Their Loss ,not Mine.

[Glostersausage]

Frasers, rubbish salesmen, Good sales manager. Know neil since his days selling bikes pretty much off the pavement in Barton Street

Looking for a bike, I had put my sights on a comfy fun bike, very likely TDM900,as I had ridden one at another Gloucester. But I wanted to try a 2010 Versys, as I liked the 2007 model, but the drawbacks seem to have been addressed. So I rang up late with a quote from a guy up north. Salesman from Frasers undercut it to £5450. Now I knew where I could get them for £5199, but kept that up my sleeve for haggling, I do like to buy local, but not line anyone elses pocket unnecessarily .

So arrived for my test ride , to be greeted with a blank stare, by J*mes, but when I reminded him about my talk with his colleague.

"Ah Yes!, you agreed a price with him last night says he, "Hmmm, nope, he gave me a figure I replied. Well its the same thing J*mes bluntly informed me. Oh well said I"we can discuss semantics later, shall I try the bike and see if I like it.

Now, I have taken 2 bikes out in the past 6 years, thru J*mes, and decided not to buy the bikes, because I didnt like them enough, I can only assume that J*mes considered me a time waster, on this basis.

I loved the punchy little Versys, it matched the easy fun of the TDM, but in a more edgy, smaller way, and definitely less plush by far. I returned this killer verdict to a po faced J*mes. Ok I say, do you have anything that might suit me , you know, upright position, comfortable, fun? any 2009 's left

The gloomy James paused for a second, lifting his eyes wearily from his pc monitor, "No, Yamaha have gone crazy with their pricing, £7899 and I've only got £650 in it margin, I can't compete with anyone who has one left. That must be difficult for you I said, but quite good for me. (I dont really think J*mes had my interests featuring very highly, he was drifting back to his urgent keyboard). Do you think you could find one?

I had one hanging around for over 2 years, J*mes recalled, the irritation of selling to a customer becoming too much.

I see you have a cbf1000? I ventured, that looks comfortable. James paused mid tap to 'HMMM at me .

I'll go and have a lokk around then says I before the morass of negativity sucked me into its Dell encased Googley depths. 15 minutes later, J*mes had bunkered down, so no eye contact was possible.
I left the showroom, and bumped into Jon. "how did you like the the Versys",, not enough, but much better than your salesmans attitude, he is as bad as the other sales guy, who only seems to be interested if you are a chav wanting an R1.

Oh ,and I was the only customer in there.

Jon handled it perfectly, and to cut a long.. etc. he got me to his office, rang 2 dealers there and then and got them looking.

1 day later, I found an unreg '09, to go on a 60 plate otr, 12months tax £5999. good rate finance too. I did this deal, on the phone with a guy I had never met , he was straight forward, gave me a simple explanation, and I put further business his way, negotiating a good deal on givi box, grips, scottoiler.
Rang Jon the next day to cancel TDM search (see I dont like wasting peoples time )

Jon asked me to bring the bike round, and I dont think I was a million miles off, when I said, ahh to prove to your staff I DID buy???,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

All I wanted was a deal, not be told I said things which I didnt, I really dont like being pushed around like that.


A pretty stupid attitude

oh and Cotswold BMW lied to me straight with dealing ineffectively with a problem on the r1200gs i had.


On the other hand
Mark, at BVM, is an excellent salesman, and a pleasure to talk to, effectively dumped by BMW, after providing (to me at least, polite effective honest service.



So to sum up,
yes you dont want to waste time on a timewaster, but make sure you get it right, and I will enjoy riding my brand new TDM right up to the front door, and rubbing their faces in my pleasure

IT WAS DUMB AND UNCALLED FOR.

[Guest]

I've experienced this from several bike sales people.

I'm trying to buy a new car at the moment so don't get me started on the cars salesmen. You'd think, given the current financial climate, they'd be falling over themselves to be helpful but I've experienced quite the opposite! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ranting.gif[/img]

[Glostersausage]

<!--quoteo(post=178708:date=Wed 22nd Sep 2010, 09:17 PM:name=Matt_G)-->QUOTE(Matt_G @ Wed 22nd Sep 2010, 09:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->I've experienced this from several bike sales people.

I'm trying to buy a new car at the moment so don't get me started on the cars salesmen. You'd think, given the current financial climate, they'd be falling over themselves to be helpful but I've experienced quite the opposite! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ranting.gif[/img]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


go in at the end of the month, just keep pushing till they say no, did it with a ford galaxy just, and got the deal

[Lagotete]

Personnally I find that car salesmen have become much better at listening and looking for what you want.

