Owners. describe your worst dealer ever

[Snyper]

Rewording the post titled "Dealers, describe your worst customer ever."

__________________________

Owners, what was your worst experience ever with a dealer? I'm sure some of you walked away from a dealer for one reason or another. Have you ever had cash in hand and walked out because someone was a complete jerk? Tell us about your worst experience ever. I bet there are some good stories since you have to deal with the public on a daily basis.......  

[rick_in_cleveland]

A pump was acting up on my Marquis and I called my dealer on a Sunday afternoon.  It was early fall and I told him not to rush as he is 60 miles away.  He didn't arrive until Wednesday at noon, 42 hours later.  Thats the worse  story I got and in fact I'll put a plug in for him.  He is Caribbean Pools and Hot Tubs, 4728 Mahoning Ave. Austintown, OH 44515

Size may not matter but your dealer certainly does and mine is a great dealer

[drewstar]

My worst experience was with the orientation.

The dealer told me and my wife to take the afternoon off and we'd get detailed, personal instruction on our hot tub.

All through the sales process and up through the install the dealer kept confirming the oreintation time and date. "all questions wil be answered then".

My wife and I both cleared our afternoons and cancelled client meetings (I consult and don't get paid unless I can book client hours). My wife and I both work a substantial distance from our house. So in addition to clearing the afternoon, there's a least 1.5  travel hours to get back home.

Day of the orinetation, some lady I never delt with called me and told me she "had to do inventory" and cancelled the orintation.

"Huh? I just cancelled $500 worth of billable time? What' the hell is going on??

"I need to count the stuff in the back room. LEt's do it next week"

"No.  Your office confirmed this at least 4 times!"

"Oh well. I'm not driving all the way up to your house. I need to do inventory. What Can I say? I can't be in two places at once! ha ha!"

"Well, the place you better be is in my back yard at 3:00. you can count your rubber ducks on your own time. Not mine."  

I had to call the owner to get this straightend out.  We did not get off to a great start. But since then we have worked togethor fairly well.  I think I just happend to get shuffled to an airhead in another office who had no loyalty to me as a customer.

[wmccall]

The worst dealer I had encountered in my search probably only seemed that way because of a miscommunication.  As I had indicated in a recent post, electronic communication can easily be misunderstood, and I generally tell people to assume the best when in doubt.

We went into a Master Spa Dealer. It ended up being a month before we actually did buy a Dynasty.  We had looked at several models, and decided to wet test a model that they didn't have in stock yet, but the dealer said would come in the next week or two.   I was given a very generic phamplet when we left.  It included their website.  I took a look at their website and it contained pretty much generic contact info.  I was considering whether to wait for the desired model, or pick a larger model with lounger.   I sent the company an email message suggesting he put specs and other info about the spas they sell on their website.

What I got back was a nasty worded letter that told me, "We don't sell over the internet and expect our customers to support thier dealer"  That was the nice translation.   All I wanted to do was compare models.

My reaction was, what an idiot!  Ironically, a year later they are selling chemicals over the internet. I guess he only wants his customers to be loyal.

[Bill_Stevenson]

I read this thread and I thought hard about this topic and decided to respond although it is not what the poster expects.  

A little story first.  When I decided to buy a spa I did some research, which is how I found this forum, and came up with a list of spa brands that seemed to frequently come up as good ones.  Then I went to the yellow pages and found local dealers for some, but not all of them.  For those not found in the yellow pages, I contacted the manufacturers to try to locate the nearest dealer.  Then, with a short list of good brands with local dealers, I went shopping.  Not one dealer was sleazy at all.  They all were professional, did not bad mouth their competition, went out of their way to accomodate wet tests, answered all my questions and so on.  Not one negative thing can be reported.  This is in West Palm Beach, FL and the four dealers I visited carry HotSpring, Caldera, Jacuzzi, and Marquis.  No one could go wrong buying any of these products from the duly appointed dealers for this locality.  

Then I come back to this forum that is frequented by a lot of dealers.  Guess what?  All professionals, helpful, trying to make a postive contribution.  From this seat in the house this seems like a pretty clean industry.  I am sure that there are horror stories out there, but in general my sense of it is that a consumer who gets screwed by a spa company just did not do their homework.  To steal a phrase "the truth is out there," obtainable by anyone who cares to take the time to seek it.

