By Kevin D BrowneDo you know where to buy a new car...if your current car was to go belly up later today? Do you have an uncle in the business? A neighbor who has a cousin who might know someone?
Come on, we all have those "six degrees of separation" lineages when it comes to knowing someone in the new car business.
And increasingly, the images of many new car dealers and their dealerships, have become rosier. That old image of 'car dealer' (new or used) is largely gone. Especially for the new car folk.
It seems that this grand return to treating people the way they want to be treated has not gone unnoticed, either. Car dealerships are now 'branding' their new esteemed levels of service as their own knowing full well that other dealerships, perhaps even in the same zip code, may be selling the exact same cars...and that what will separate one from the other, is service.
In the end, it will all come down to service.
Knowing names. Making sure recent purchases are living up to expectations. This is the NEW way that dealers are standing out from one another.
In a VERY famous Saturn commercial, a young man travels from one dealership to the next, trying the pastries in each!
Pastries?
That's right. No more horrendous coffee for people spending twenty grand TO START on a family car. Now it's plush waiting rooms, DVD players for the kids and coffee BROUGHT IN from the best local coffee house...(perfect opportunity for some cross promotion!)
I for one, could not be happier that then next time I open up MY wallet and release tens of thousands of dollars, the new car dealer REMEMBERS that I like two sugars and just slightly on the light side.
Because as soon as he remembers that, I remember where to buy a new car.
Kevin Browne is a freelance writer who lives in CT with his wife and four sons. A former Senior copywriter at several NYC ad agencies, he now spends his time working on his new site: http://www.become-a-copywriter.com.
