Interesting take on Ferrari Dealerships

Jalopnik still has it up.


http://jalopnik.com/5938170/how-ferrari-is-losing-a-generation-of-buyers

 

Thanks for the article. I'm considering getting my first f-car next year and will not step my foot into Ferrari Ontario.

Sure, Ferrari is expensive to average income people but these cars are just pocket change for guys who fly private. This level of arrogance is uncalled for.


I run my own business and learned a lot from Richard Branson's philosophy of customer service. I feel great when my customers are satisfied.

 

Does not compute. So you want a museum and the ability to order on line?

 

Ah, I know them well! Back when they had Lotus I stopped in one day to check out an Esprit. There was one salesperson in the showroom. Totally ignored my buddy and I, never even acknowledged our presence. She spent the entire time on the telephone making follow-up calls on service appointments. She had a reputation with the local PCA as being rude. We pulled up in a new 928S4 so I would have thought that was a step in the direction of qualifying us as prospective customers. Guess not. Whoops.

 

A lot of the notions a vague. I've never been treated "rudely" or ignored, and personally prefer a very light touch on sales.

To me the issue is simple. Price and delivery. I am consistently told over sticker and from other friends' experiences there is a good chance the car never arrives unless demand has dried up (both times when the next model had been announced and was imminent). I was always treated "nicely" in terms of the interchange with dealership staff.

In a business deal I want to think I am getting real value and both sides get some of what they want, but not necessarily all. I just never feel that way in F stores and more importantly feel like they want me to be ignorant. For example, I'd love some kind of recourse to be sure if I make a deposit and get in line, no one leapfrogs me unless I agree and get to share in the extra profit that a customer willing to pay a premium pays.

 

?

You got the 1st TR in 86 at gentry ? My 86 tr came from gentry, November delivery...it's red /blk....what was yours back then ?

 

Black/oyster interior.I think I saw your TR when it first came in.

 

Looking at ten pages here and the number of people who say their experience was not like the person who wrote the article, this thread looks like a fail.

 

You're not asserting that all dealerships in North America are as good as your specific dealership are you?

 

Nice combo, not sure where it is, I saw one that Daytona was selling back in 1999 that was your combo.
Mine was sold to a RE agent (new) that went to BC before it came back.

 

http://jalopnik.com/5945284/how-a-ferrari-dealer-scared-a-small-canadian-blog-into-submission

 

Once again Jalopnik embarrasses itself in not presenting any facts but lots of speculation.

"Could", "might", "it's possible" are not journalism. It's rumor mongering, conjecture, and frankly speaking being an internet troll.

"We have a couple of ideas..." Yes, and no facts to support any of it.

Well, it COULD be possible that Jalopnik is being paid money by Ferrari's competitor McLaren. I mean... it could, couldn't it? I have no proof but it's certainly possible. After all, they seem to like to attack them over and over. I have a couple of ideas....

Here's the final tally:

Jalopnik equals FAIL on this one, big time. It's trolling for attention, nothing more. If it had a story, it should find it, post it, or shut up.


It does succeed in one way. Read the comments this article generated and you'll see that as a troll, it does a darn good job in bringing out hate.

 

Oh look! I'm not the only one who dislikes Jalopnik for stealing and not fact checking.

 

Add me to the Jalopnik hate train. The tabloid of automotive news. Examples include:

- calling their series of Pebble Beach coverage "Pebble Bi-otch"
- captioning their article on the Kia Cee'd "Spreading your Cee'd"
- childish photoshops to exaggerate headlines
- generally hating electric vehicles
- the legion of circlejerking commentators who trumpet the glory of Jalopnik and talk about HOON this and HOONING that
- asking their readers to self-generate a fair portion of their content via daily Question posts
- lazy reporting - I frequent Fchat and Reddit, they like to pirate content from both. This typically includes pulling the photos and slightly re-summarizing the story, maybe slapping one of those dumb photoshops to pump up the headline
- their smug writing style and belief that they are hard-hitting reporters sticking it to the man (or Ferrari) with their posts

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

 

I frequent both as well.

I noticed they stole one of the stories about the Dallas 15 year old girl with the Super Trefeo, given I was familiar with a car show organizer, I knew their reporting was bull****.

 

Bob it does a good job in bringing out the truth as this comment (Not by me although I agree with it completely) clearly shows:

"I intentionally avoided commenting on this thread until now because I did not want get wrapped up in speculation. Having now read the Doubleclutch email confirming that they were threatened legally, I have only this to say: What an arrogant move from an arrogant company. What's even more hilarious is reading the comments from fanboys around the Internet STILL claiming that Jalopnik is somehow the one at fault, even after the confirmation from Doubleclutch that the Ferrari dealership threatened lawsuit. What a joke. But hey, what goes around comes around - the issue could have been put to bed if they handled it like grown-ups; instead, the page views just keep rolling in. Oops."

As an aside I personally believe this is far from over and is going to get a lot worse for the Ferrari Dealership cited by Jalopnik based on a conversation I had with Doubleclutch who previously confirmed to me what Jalopnik has reported today.

 

if you really want to be ignored walk in Manhattan Motorcars in NYC

 

Not so sure. I don't know why Ferrari SpA & Chris Harris is mentioned as I see this as a dealer problem, that's the only issue I have with the article. Are you saying that there was never a guy who was poorly treated to begin with?

 

It's clearly more a dealer issue than Ferrari Spa/FNA.

I can understand why the dealer did this, it's very easy to ruin a reputation today on the internet. Just a few words on specific websites and most people reading these words will take them for gold.

As an example, when i am looking to buy something, i google the re-sellers and if i find a bad review, i will pass. Now, since there are not that many Ferrari dealers, and if you have common sense you can just judge a dealer by one internet review, but im sure a lot of people will do exactly this.

In this case especially, it's very hard to prove this person was ignored again and again. How to you prove that? It's not like someone buying a defective product that the company wont fix or buy back..

Now, that Dealer could have reached out to this guy and said that they are sorry if he felt ignored and if he wants, he is welcomed to schedule a test drive etc..


Did that person try to reach out to the dealer before going public?

 

When I was looking for my car, I can't say that I was ignored there, but I also can't say that they were accomodating either. I went in and asked if they had specifically what I was looking for. Once he realized that he didn't have what I was looking for, he was not too interested in helping me. A perfect example is that they had all the used cars upstairs. I asked how to get up there so I can look around. He said that I can't go up alone, and had to go with a salesman. He also said that it was a Saturday and they were ligt on salesman that day on the main floor, so he couldn't go up there with me so I would have to return another time......yeah right, like I'll be back!

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=141762929&postcount=92

 

Funny..I never thought canadians knew this sort of language

 

Interesting how FoO will pretend unfamiliar customers don't exist when you walk into the place, but Gawd forbid you broadcast that and they're all over you with threats. Wouldn't it be easier to train the staff to at least get off their @sses and be friendly vs. having to threaten people after the fact and giving the world a glimpse of how they really operate?

 

Although the article is "tendentious" (what has to do Chris Harris and a crashed Enzo with this?) and Jalopnik confirms the low quality of its literature, if all that is true, the owner of the dealer is a jerk (hope I don´t get sued for that). And Ferrari Spa should not want to be associated with a jerk.