People Are Everything in the End
How the Rosen Family Values create a positive car buying experience.
Car buying can be a nightmare: Pushy salesmen. Shifting prices. Baiting and switching. What should fill you with excitement instead often fills you with dread.
At Rosen Hyundai, we believe the car buying experience should be fun, and we work hard to defy the industry stereotypes.
Our values go back to our founder, Saul Rosen, who put a system in place that has stayed with the company for over 30 years. Here’s how our values make the car buying experience something you look forward to—like spring break—rather than something you dread—like the DMV.
Cars are a commodity. The people are important.
Cars are just cars. It’s the people who drive the cars who are important. Saul passed on this key belief to our owner, Scott Levy, who embraces it.
“I love dealing with the people,” Scott says. “The interaction. Trying to solve their problems and fit their needs. So many times people have different circumstances when they walk into the dealership. Some people have fallen on hard times, they have tougher credit. Some have gone through divorces and have to go out and get another vehicle.”
Scott even enjoys the angry customers. “Best customers. They come in, they are angry, they have a chip on their shoulder. And if you can turn them, they turn out to be your best asset.”
We Don’t Oversell Our Customers
The last thing Scott wants to hear is that a customer is unhappy because a salesperson foisted something upon them.
“I’m the kind of guy that’ll ask ten times for the sale, but you have to know when you’ve pushed too hard. You’ll blow the customer experience if you push too hard over a few dollars. In the end, the customer relationship is most important. Even if a customer doesn’t buy, we want him/her to have had a favorable experience.
You can’t afford to alienate people that are advocates for you. I expect every sales person to offer every product to every single customer―but if they don’t buy, we don’t treat them differently than if they did buy.”
Because of this, we have a lot of people who will leave, visit another dealership, and then return. We try not to be a typical high pressure environment.
We Make Sure They Feel Comfortable Coming Back
We see the car-buying relationship as a long-term relationship, not a transaction.
Some car-buying relationships continue for years. Scott explains, “People I sold cars to as young adults come back when their kids come of age and get them their first car. Then those students get married and come to us for their first car with their spouse. It’s a great feeling and point of satisfaction to serve a family from generation to generation.”
So how do we begin that relationship? By making sure you feel important and respected. If a customer isn’t greeted and made to feel special within the first minute, then we’ve failed. There needs to be a good feeling when people come in, and a good feeling when they go out. Car buying is the ultimate people business. According to Scott, “You have to have your hands outreached and your arms open.”
We Follow Up to Make Sure Customers Are Satisfied
Plain and simple: We meet expectations. Meeting customers’ needs filters through every part of the dealership—from the sales floor to the service garage. Scott says, “No matter what it is, we have to make sure the customer is happy. They may not like that they had to spend a certain amount of money, or had to get their vehicle serviced, but in the end, we want to make sure they feel it was money well spent.”
How do we make sure they feel this way? We follow up. We make sure the car is fixed the way they expected it to be fixed. And if there is an issue after the fact, we take care of it. “You just don’t give a valued customer their receipt and car keys and tell them to move along,” says Scott. “We follow up with the customer. If there is a problem, we do our very best to address it.”
Why? Because as Scott always reminds us, “In the end, people are everything.”
