EVERYONE: Please read and reply accordingly

The purchase of a Ferrari for most is an emotional decision. And when something unexpected goes wrong with this purchase, it can be emotionally painful. When this pain is met with either indifference or contempt from a dealer or FNA, this pain turns to real anger.

I am a strong supporter of free enterprise. Ferrari operates a business and as such doesn't have a requirement to act out of conscience or benevolence. The reason why Ferrari treats its owners poorly is because it can. Demand exceeds supply. Furthermore, there is no pressure for Ferrari to change. My research and experience suggests poor customer service is deeply imbedded in its culture. While there are examples of individuals who should be singled out for blame (B.E. you know who you are), I think this trait's origins can be traced back over many years and to Italy.

After 3 years of ownership, I just sold my first and only Fcar. With mixed emotions.

 

Slightly inaccurate statement, Mediobanca only owns 34% of the Ferrari capital, Piero Ferrari 10% and the rest is still owned by Fiat Group.
Ref: annual report 2002 (the 2003 report is not out yet) http://www.fiatgroup.com/main.php?w=G3G0ZPIGYTQ2JXVZVYWV&tl=Azionisti%20Investitori&gs=Annual%20reports

 

When I bought my first 'Vette when I was 25. (19 years ago) I had hair halfway down my back,usually had a Bandana headband.(I also played Guitar in a Long Haired,Rock and Roll Band,as Alice Cooper once said) Jeans. Flannels,or T-Shirts. Anyway,I go to look at a 'Vette with one of My GQ looking Buds,who drove me there. First off,the Car Salesman approaches HIM and asks if he can be of any help. My friend says,"He's looking at that 'Vette". The salesman gives a somewhat disappointed sounding,"Oh". So,I looked at the car,and ended up saying that I'd Buy it. We went inside,and the salesman,asks me,in still a droll,unenthusiastic tone. "So,how are you going to Pay for this car?" I replied,"Cash!" and whipped out a thick wad of Hundreds. All of a sudden,this guys all,"Yes SIR!!!". "Sit down,Sir!" "Relax,Sir!!!" Yeah,his "Attitude" changed really quick. And,I bargained the car down to my price.

But,you Never know when someones going to say,"I'll Take it!!!"[/QUOTE]


Similar story..a friend of my Dad's walked into a dealership in overalls after finishing work on his family farm. The salesmen all ignored him. He walked out, went accross town to another dealer and was treated great. He paid cash for the car but told the salesman he had one condition.....that the salesman call the other dealership and tell them what just happened.

Of course he was MORE than happy to oblige!!!

 

But there is soooo much to reply to in this thread! I think I'll start by just stating my position on the key point, which synthesizes a number of the good points already made by others... but comes to a bit different resolution.

The Situation. Ferrari's business model is unlike typical carmakers'. First, their intent is to make roadcars and other branded products to increase sponsorship value, and ultimately to support their racing endeavors. They do not go racing to help sell cars.

More importantly, Ferrari chooses to make fewer cars than demand will support, thereby keeping prices up, waiting lists long, and exclusivity high. In other words, there will always be waiting lists for Ferraris... Ferrari wants it that way. And honestly, so do you... its good for resale and exclusivity, features often indicated as desirable by Ferrari owners.

Ferrari SpA's main focus, then, is on keeping demand for their brand high. As others have noted, this is not about making the actual ownership experience pleasant. Its far more about image. They are mostly selling to sponsors and a large audience of people who cannot afford the cars; or the smaller audience that can only afford used cars and DIY maintenance, but help keep those resell values high. They have enough big $$$ exclusivity-seeking customers to buy all the new cars they are building... and that is not the crowd that the likes of Marlboro are appealing to.

Thus, given Ferrari SpA is doing its job: maintaining a highly desirable and exclusive product offering, what is FNA and the dealers' job? Basically to coordinate the financial transaction and delivery of cars to the big $$$ customers, and help facilitate the aftermarket to keep used car prices high. Given the low volume and the rarity of dealerships competing head-to-head, there is no need to compete for the business that Ferrari SpA has already won for them. Rather, they just need to keep costs down and profits up. IOW, do as little as necessary to keep the customers from becoming a headache. But if they goof and lose a customer, no big deal... there's a whole waiting line of customers waiting to get in.

For some dealerships, their real focus isn't even that. Its racing... like good ol' Enzo. They have various race teams of their own. Or its image. I doubt the ROI on a Ferrari dealership is the appeal for most of the owners.

All of this leads to a situation where particular dealerships may become complacent about their customer service. It really doesn't matter much to them as it doesn't affect their bottom-line in any noticable way. At least in the short-term; and such dealers are oblivious to the long-term. Not all dealerships will be that way! But certainly some will.

