Dealers need to mellow out

[Bonibelle]

My neighbor called the other day to tell me that her new friend is seriously interested in a hot tub. Funny, that's two people in the last month that I know will be buying hot tubs. My neighbor said her friend was very disappointed with her shopping experience as every dealer that she visited had only negative things to say about the other brands of tubs.  She said at the end of the day, she decided maybe there wasn't a good tub out there and she was just frustrated.

My experience with my tub was totally the opposite..My sales person only addressed what was good about the Marquis tubs. When I challenged with negative things that other dealers told me, she pulled out the competition's brochures and we evaluated side by side the differences. Never did she trash the competiton. I left feeling that I knew what I was buying.
This is how it should be. All the negative stuff does not sell tubs, it just confuses the customer.

One example was that my tub (and I think this is still the Marquis configuration) does not have a circ pump. Other tubs that I had considered did. Together with folks on this forum and my sales person, I was able to evaluate the value of the circ pump and if it was as critical as some dealers had me believe. So real conversation about real differences, but no negative comments about the competition.

So at this point, I told my friend that I will recommend MY DEALER...and not a brand of tub to her friend.  He will sell her based on the merits of what he sells not on the negatives of what others offer!! . I am guessing that dealers are willing to travel further to make a sale, so I hope he can help her!

[Water Boy]

That really is unfortunate. With the industry being down already, the last thing we need is people not buying spas at all. Its too bad that some dealers find they need to take the used car salesman approach and do that. I have never once talked bad on any competition in my sales pitch. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable doing that. Most of the dealers that I compete with don’t bash our product either, so we are lucky. Although, every year at our garden show, there is a dealer from out of town that bashes and bad mouth all the other dealers and spas at the show. Last year I had a friendly encounter with their salesman and told him to quit bad mouthing us and to talk about his product only. He didnt know what to day after that. The garden show is this weekend so we will see if he continues to do that again this year.

Bonnie is right though that dealers shouldn’t be doing this, but the reality is that it probably happens more than it doesn’t, and that is unfortunate. Hopefully your dealer can hook up your friends with a spa, and they might even give you a nice little referral bonus as well!

[Bonibelle]

No bonus needed,..I just want them to stay in business...

[wmccall]

I ran across a wide range of tactics with sales guys.  Good thing we have the internet here to discuss it further. Did you refer your friends here? :-?

[Bonibelle]

You know I do, Bill