For the last eight months I have been on the market to acquire a new set of wheels. It's been quite a journey. As much as I really loved my little Diesel (the clothing brand not fuel) Fiat 500c (limited edition), it was time to upgrade. When I first got it, there were very few on the road, and I really liked the 'funkiness' of them; but now, every second car is a Fiat 500 and it's lost its uniqueness and appeal. I did not have to buy a new car, but if the right one came my way, then I would consider investing in it.
My first port of call in December last year was Mercedes-Benz (Claremont); my perception of this 'luxury' brand has been shattered into a million pieces. There were a myriad of things that went wrong from the start, e.g. when I arrived for the test drive that I had booked, they did not have the car that I had requested. Clearly their sales are high enough that they don't really want or need to get dynamic businesswomen into their cars. Understandably, (or so they say) the vehicle I had my eye on (CLA) will not be brought into South Africa anytime soon, apparently November 2014 would be the soonest. Interestingly, they did not try and give me a deal on any of their other models, surely a salesman | dealer principal (trust me I spoke to them ALL) worth their salt would try and get me into one of their other models or at least keep their (eager) client in the loop and make a potential investor in their brand feel somehow fostered. I made it very clear that I was very eager to invest in a Merc - not even this lit a fire under them.
I had to get over my disappointment, so test drove a number of other brands and again received luke warm receptions. Interesting. I discussed this with a number of people who said that they had experienced the same treatment. So, made peace with the fact that I would not be investing in a car anytime soon.
...then, an 'aaaaaaaaah' moment - I was driving out of Hout Bay, and it was as if the skies opened and a sun beam shone on one of the most beautiful cars I had ever seen, and the little dwindling embers in my gut to buy a new car re-ignited and I was ready to pursue the car-hunt again.
Upon some frantic Google searching it was apparently the Infiniti-brand that I had seen; I called on the help of the better half to help with further investigations and research (he is amazing with this) - and booked a test drive online.
Within less than a day I had a call to confirm the test drive at the Infiniti dealer in Green Point.
When I called the dealer, purely by my voice, the lady on the other side of the phone said, "Oh hi, yes Ms le Roux..." she new my name, before I even said that it was me! This in itself may have been the selling point for me (never under estimate the power of that first phone call!).
To make an extraordinarily long story short (there were email hiccups / people being quicker off the mark to sign up for exceptionally good deals than me etc. etc.) - but Leslie Blake-Taylor, always made a plan to get me a really good deal. He even drove all the way to Hout Bay to hand-deliver an email when our e-mail systems did not want to 'talk' to each other. I had said to him at the beginning that I was not in a rush to buy, but I would always be interested in a good deal. He made this happen.
The whole experience of the handing over of the new car was on another level, details really are important, isn't it? The purple draping with ribbon, the goody bag and even two caps for when the roof is down, were super touches!
Thanks to Infiniti I have (somewhat) regained my trust that there are companies out there that foster good relationships, and see customer service as a key driver to building their businesses.
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| Proud ! |
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