Similarly, given the desire to keep costs down, they may pay a lesser salary to their sales people... afterall, the coolness of being a Ferrari salesperson will help compensate for lesser salary for enough people that hiring will still be no problem. Unfortunately, if they aren't careful, this can also mean they are getting inferior and less intelligent sales people. And that can have direct impact on that customer experience... though, again, that doesn't really matter much when you have a permanent built-in waiting list because of the cars and image maintained by Ferrari SpA and the exclusivity of the dealership territory. Again, not all Ferrari sales people will be inferior... some will just be good salespeople who are rabid Ferraristi (those are the ones you want to find... the ones you find truly participating on Fchat, BTW).

So, given that situation, what power do we as customers have?


Customer Leverage. So, many have suggested in this thread and a few other threads I won't name that we, as abused customers, should simply take our money elsewhere. That such is the only way to have an impact and effect change. And with most corporate business models, that's very true. However, with Ferrari, that's not quite right.

If I walk and make a big display, flashing some giant rolls of hundreds showing them what they've lost, and go buy a Lambo, what happens? The next guy in line steps up and buys the car. The dealer just looks at me and thinks "your loss... you're stuck with that Lambo... I still sell the exact same number of cars for the exact same price tag... and I didn't have to deal with you!"

Individual customers taking their money elsewhere has zero impact on them! Now what if all of Ferrari Chat stood up and boycotted Ferraris for a year? Would that impact them? Only if that emptied the waiting list! Does FerrariChat constitute 2/3 of the three year waiting list? Probably not even close. And realistically, rabid Ferraristi (like those living on Fchat) are going to have great trouble coordinating such a boycott.

So, are we powerless? Do we just put up with the BS? Is there nothing that an organized group of Fchatters can accomplish?


Answering the Call. So, if maintaining the volume of the waiting list and maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction are not precious to Ferrari, what is? Where is Ferrari's pressure point? Where can we make them feel pain?

Ferrari's most precious asset is... its image! If you want Ferrari SpA's attention, attack their image. If you want to see FNA jump, put their image in jeapordy. Even individual dealers who would shrug off individual customers walking will pay far more attention if their image is being compromised. Most take pride in being the owner of a Ferrari dealer... very prestigious, indeed. They will react if they feel that prestige is being threatened. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if most dealerships are in fact weak investments (low ROI); given their volume and overhead, it doesn't seem like a particularly lucrative enterprise. Thus, for those owners, the prestige and/or being part of the Ferrari world and/or racing may be the primary reasons for even being a Ferrari dealer... not the profits.

So, Fchat, due to its large population, already has some influence! If we want to extend that, we have to become like Ferrari... a marketing engine. We have to take an image-compromising message to the larger Ferrari-buying public. Not just the Ferrari-new-car-buying public; rather, to the Ferrari-sponsor-buying public. We have to make our issues their issues.

For example, many when seeing a Ferrari on the road will shake their head at how much that idiot owner is spending on a car ("that car costs more than my house"). Fuel that with news stories of how horribly Ferrari owners are treated for that money, and the "what an idiot" image will start to overcome the "what a cool car" image. At that point, Ferrari's whole business model could start to collapse (oversimplification!).

Caveat. Obviously, I've waayyyy over-simplified what it will take to successfully compete with Ferrari's image marketing engine. But I'm not trying to propose a plan here... I'm just trying to point out that:

SUMMARY

1) Ferrari has a different business model; its not selling cars, its selling image.
2) Ferrari is a marketing engine for a racecar company; it is not a car manufacturer in the traditional sense.
3) If we want to impact Ferrari, its jugular is its image, not its car sales.
4) Organized Ferraristi can have an impact... though it will not be by not buying their cars... it will be by threatening the image... assuming we are willing to tarnish our own image with theirs in order to affect the change.

The Goal. So, now we know our leverage. What's our goal? What is it we want to accomplish? And how do we go about that? I think that warrants a separate post...

 

If I were hired to consult the CEO of FNA or Ferrari SpA, what would I work to change? And how would I go about instilling that into the Ferrari corporate culture so that those changes would remain permanent?

First, I'd make the whole customer experience part of the larger Ferrari image. That means that you not only ensure the ownership experience is great, but you then market how great it is... you further enhance the Ferrari image with that.

Ferrari has been doing this to some degree with things like the Owners' website and other exclusive privileges. However, they are missing the boat on this. They need to take some lessons from Lexus! I won't go into details here, but Lexus has done a much better job of establishing a great image built largely on elite levels of customer satisfaction and customer service.

