That's why it was so much fun buying my Scion. I already knew what I wanted, the price was on the paper and there was none of that scuffle, scuffle shuffle between me and the back room for four hours on a hot Saturday afternoon like when I bought my Subaru.

My dad gave me a good example when I was buying my first used car. We went to the local Chevy dealer (where of course I wanted a Corvette or new Sting Ray) and the salesman tried to get us to buy a Ford Fairlane (yuck!!!) by telling my dad he'd throw in a chainsaw. My dad started hollering about getting scammed and pressured and it was very embarrassing to the 17 year old me, but I remember that lesson well. Always buy with your eyes wide open!!! (I really wanted a little MG a friend's brother was selling but Dad said no way so I wound up getting a used Datsun 210 from some guy in the paper and it was a lemon..... whole 'nother other lesson on that one!!!)

 

New story out about it.

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/5303576.html

The Huling owner did not know what his employees had done and had already reimbursed the man for the truck before all this hit the media and now even the remaining 70k.

I never thought employees could mess up a person's business so much... even the new owner's business.

 

Yes, 'employees' have even more effect than the owners in many cases. To a customer, the employees are the company - the only people the average customer sees.

If those employees don't represent the company well, and treat the customer the way they should, that whole thing is reflected on the company. It IS the company.

If you call your cellphone provider with a question and get some minimum wage new-hire who really doesn't care, THAT is your impression of the company. If you get your car serviced by some knuckle-dragging misanthrope who does a poor job and leaves the car dirty, THAT is the company.

The owners and managers in most any company are very secondary to the customer's impression of the business - and very limited in effect on the customer - most customers never see them. Heck, the lot boy makes a bigger impression than the owner - you see him work.

The only thing owners and upper management can do is to set the tone and lay down the rules. They need to take an active role in making sure their rules are followed and that their ideals are being reflected by those folks meeting the public. If not, those bottom-of-the-barrel employees can sink a company. Fast!

What you are seeing here are probably owners and upper management who didn't pay enough attention, and just assumed things were going great. They lost control, and the pond scum they had working for them killed the dealership's image.

Even if the Hulings are exemplary people and are as horrified as we are, they are not only out the $100K they personally repaid to the man, their dealership may never recover it's reputation, and their name will be remembered not for 60 years of being good, but for this one grand final act by their employees.

For anyone out there "in charge of things" - listen to customer feedback, manage by wandering around, pop up and talk to your customers/clients, pay attention to what your lowest ranking people do. In other words, take an active role in running whatever it is you run, or you may wake up one morning and find that the folks under you have run your enterprise into the ground while you weren't looking.

Uh, somebody help me off this soapbox, please? Thanks!

Tom

 

ok so Tomas I will help you off of your soap box only to climb up on my own.

What happened at Hulling Brothers is absolutly appauling and should never be condoend any where let alone at a franchise that was supposed to have integrity behind it. As for Hulling Brothers they have had their reputation going down hill for some time. Even being a car person myself we have heard of things from that dealership and have even had some of the employees work here at ours for a while, at least untill thier true colors shined thourhg. But also being a resident in West Seattle no one that actually lived in West Seattle rarely actually bought a car from them.

But all of this is besides the point. These 11 folks have destroyed the integrity of the good people in hte car business. Of course it happened many years ago and while the trend is changeing it is not changing rapily enough. YOu can still hear occasional stories like this happening from time to time. And in the past it was not even really noticed to much because back in the 1970's and prior and even into the 1980's you saw people like Robin Williams in Cadilac Man. That is what people expected back then. However there have been a few solid and fair dealerships that have stuck by thier guns and did the right thing. THey treated thier customers with respect because they knew what was important to them. And as TOmas has said employess are basically the back bone of your business and it is those peoples personality that defines your bussiness.

Good people are hard to find in this business and trust me I have seen more than my fair share of Snake oil salespeople.

THank God I work for Scion and can have the reputation and the respect of the Toyota company behind me. I hate it when I see people in my dealership start with what I call Bumper jumping. Where they run out to meet the customer and try to open thier doors for them.

But things like this taht happened at Hulling Brothers should never happen and I belive that the two owners should be equally responsible asthe others that are being prosecuted. Then that would set a stage or example for other dealership to pay more attention to what happens with ine their own walls.

