the dealership in the past 2 1/2 years, however having excellent service (all parts replaced under warranty) and a free courtesy car every time from Rolfe BMW has made all the difference.

Would I buy a mini again? Probably not. Would I buy from Rolfe BMW? Absolutely.

My complaint would be more with the build quality at plant Oxford, the Peugeot sourced engines that seems to have a chronic problem with the timing chain (my mother has a peugeot 308 with same engine and same problem) and Canberra’s crappy roads that seem to amplify the problems of runflats than anything else.

I love the mini brand and I still love beating Golf GTI’s and Xr6’s around a windy road, winding down the windows to hear the glorious pop and crackle of the exaust, and the second to none handling but the rattles have just been too annoying to risk buying another one.

I will have fond memories of our mini that will be ever so slightly tarnished by build quality issues.

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