I would first like to say that since I was in my early twenties (Sept. 1975), I bought my first new Corolla at Longo Toyota. I bought it with help from my parents and thought that I would never be able to afford another new car. With that in mind I decided that I would take good care of it and "run it into the ground" as they say.
Well twenty years later to the month (Sept. 1995) it was still running and I sold it. I never had a chance to run it into the ground, but I sold it for $800.00, what a deal. I knew I had to have another Toyota and I could afford it. So again I went to Longo and bought my Camry Wagon, which I still have. During these thirty three years I have expressed my pleasure with Toyota and Longo to my friends and family. They have bought and serviced their cars with Longo.
Well I decided it was time for my third new car, and I thought it would be a new Prius, again from Longo. I used the Costco service to find the referral to a sales person. To my surprise it was down hill from there.
Butch Gabutina was the sales person that I met with. I explained that I had a referral from Costco and showed him the letter that was e-mailed to me for a 2010 Prius. He preceded to tell me that there was NO such plan with Costco for the 2010 Prius. Butch was trying to sell me a Prius well over the Costco agreed pricing. I repeatedly asked him to check with Costco, but he only asked a few other sales people around him and they did not know anything about it. I had to repeatedly show him the letter and push for him to check into it more. Again he just asked another sales person walking by, but this time the person knew about it and Butch was able to give me the Costco arrangement in price.
While I talked to Butch about the features on the car he was very brief in his description. I was not able to fully understand what the difference between the II or III model. I made a decision based a poor explanation, which led me to miss out on a feature that was important to me. I felt let down by this.
I was going to use the Car Allowance Rebate System with my purchase, but as it turned out I could not get the "Pink Slip" which was needed. I talked to Fred Kabir to see if there was anything that could be done to allow me more time to find it. Fred talked with me and gave me a good explanation of the situation, and I thanked him for it. He also told me that since the program was suspended (at 9pm that night) they would be sure to call me as soon as it was reinstated. He was reassuring that I would be called right away. I had been in the show room from 5pm to 11pm, it was a very long day for me. As I left I made sure that Butch had my cell phone number to call me to come back in as soon as the program back in place.
Today I called another Toyota dealer to talk about what they knew about the Car Allowance Rebate System, I was asked for my name and number which I gave. Early this evening I was called by this person to come in because the plan was back in effect.
At that point I wondered why had I not heard from Butch. I called and talked to Fred Kabir about this, and to let him know I was not happy being promised a call when the System was back in effect. Well he said he had never promised to do anything for me. I told him I knew he could not help with the Car Allowance because of the missing "Pink Slip", but he most certainly told me I would be called when the program was back. All he told me was they were too busy with other customers. I said I was very unhappy with the service I had received; with that he said "And what do you want me to do about that?" I was stunned, I expected at least an apology would be in order; at the very least. I told him "I guess I will just have to stay unhappy with Longo" and I hung up.
I have contacted Costco and told them of the bad service by both Butch and Fred. I will also tell all my friends and family about this as well as other consumer groups I have contact with.
I feel Longo has lost it's base customer values. If I do buy a new Toyota (I think I may try a Honda now), I have not decided if I will service it at Longo or not (since the service has always been good to me).
A long time customer... Lost!
Then this happened:
I just received a phone call from Kary Loefler, regarding my previous
e-mail. While talking with her I found that she had not even read my e-mail. She was telling me that there was no program with Costco for the 2010 Prius, which I clearly stated in my e-mail was found by Butch to be in effect. That was one of my major contentions with Butch, along with not giving feature information and a call back the next day.
Kary was debating the fact that the two prior sales experience should override the bad customer service I received on 7-30-09. I felt I had to back up my reasons for feeling the way I did. A call from a Guest Relations Manager should be to make the customer feel better, to be put on the spot for having felt the way I did.
She requested that I come back and use a different sales person. I told her that I was fully aware that I could do that. I had already experienced a problem with one sales person and a sales manager. Customer service is trained by the company to the employees, if two of them were not customer focused why would I expect any of the others to be?
I did not request anything to be done by Longo, but she told me "she would not buy back my business." I found that to be rude and insulting. I had been in the customer service business for many years and I would never had said that to a customer.
Feeling more disappointed by Longo
0 comments