Nothing like some geek SEO Rap! Keep’n the standards in the hizzel.

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In the Dealer Refresh article “Wrath of the Net – talk about Ouch!” we told you a one-sided story about how one small incident can go completely awry for a single dealer. Our intentions for the article were to help other dealers understand how strong the Internet can be and realize how important it is to take reputation management seriously. We linked some things simply to help show how far things can go. Since posting the
article we have been made privy to the other side of the story, and now also know there is a larger group behind things. This is a group we have the utmost respect for, and would like to help them tell their side of the story. Here is a release from them:

On behalf of Husker BMW, the following is an update on this situation.

Per the conditions of the eBay auction, the successful bidder is required to purchase the vehicle within 72 hours. After acknowledging its initial mishandling of the situation, Husker gave Mr. Tanisaka another fresh 72 hours to consummate the transaction at the $60,000 bid price. There were absolutely no conditions attached to that offer.

This 72 hour period has now expired. Husker BMW will agree to extend the time period for Mr. Tanisaka to purchase or lease the vehicle until the close of business on Monday, March 31, 2008, which is now the dealership’s second 72 hour extension of the time period.

There have been baseless details reported concerning the dealership’s handling of these negotiations. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Tanisaka has supplied the dealership with no financial information, and contrary to statements made, Mr. Tanisaka has never presented the dealership with pre-approvals from Capital One, BMW, or any other financing source. For any pre-qualified buyer, Husker would, as it does on a routine basis, make delivery the same day of purchase.

At no time has Husker requested Mr. Tanisaka to fund his purchase through the dealership. But unless and until the dealership receives the agreed upon funds, the transaction is not complete and the vehicle cannot be delivered to the buyer.

Mr. Tanisaka has refused to accept Husker’s assistance in obtaining financing, and has chosen to seek leasing terms through a financial institution of his selection. Husker has
attempted to accommodate Mr. Tanisaka at every turn, including providing everything requested by his outside financing company in a timely manner, but no funding has been received. While Husker does not intend to suggest that Mr. Tanisaka does not have the financial wherewithal to consummate this transaction, any inferences that Husker has been delaying his consummation of the transaction are entirely unfounded. In fact, Mr. Tanisaka has routinely been dealing very cooperatively with Husker’s sales manager and has been very complementary toward him. Another unreported fact is that, as a gesture of
goodwill, Husker offered to pay to fly Mr. Tanisaka to Lincoln to take delivery of the vehicle, and also offered to pay the costs associated with shipping the vehicle in a covered truck from Lincoln to California.

Husker does not seek to silence or in any way limit the rights of those who wish to express their opinions on this now widely publicized ordeal. But based on several reckless distortions and omissions of fact, the dealership and its employees have been grossly mischaracterized. Husker acknowledges and commends the comments posted by Mr. Tanisaka, his attorney, and the many others that have requested the personal attacks to cease. Husker would ask Mr. Tanisaka to go one step further and provide his truthful commentary on his agreement, or disagreement, with the statement of facts set forth above.

Husker will hold the vehicle in inventory for Mr. Tanisaka until the end of business Monday. For the sake of all involved, Husker BMW would like nothing more than to have this saga end with Mr. Tanisaka proudly driving his new E90 M3 and showcasing his “Husker BMW” plate frame throughout Southern California.

Thank you to the Husker Automotive Group, your corporate leaders, and representatives for enlightening us. We hope you continue to allow other dealers to learn from your unfortunate example, as we would expect you to learn from any of ours. We will continue to honor our invitation to give you a forum on Dealer Refresh anytime you like to help us make the car industry a better place for everyone!

-Jeff & Alex

P.S. There may be some varying opinions on the time constraints put forth in this letter against what has been posted in other areas. That is something between the Husker BMW store and Mr. Tanisaka.   To further clarify, Dealer Refresh is not taking sides in this debate.  As dealers ourselves, we sympathize with the situation, but we are simply posting what was given to us.

The power of the Internet is being felt by the Husker Automotive Group at their BMW of Lincoln store.  Before we get into the details of this debacle, we want you to know it was debated as to whether this should be posted on Dealer Refresh or not.  At the end of the debate, the spirit of teaching other dealers a lesson from this mistake won out over just pointing a finger.  We don’t strive to kick people when they’re down.

Anyway, this all started on March 20th, 2008 when this eBay auction ended:
click for actual listing.  There was only a single bidder and he won the auction for $60,000 on a brand new 2008 BMW M3 Sedan with a MSRP above $70,000.  Obviously BMW of Lincoln was not watching the listing close enough, and they also forgot to set a reserve (mistake #1).

When the auction ended the winner was contacted, by email, with the statement “Congratulations” – according to the winning bidder.  Then that email was followed by a second email and phone call stating the listing was an error (mistake #2).  After some dispute over things, the winning bidder started a thread on one of the M3 forums:
click here for that thread.

Two days later, AutoBlog picked the story up:
click here for that article.  Since AutoBlog put it out, the story has traveled across every automotive forum we’ve seen.

