I hate to pile on car salespeople but I once was offered the chance to buy a relative's car as he was trading it in on a new model, which he did frequently using the same salesperson every time. I was happy to buy it as my clunker was on death row, and told my relative to let me know when he was ready. Next thing I know, he calls and says to give Joe at City Motorworks a call, he has the car and is waiting for me to go get it. My poor unknowing relative traded it in (for a pretty low number) and simply assumed Joe would sell it to me for the same price.
So I go to see Joe and Joe praises my relative up and down as a great man, blah, blah. He's ready to do paperwork! I spot that the price is $2K above what the trade-in value was and question it. Well, Joe explains there was all kinds of work to do to make it ready for me, tires had to be replaced, oil change, full detailing, and as a special favor he will give me the CPO warranty since he likes my relative so much.
I said let me call my relative and ask if that was the price I was supposed to pay and Joe looked panic-stricken but I ignored that. My relative was astounded that I would be asked to pay a dollar more than the trade-in value. I hung up with my relative and said my relative wants me to go over to his house to discuss it. All of a sudden Joe realizes that Dan, that stupid guy in some other department, actually put their markup on the work they did which was COMPLETELY WRONG and I was supposed to only pay dealer cost. Ended up getting the tires/oil change for a Walmart-ish price which I could live with, no charge for the CPO warranty and we did the deal. Then Joe explains I'm going to get a survey from the mfg and please, please, please only give him 5 stars because last year he lost out on a $5K bonus when the last customer of the year only gave him 2 stars, and if I'm not going to give 5 stars, then call Joe and see how they can make me happy enough so I want to give 5 stars. It was so obvious the lost bonus story was made up BS.
I gave him 2 stars, never saw him again.
My son (around 10 at the time) and I went to an RV dealer to look around the lot - really just to get an education on what types, etc. About 10 minutes after looking at one, the salesman says "we ready to go start the paperwork?" I said no, we're not buying anything today - and that we're happy to look around on our own - and we'd bring my wife back when we're ready to make a decision.
He says, "You're what we call a one-legger. You can't do anything without your spouse."
It became a good discussion for my son on what to say to people and how not to talk to people.
Are there seriously people out there who do things like it a car or an RV without involving a spouse? Or are car salesmen somehow all hatcher from a 1950s time capsule?
I believe the vast majority of people involve spouses when making big financial decisions, but the question is just another sales tactic. I have no doubt there are times it works - imply the guy isn't allowed to decide by himself, and some customers will end up buying without realizing they might have done it just to assert their masculinity. Sales tactics are very sophisticated these days. Not foolproof, but I believe the tactics that often annoy people work better than the old school method of understanding customer needs and working to satisfy them. Consumers might have driven that shift by treating price as the issue that overrules every other consideration. So the sales business has become a form of psychological warfare. That doesn't mean that every salesperson has mastered the techniques, we can see plenty of examples of that in this thread!