Bike deakers all (including one of my friend who is a Yam dealer) appear to expect you to be cool and accomodate their mood or their preference.

What do you mean you don't know what type of bike is best for you? If you don't. how would I?

It is a bad idea to ask them to start the engine if the bike is in the show room. That would mean taking it out of the show room...as if it was a vehicle with wheels !!

Asking for evidence that maintenance has been done is offensive. Off course it has been done. you will see it when you buy the bike and we find the owner logbook / manual (which must be somewhere in the admin team office)

It is useless to suggest that your effort to come to the dealership gives you the right to a bit more attention than those who only call

In summary, I hate giving my money to people who make me feel like I am only a necessary evil to their business.

[Glostersausage]

<!--quoteo(post=178708:date=Wed 22nd Sep 2010, 09:17 PM:name=Matt_G)-->QUOTE(Matt_G @ Wed 22nd Sep 2010, 09:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->I've experienced this from several bike sales people.

I'm trying to buy a new car at the moment so don't get me started on the cars salesmen. You'd think, given the current financial climate, they'd be falling over themselves to be helpful but I've experienced quite the opposite! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ranting.gif[/img]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

ps do you move north in summer, south in winter lol?
2 addys

[catsbum]

Why Motorcycle City went under
You could not just walk in there without a clipboard tout badgering you

feck em

[magneto]

You know it's a bit different from the other side of the counter. Some of the appaling customer service mentioned is, I agree, indefensible. However, we are not all the same (I work at a Yamaha dealership) and we always start bikes up/offer test rides - who would buy a bike without doing so?
But, there's another angle. I have a customer who had a problem with a Yam. A machining defect. This part was, according to Yam within tolerance. Personally I thought even so, it isn't right. Hours and hours spent discussing this with the powers that be. Had the part super accurately measured at a precision engineers at my cost, video recorded the results but still to no avail. Offered the customer the same part, which was fine, from my own personal bike - meaning I would have the prob.
Guess what, customer has bought a new bike from 150 miles away on price.

Angle two. Chap bought a new Yam which suffered a frame defect, which could have been very serious. We were authorized to change the frame. However, no one could explain how another frame would not suffer the same fate. We couldn't either. So, I asked the customer, who had lost all confidence in his model, what bike he'd like instead. A GSXR1000 he says. We went out and bought a new Gixer 1000 and gave it to him. I felt very proud of our customer care and hoped the news of good service would spread, despite it being a costly exercise. In fairness, if I had felt a new frame would for sure have sorted it I wouldn't have done this. But, I couldn't as hand on heart, I had no explanation.
Guess what, we never saw the guy again and later learned he had bought a new bike elsewhere.

Angle three. Late Sunday, on the way home from an enduro we see a bike at the roadside. Turns out to be a broken chain job. We fitted the bike in the van, drove to the shop, opened up and replaced the chain. Turns out the guy hadn't any money with him, after we fitted the chain. We only had asked for the cost of the chain btw, no labour, no recovery. Promised to send the payment to us. Never came.....

PS No TDM's were involved in the making of this rant...

This post was last modified: 17-01-2011, 06:44 PM by magneto.

[ChrisH]

i visited a second hand bike show room in manchester lots of 1997 - 2003 bikes (all very clean & polished) looking for a TDM called in on spec they had a 1998 TDM 20k on the clock for £3250, they also have very high interest rate loans available that kind of establishment.

big sign up don't touch or get on the bikes with out asking a member of staff, i had my son with me 17, he went to look at a scooter walked towards it the proprietor barked across the show room not to touch anything.

we left how do these places exist

[wicklamulla]

<!--quoteo(post=191230:date=Mon 17th Jan 2011, 07:42 PM:name=ChrisH)-->QUOTE(ChrisH @ Mon 17th Jan 2011, 07:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->i visited a second hand bike show room in manchester lots of 1997 - 2003 bikes (all very clean & polished) looking for a TDM called in on spec they had a <!--coloro:#FF0000--><!--/coloro-->1998 TDM 20k on the clock for £3250<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->, they also have very high interest rate loans available that kind of establishment.

big sign up don't touch or get on the bikes with out asking a member of staff, i had my son with me 17, he went to look at a scooter walked towards it the proprietor barked across the show room not to touch anything.

we left how do these places exist<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
please tell me this was 9 years ago ???