We had our yearly meeting with the Attorney that represents this dealership this morning. And you can believe that the whole Hulling Brothers drama was decussed. And he basically came right out and said to the point that the Attorney Generals office will definatly make an example out of all of this, and it may in fact come down to them seeking substancial penalties towards the original owners themselves.

They have done some investigation into the sale of the dealerships and find there may be some improprieties there. But at the end of the day all anyone can see is the shear fact that here are people that we are supposed to trust and yet now we wonder if we can ever again.

It will take people a while to trust again and it will take even longer for the car sales man to no longer seem like the piriah. Something a few do, can also damage an entire industry, and of course this has now made national news, and has touched other dealerships as well.

And like Steve Says it is amazing that these people could have ever been able to be employed. It is still shocking as to the depths that people can sink.

And the worst part of all of this is that they may have never been caught. It was just that one night one of their sales people got arrested for drug dealing out of the dealership and he came up with well would you really like to know something better, just to get a reduced sentence. This came from one of the guys that I worked with a while ago that knows all of these guys. He told me how it acutally got found out. This is insulting to anyone that trys to make an honest living.


ok now some one get me off of my soap box because none of this makes much sense to me. I am just very angry and confused.

 

Kinda how I get angry and confused when people say pizza is junk food!!! (I wrote a letter to Foster Farms back when their chicken imposters were caught eating pizza, like it was a bad thing. Boycotted Foster Farms for quite a while until I simmered back down and let it go.)

 

lol kinda like that pizza box. But did not realize that was something that directly effected your bussiness

 

Victor, Tomas, you both wrote long and well thought out posts. I just wanted you two to know I read them and just don't have anything further to add. Don't want anyone to think they wasted their breath, lol.

PizzaBox... I never saw that commercial that way, lol. Yeah, down with Foster Farms!

 

thank you Jenna, but mine was not thought out at all. It was just some one that was upset over all of it. That was jsut a bunch of crap

 

Well, you could of fooled me. I think you're in the running for "longest post" for 2007, LOL. I suppose the topic is something I'd be passionate over too if it were about the field of work I was in.

 

lol I can't even think about it to much or it would be off I go again

 

(A little bit off topic, sorry)
I really dislike that, Victor. When I lived in Auburn there was a 'system house' dealer that was absolutely insane. My wife didn't believe me, so I offered to "troll for salesmen" to show her.

I drove into the lot, and slowly drove through their used cars with three salesmen trying to catch up before I could drive back out.

(The one time I almost bought something there, the price went up $1000 by the time I came back with a check from my credit union the next morning.)

OK, back to Huling's problems and how they affect even the good guys in the business.

Tom

 

oh you can trust me Tomas if that happens here we like to have little discussions with the sales people, after enough of them, then that person no longer works here.

Pretty easy, the owner this morning said in our department head meeting that she believe in always doing the right thing and treating the customer right from the begining.

ok that is it I almost got back onto my box again. Tomas stop that. So let us just remeber the bad ones and remember that not every one can be perfect all the time, and that mistakes happen, but what happened at that dealership was just shear stupidity.

 

Customer perceptions apply to any business. Like when they have e-coli outbreaks in the spinach, or if someone gets heart disease from eating trans fats. It kind of makes people stop in their tracks and change habits (which cuts into business if you are perceived as "bad").

So much for my soap box.

When I wasn't Scionized yet and was thinking of replacing my Quest van with a Rav4 or another van, I went car testing when daughter ScionEyes was visiting this summer. One (non-Toyota) dealership was having some kind of carnival days or something (they had an inflatable kiddie carousel out front) and they charged out at us when we drove up. I was driving, but they rushed over to my daughter, who is young, and I am old. (Not a fun experience....) After that faux paux, I did the test drive thing and was very clear I was only test driving ... period. They tried to make me talk to some manager guy (daughter was starting to get ready to grab me away) and then the yoodlehead started to badmouth my Quest. Grrrrrr. And then I mentioned looking at Scions, at which they made some stupid comment about dangers and that sealed it. My daughter snapped, "We're outta here!!!!" I will never go back, even if they might have had nice cars but their attitude was scary. You can't be badmouthing other businesses in order to make yours seem better. No way!!!