Ensuring the above is much like the Six Sigma and zero-defect efforts on the manufacturing side... and is a science, not an art form. They need to start applying those techniques across the dealerships to actively ensure they consistently deliver the ownership experience that they are going to be marketing into the Ferrari image.

Further, there's things like "the list" and "preferred customers". Transparency of the list, including any notion of "preferred customers" is critical. Having a "Club" or "Preferred" status for Ferrari customers is certainly an acceptable concept... we have such in many business models. But that status is transparent... you know how you gain the status and you know what you get for that status... and as a non-preferred customer, you know how that might relate to you. Engineering that at the corporate-level will help prevent it from being a customer satisfaction negative, but rather a positive. And ensuring that its applied consistently from dealer to dealer will prevent a lot of related customer satisfaction issues.

Beyond that, I'd look at more innovative ways of handling (and profiting from) new levels of service that are tailored to the unique market that Ferrari is. For example, consider the full service brokerages that many of those Ferrari owners are happy to use and pay for. At their level of investment, the much higher expenses make sense... and many are happy to pay the fees for the exceptional service they are provided. Similarly, full service accounting and tax services... big $$ paid, but its more than paid for in tax savings. Similarly, take the extended warranty programs to the next level and start offering comprehensive maintenance services... the owner is called, "Joe, its time for service X; can I pick up your car next Weds?" "No, I have an offsite meeting; make it Thursday."... and the dealer picks up the car Thursday from the owners' workplace, changes the oil and whatever, and returns it to them... all as part of a package deal that gives them full and attentive preventative maintenance and full bumper-to-bumper coverage of problems. Not cheap, but highly desirable for someone with big $$, no time, and love of a well-running reliable no-hassles car with an exceptional image!!

That's just one example of where Ferrari could go if they made exceptional customer satisfaction for elite customers part of the larger Ferrari image.


So, while "getting Brian a car faster" might be of personal interest to me , what we really want to be going after (IMO) with any concerted group effort, is NOT a machine to apply pressure to right particular wrongs. Such will always be fraught with problems (the details), and only have limited impact.

Rather, we need to work productively with Ferrari to help them establish various corporate mechanisms that will elevate customer service (what we want) in such a way that it is fully paid for by improving and strengthening the Ferrari image (what they want).

JMNSHO.


Further, I guarantee that FNA and Ferrari SpA will not be happy at all with a Fchat-organized lynch mob designed for dealing with particular customer service problems. It will be viewed as "the enemy" and a PITA.

In contrast, an Fchat-organized "owners' group" that is actively promoting image-enhancement in the form of superior customer service; is not focused on particular events, but rather on new services and feedback mechanisms to strengthen the overall Ferrari relationship with its customers... now that they could see as a very attractive new partner in furthering their business goals.

Which do you think is more likely to succeed?

 

Brian has it figured out. Ferrari don't care about road car sales particularly. There are enough fervent Ferraristi out there who keep the mystique attractive enough.

There is no earthly reason for them to change. All of the suggested changes in this thread would cost more money than they would generate. Ferrari SpA is already selling the maximum number of cars it cares to build. Why add expenses to the operating statement to improve customer service when the net effect will simply be less profit.

I know that every other car maker on the planet would love to have a guaranteed sell out of their manufacturing capacity, so from Ferrari SpA's POV, what's the fuss about?

The aftermarket is adequately served by resellers at market prices and there is an extensive non-authorized but competent service network available. Anyone who wants a Ferrari can get one at the current market price. As for preferred customers who get their cars at MSRP from the dealer network, so be it. Do you think it is any different in corporate America where "preferred clients" get first dibs on hot IPO's or any other commodity where demand exceeds supply. Money talks and bull$hit walks.

6 billion people on the planet - 4,000 Ferrrari's built annually. What a great ratio! I for one will snap up as much Ferrari stock as I can when it eventually goes public, and I won't make any noise at the annual shareolders meeting regarding improving customer service.

 

Take that back dammit !! You are going too curse the scuderia !!

 

I still say there COULD be an impact, at least at the dealership level, if we bought pre-owned cars elsewhere. This will not effect waiting lists, new car sales, etc. because there will ALWAYS be people who want NEW cars. However, every dealer sells MORE pre-owned than new simply because of production numbers AND the dealers make MORE margin ususually on the pre-owned. As I mentioned previously, although not as articulately as some others, this is a corporate mindset, as as such, maybe we cannot change Ferrari SpA's behavior, but we CAN impact the dealers, and they are also as much, if not more to blame for having a chip on their shoulders and providing a shoddy experience, both in purchase and service, and then smiling as we hand over the dollars. It's as if they are shatting on our heads and we are supposed to say "thanks for the hat"

 

Once again, the "best thing" that Brian can do to improve Ferrari's customer orientation is to take his money and go buy something else. If this doesn't get someone's attention, then nuthin will.