Remember lightsabre boy, the lol’d owls, and the chubby-cheeked Asian boy?  Well, we can now add the General Manager of BMW of Lincoln to that list.  His photo was found here: Husker BMW staff.  Now he is the latest Photoshop child of the Internet.  Since his Internet popularity took off, he sent an email to the winning bidder asking him to stop all the things happening around the Internet (mistake #3), as if the winning bidder can do anything about it.  But the winning bidder has been posting all the email communications from BMW of Lincoln, and now the General Manager is a YouTube hit:

Upon further debate, we decided to take the video down.  Even though the video is technically hosted on YouTube (not Dealer Refresh) we decided it was not compliant with Dealer Refresh site rules.  We must admit we were caught up in the hysteria and were not thinking things all the way through when we linked that video to this post.  We would like to apologize to the people who have been targeted in this whole mess, and let those people know we sympathize – this must be an incredibly difficult time.  Just remember:  “this too shall pass.”  We would also like to put on the record that we have a lot of admiration for the larger dealer group encompassing Husker BMW.  We started this post on the notion that it will help other dealers be cognizant of reputation management (a hot topic in the dealer world right now).  We would also like to extend an invitation to any representative of Husker BMW, or the larger group, to participate in the comment thread attached to this post.  We welcome any insight you can give, and hope you’ll take this opportunity to help your cause.

Sincerely,

Jeff & Alex

“These bloggers out there, they have lots of time on their hands to do this.” …one of the salesmanagers.

“Did it ever occur to the dealership that they created a situation that compelled complete strangers to MAKE time?”….the winning bidder.

It only takes 1 person, 1 posting to really screw things up.

There is a lot to learn from BMW of Lincoln’s mistakes.  Let’s recap those:

1. Put a reserve on your eBay auctions or make the opening bid something you can do.
2. Don’t assume your customers are dumb.  Don’t tell someone putting a car on eBay was a mistake when you’ve obviously taken the time to make a decent listing.
3. Don’t email an upset customer anything they can hold against you publicly.
4. Know when you’ve lost and make things right.  Admit your mistake and move on, no matter how much it costs because the penalties are far worse.

We’re sorry this happened to you BMW of Lincoln, but you really did it to yourselves.  Hopefully you’ll do the right thing, and have learned the power of the Internet!

Co-authored by Jeff & Alex

As everyone knows, I sometimes like to share some of the emails we get here at DealerRefresh. This is an email from Pete out in Chicago, Illinois…

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Hi Jeff,

Great to have found your site and your common sense approach to selling.

I started in the retail automotive business over 20 years ago and the one thing I know to always be true is that people sell vehicles and web product services promote and market.

I can’t stop wondering in amazement when people in the auto industry and dealer principles believe that this process can be fully automated using CRM or lead generators and quick pricing quotes alone.

There is the law of diminishing returns can apply to the level of customer satisfaction with regard to how well internet salespeople are paid and treated.

Why would anybody want to follow up on a bunch of maybes when the customer calling and walking through the door is the most likely to buy?

When I started we all had salaries and demos. I felt a sense of obligation and consideration of the well being of the dealership I worked for because I would not starve…never did and always made a living till it became too much risk and effort for too little pay and time.

I would bet that half the internet managers where so so salespeople that are willing to work for less than what the top 20% make.

People say the profits aren’t as high. Not true. Pay plans are lower and the front margin has been put into the "do not talk about" holdback.

I still remember dealer principles laughing at Carmax not so long ago, or was that a billion dollars ago?

A person won’t get rich but at least they can earn a living and be treated well. (So I heard)

Too much said and all the best.

Pete, Chicago Illinois

AutoUSA had 400 automotive dealerships surveyed AND 90% of respondents ranked "accuracy of the information" as the most important feature!?!? No Shit! The "amount of contact information" and the lead "closing ratio" were also very important. No Shit! x 2

I’m not sure we needed a study to figure this out.

Phil DuPree, president of AutoUSA said:

"Providing dealers with a volume of leads that can’t be worked because of inaccurate or incomplete information will drive down closing rates. Lead quality continues to be the overriding factor in achieving high close rates and dealer satisfaction with third party lead providers."

AND

"Dealers are looking for the right mix of lead providers that deliver the best coverage for their dealership and a high volume of quality leads," said DuPree. "They’re not afraid to switch providers if they aren’t seeing results."

Those are some impressive key factors to point, AND….I hope they didn’t pay too much to have that survey performed.

I’m not going to knock AutoUSA too hard (even though I still never got a solid answer for my duplicate lead issue). In my previous positions at past dealers, I did get my better leads from AutoUSA. Though, if you wanted to break it down even deeper, it was actually the leads from Edmunds.com that had the highest closing ratio (BUT..too often had the worse front end gross). Guess you can’t have both?

If you want, you can make the jump over to the
full press release..AutoUSA Study Finds Accuracy of Information Keeps Dealers Satisfied with Third Party Lead Providers