Regards,

Bill

[J._McD]

I read this thread and I thought hard about this topic and decided to respond although it is not what the poster expects.  

A little story first.  When I decided to buy a spa I did some research, which is how I found this forum, and came up with a list of spa brands that seemed to frequently come up as good ones.  Then I went to the yellow pages and found local dealers for some, but not all of them.  For those not found in the yellow pages, I contacted the manufacturers to try to locate the nearest dealer.  Then, with a short list of good brands with local dealers, I went shopping.  Not one dealer was sleazy at all.  They all were professional, did not bad mouth their competition, went out of their way to accomodate wet tests, answered all my questions and so on.  Not one negative thing can be reported.  This is in West Palm Beach, FL and the four dealers I visited carry HotSpring, Caldera, Jacuzzi, and Marquis.  No one could go wrong buying any of these products from the duly appointed dealers for this locality.  

Then I come back to this forum that is frequented by a lot of dealers.  Guess what?  All professionals, helpful, trying to make a postive contribution.  From this seat in the house this seems like a pretty clean industry.  I am sure that there are horror stories out there, but in general my sense of it is that a consumer who gets screwed by a spa company just did not do their homework.  To steal a phrase "the truth is out there," obtainable by anyone who cares to take the time to seek it.

Regards,

Bill

Well said Bill, a positive perspective on the industry.  As in anything we do in this lifetime, we want to think and know that there are some good people out there.  They realy do not have to be dealers, customers, shoppers or salespeople.  The greater majority of all of those categoies are good.  There are a few bad apples in every group and it gets pretty tiring to constantly focus on the bad, the evil and the disappointing experiences.  Thanks for the fresh aire of encouragement.

[Gomboman]

Very clever post Snyper.  

Rewording the post titled "Dealers, describe your worst customer ever."

__________________________

Owners, what was your worst experience ever with a dealer? I'm sure some of you walked away from a dealer for one reason or another. Have you ever had cash in hand and walked out because someone was a complete jerk? Tell us about your worst experience ever. I bet there are some good stories since you have to deal with the public on a daily basis.......  

[Snyper]

Very clever post Snyper.  

Just trying to keep the board "square"  

[Idratherbsoaking]

In February I paid a deposit for a “special home show price today only” Dimension1 spa from a dealer in Dublin, CA.  This dealer said he had people who knew how to install a tub below grade and could install it and prepare the vault for about $1200. Neither the deck people or the installer worked for him, did not return phone calls, did not know that I wanted this installation and took 6 weeks just to get me a bid – which was $1200 just for the electrical installation, with no mention of the vault.  I did get my deposit back, although the salesman hung up on me saying I wasted his time after I explained that the bid was (a) six weeks late (b) not for what I wanted and (c) surprisingly high.  This phone call was the only contact that I had with him other than the sale and a visit to my house when he said I had to have the contractor come to give an estimate. He also wrote me a letter saying that I should never come in to his store.  

[mark_in_calif]

My wife and i had been shopping in Northern California for about 2 months(this is fall of '05) and had looked and wet tested all the major brands including hot springs, artesian, jacuzzi, sundance, coleman and marquis.
Once we had done our initial wet tests we went back and tested our 3 finalist in that group: jacuzzi, artesian and sundance. In all those situations we were up front with the dealers on our testing and 2 of the 3 the dealers were always pleasant and accomodating(only the jacuzzi salesperson was very nice on the first test but less accomodating on the 2nd - but we didnt really hold that against him. it just annoyed us.)  
Anyway, after talking about it over with my wife, we decided that our final 2 were the artesian dove canyon and jacuzzi 385. We called and set up times to come in for the final wet tests.   The artesian test was great and the dealer was terrific-not pushy but informative and thoughtful.  
Then we went over to the jacuzzi store. Well the first thing the sales person said when we walked in was, "havent you made you mind up yet?" in a snide tone and proceeded to ignore us the rest of the wet test and talked over in the corner to the other salesperson--and note no one else came to the showroom while we were there..  

Well even though after the final tests the jacuzzi and artesian were still basically neck and neck, I sure you can imagine how we felt about the salespeople and the firms they represented..
Bottomline, it was really easy to write that big check to the Artesian dealer- Great product and an awesome dealer..  Attitude and service are KING!  And we love our dove canyon and havent looked back.