HW, if Brian really wants a CS, then he has done the right thing and will soon be rewarded for his patience.

The best analogy here is Harley Davidson. The Motor Company has been proudly building POS motorcycles for a long as I can remember. (All you Hog guys out there can save your flames. You know that I'm speaking the truth.) The only thing that HD has going for it is a sound, a look, and a lot of hype. The design quality and the build quality is just about the worst in the world. Even the Italians do a better job! I'm talking about a brand new motorcycle that cannot hold a speed on an Interstate graded highway in West Texas. Pathetic.

But timing in life is everything and the aging baby boomers discovered that strutting around like a bad boy, stopping to drink beer every 50 miles, getting a tattoo, *****ing about Jap Crap, and bragging about how much their scooter is worth made them feel younger when they went back to work on Monday morning. Yeah, it's the lifestyle, Baby!

So starting about 10 to 15 years ago, the Motor Company started making money hand over fist. Many of the old-line dealers sold out to Yuppies who sold more clothes than bikes. Even the dealers that stayed got with the program of sticking it to your customer every chance they got. I will not bore you with the stories. By comparison, Ferrari dealers are your friend.

Did the Motor Comany use these profits to build better bikes? Hell no, they just built more POS bikes.

But even Harley now realizes that it faces a major problem. Namely, the Boomers ain't babies no more. Not only are they joing AARP instead of HOG clubs, but getting soaked when it rains, bugs between your teeth, getting punched out by the occasional psychopath, and doging cars doesn't juice you like it used to. You don't see many Gen Xers at Harley dealerships. You certaintly don't see any people of color. Teenage boys are more into video games and girls than cars and motorcycles. So who is going to be buying overpriced POS Hogs in 10 years?

My point is this: If Ferrari is to avoid falling into the same trap that Harley did, i.e., not seeing it coming, it needs to focus on keeping its customers satisfied. Sure Ferrari is making money hand over fist today with its F1 program and endorsements; but sooner or later, this too will fall.

How can we help? Simple, don't blindly put up with the kind of crap that Brian has put up with. Perhaps in Enzo's day, Ferrari was an art colony. Today, however, Ferrari is a bidness. If it keeps screwing its customers, sooner or later, it will not have any. There is just too much competition for the same Dollars or Euros or Yen or whatever. Hopefully, if we starting voting with our feet, somebody will be paying attention.

Dr "Customer is King" Tax

 

Dale, I agree about both Ferrari and H-D.

Sam Walton had it right, "There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

 

This is a subject that interests me - I believe Mediobanca sold a 6.5% interest to Lehman for $144 million in 9/02, and a 10% interest to Commerzbank for €228 million in 7/02.

Sorry to hijack the thread; on the thread subject, I'm not interested in joining a crusade to change the company. Why insist that the whole world run as a meritocracy based upon on "transparency," "TQM," etc etc? Demand for beautiful and intelligent women also exceeds supply - why not organize to change that, instead?

 

While I think it is true that Ferrari Spa only makes road cars to help out with money for F1, Ferrari dealers are a different story. They are all individually owned but for a few company stores and they must make a profit to survive. The internet including FerrariChat can help you with problems with a dealer. Several months after I bought my ex-348 Spider sight unseen from a dealer that will remain unnamed, I discovered leaking cam seals even though it had had a major service done only a year earlier. When I tried to get them to either replace the cam seals or give me the money to pay to have it done locally, they at first refused. But, after I ran numerous posts of several web sites including FC warning potential customers of that dealership, they agreed to pay me the money it cost to have the cam seals replaced. But, you must be careful on what you post about the problem dealer. Your posts have to be 100% true with no emblessment. Just the facts man. The laws of slander and libel allow you to defame anyone as long as what you say is true. Of course you have to e-mail them your posts so they know what you're doing. It worked for me.

 

Then nuthin will! With endless waiting lists, losing one sale is irrelevant... there's somebody else ready and willing to buy what I did not. They could lose half their 360 waiting list and it still wouldn't matter (other than the loss of some overhead-offsetting deposits).

However, as I argue in my prior post, I disagree with your assertion... I think there are other things that will get their attention.

The customer may be king... but Ferrari is a different sort of kingdom.

 

Dino!!!!!!!!! Parker is this you with a Dino???????????????????