A lesson for LandRover UK

Indifferent, uncaring, rude and shoddy have long been associated with some outlets of two of the biggest chains of LR dealers in the UK. One is known by a particularly rude fashioning of their name! However, for ever poor dealer in those chains there are also excellent outlets - Spiderman's praise for his dealership is a point in case as his is part of the group with the reconfigured rude name! In 16 years of LR owning I have encountered 2 awful outlets in Scotland, so bad that you wouldn't even drag me into there showrooms, however my local dealer Morrison Land Rover in Bannockburn, have a superb service franchise with staff who really know their stuff and are pleasant, courteous and listen, I used their sales side for many years until I was pointed to James at LPR and all his team. I don't have huge experience of their service franchise, but today I dropped in unexpectedly, was made very welcome and my problem looked after with the same courtesy and thoroughness that I hope all their clients receive.

Tim - Problem???

James

Nothing life threatening James, in the last 3 days there has been a wind noise around the curved edge of the driver's door where it meets the A pillar. Either the trim panel that covers the roof rail mounting point is loose and deflecting slipstream into the door seal or the seal is damaged. It's an incredibly complex piece of seal too! Only appears above 55mph. David and Steve are on the job! It wouldn't be a proper Range Rover if it didn't develop a tiny defect in it's early life!

Land Rover has built an excellent product in the Evoque, as you will find out when you get yours and we should all be extremely proud they are built in the UK as its a phenomenal uplifting worldwide sucess story. HOWEVER, all car marques whether prestigious or otherwise have bad Dealerships, some go under the radar as they perform well and sell cars...the reason being we are a car loving nation and will always buy once from a Dealership & our experiences will dictate whether we buy from them again & if we dont these Dealers dont care as there is always someone else out there ready to buy from them.

However, one major benefit of being part of a web based forum is that we, the membership, can help each other by spreading the word on the good and bad Dealers out there by sharing our experiences.

As a CEO of a Group of 30 International Companies I firmly believe the bad out there do not deserve our business or hard earned money, as it really is so very easy to transact business painlessly, just as LPR and Stratstone Perth have proven time & time again and in an ideal world all dealings would be with companies such as these, however, that's entirely up to us to assist each other on, so we can make the best decisions. So if you are on the receiving end of sloppy service advise all by writing a blog in the Dealers Section of this site, dont forget to name and shame and likewise if you are on the side of excellent service write a blog to help others make best educated choices as we are all spending a substantial amount of money on a new Evoque & in return all we are asking for is to receive decent service levels and to be treated fairly and courteously during the process...hardly too much to ask!

Spiderman - couldn't agree more. Look what Tripadvisor has done for some hotels. Report your experiences factually, both good and bad. If the dealer wants they have the ability to reply.
If they aren't reading these forums or googling themselves regularly they are not a good business.

A good business would have previously paid for this amount of customer feedback and insight. Now it's available to them free. We are providing one hell of a benefit to them.

I agree completely with all of the above comments, and funny enough I wear a suit 9-5 but just tee-shirt and jeans at any other given point – I think initially my dealer found it hard to size me and my wife up when we first came to place our deposit – i.e. we didn’t fit the bill of their other customers.
 
My experience so far has been interesting, and LR despite the minimal contact I have had, has been very professional. I have a few issues however regarding my dealer but on the other hand I have not made an effort to escalate my complaints (I sort of feel for the money I’m spending I shouldn’t need too).
 
My experience so far has simply been poor communication, or mainly a lack of (thank god for this site!!!). I have no idea why dealerships cannot adopt better transparent and collaborative ways of working. Perhaps some form of newsletter e-communication could be sent out on a monthly basis providing an update on any your vehicle order status/progress, additional information about the Evoque etc. Or even going one step further and providing a log on to a dealership portal that has all the personal information about your order, finance agreements, factory reports regarding issues and build slots, including sections that contain technical and service information about your vehicle, accessories, appointments for servicing etc.

I work as a programme/project manager and properly communicating is critical on many projects. A key factor is managing the customers’ expectations, and in many cases where issues have taken place it’s not often due the problem itself but because the customer was surprised by it.
 
In short I think there are some solutions that can be implemented and ironically not that costly, just maybe some creative know-how. I think dealerships should move more towards making it easier to work together, and look ways of getting the best productivity experience to manage the whole process from start to finish.

Unfortunately, I think management at Land Rover are not always forthcoming with information for dealers to pass on, yes sometimes it is less than professional sales staff in the dealership but the Senior Bods at Gaydon have to do a lot of questioning of the lower management, maybe it's time those at the most senior levels took a look at the various forums that abound on the Internet. It's time consuming when you might otherwise be out to an expensive lunch, but they could learn so much about the front of shop at some of the companies they appoint to represent them!

I know we are talking about LR dealers here but they are not the only ones. I have been trying to get a test drive in an Audi A6 for the past 5 weeks, which was eventually arranged for last week-some of the delay due to myself but most of it down to the dealer. Arrived for the drive only to find out that it was a manual when i specifically asked for an auto. They then offered me a ride of about 2 miles with the salesperson in a customers new PDI,d car, this I refused for obvious reasons. The eventually rang me back last night saying that they had no car for me to drive even though they have 3 dealerships, They have the area tied up so no chance of going to another dealers within easy reach-looks like another sale lost by Audi- maybe LR arn,t that bad after all.!!

(22-09-2011 12:07pm)wardpg Wrote:  Arrived for the drive only to find out that it was a manual when i specifically asked for an auto. They then offered me a ride of about 2 miles with the salesperson in a customers new PDI,d car, this I refused for obvious reasons.

This really p***es me off big time. Not just the total incompetence of some dealerships but the cheak to offer a test drive in someones own car that they hadnt even been in

It happened to me when I waited for over a year for my FocusRS about 9 years ago and a few months after I took delivery a mechanic at the dealership who I know well told me that customers had been climbing all over it and a number of people had been taking it for a spin...was not amused!!!!!

They should be locked away...and the car!