Delivery Disaster

[mikester]

Maybe he didn’t notice I suggested skipping to the 4-minute mark…??

That didn't help anything...more like a pull-my-finger joke.

"Look honey, the grass grew this time. No seriously, look again, I swear it just grew. Now pull my finger"

 

[fried1765]

Whens the last time that happened to a customer who helped a delivery guy drop off his tractor?

Once!
We just watched the video!

 

[GeoHorn]

That didn't help anything...more like a pull-my-finger joke.

"Look honey, the grass grew this time. No seriously, look again, I swear it just grew. Now pull my finger"

If you really believe wha you say… “didn’t help anything..”… then you must have ignored the suggestion …. and wasted that 4 minutes….

Kinda invalidates your judgment.

 

[lugbolt]

You seem to have covered all the points of (dealership) concern with your comprehensive post. Personally I somewhat disagree with your position for the simple reason that 'delivery' should be seen as an essential part of the deal (was in my case, in many others I well suspect) and as a new tractor 'buyer' who's figuring delivery as part of the deal, I did not even consider possible 'downsides' to delivery. It's a one-time experience for the buyer, as opposed to an every-day exercise for the dealership. IMO, the dealer should view delivery as 'part' of the purchase process, a very important part at that. In my case it seemed that once the paperwork got signed, it was on to the next customer. There were solid aspects to my own delivery process but the overall experience was a shocking letdown for sure.

I agree with you that delivery should be included into the sale, and often it is. But if you don't want it delivered (you can pick it up yourself), then they dealer (at least the three that I've worked for) often deducted a set delivery cost from the final sales cost, as it should be.

I've bought 3 pieces of equipment new in my 47 years of existence. One, a flat bottom boat. Two a Yamaha ATV. Three, a new car. The boat, I towed it home myself-and requested that it not be assembled, just place it onto a trailer throw the stuff in the boat and I'll rig it myself as I want it. The ATV, I picked it up--saved $50 to go 2.6 miles to my house from dealer. The car? They did not deduct delivery. They did not offer it. Thus I had to find someone (thankfully my boss's wife--aka the real boss) overheard me asking the service manager if he'd give me a ride from the house to the dealer and she offered me a ride since she and her daughter were going over that way anyway. I ain't got no family and few friends in the area, and girlfriend was at her dad's house 100 miles away so getting TO the dealer was the biggest challenge in that deal. Inconvenient. I really don't like that dealer and try to avoid them as much as possible but when you order online, they kind of force you to the closest dealer and I had no choice.

Anyway you are also right about salespeople moving on to the next sale. They do that. That is what they are trained to do and that is how they become successful. I've been trained in sales. I do not do sales very well. I know the ins and outs of different equipment enough to sell em. And I'm honest and honesty is not necessarily a good quality of a good salesperson. They gotta know when to shut up and they gotta know when to borderline lie--and ALL of them do it. Hence, I'm not much of a salesperson. But my coworker is, and he makes about $170,000 a year doing so. I'm not half that but I also go home each night knowing that I didn't mislead anyone. BTW I have never met a honest salesman. Ever.

one last point on a rollback. A dealer has to carry insurance. The insurance rate for a standard pickup truck/trailer delivery setup is a certain amount. If dealer has a rollback (recovery) truck, the insurance is different for it and costs a lot more. Thus the cost of deliveries goes up. If a BX costs $25,000, then tacked onto all of the little fees is $200 delivery fee, making the final sales cost $26,200, and the delaer 35 minutes away uses a pickup truck that costs less, and he can sell the exact same tractor for $200 less, then he's got a greater chance for the sale. That's competition and it is a real thing. Secondly those rollbacks get stuck easy. and they're not easy to drive in smaller areas, but neither is a pickup with a trailer. Having done deliveries and pickups with a pickup/trailer, there is always one or two customers who live off the beaten path where a pickup truck/trailer ain't gonna fit. I've backed a trailer down a 3/4 mile crooked driveway more than once. Generally I'd ask if their driveway is conducive to use of a 3/4 ton truck and a trailer, can I turn around at the end of the driveway, is there easy access, etc. Sometimes there just ain't and I'd have to ask them to drive the tractor to a good access point where I can get to it, IF it will drive (sometimes they don't). Mowers aren't too much issue, so long as I can get within 50 foot of them, but tractors with the loader down can be a bear. Dealer I used to work at, if the thing was dead, loader down, box blade or shredder down, we told them to hire a wrecker. if we quoted them $100 to pick their stuff up and have to spend 4 hours doing it and paying the driver $15/hr, we lost money. And transportation of equipment is almost always that, a loss. Case in point. Shop I work at now, they have a 2016 Duramax 2500 4x4. Nothing special. Paid $53,000 for it new. It now has 126,000 miles on it. It has generated $74,230 as of today, but has cost us a total of $157,100 in the 6 years we've owned it. That cost includes the truck, 6 sets of tires, some repairs, fuel, maintenance costs, driver hourly wages, insurance, taxes, fees, etc. Boss and I were just discussing this today. Income based solely from the truck combines sales income at X amount per delivered unit, transportation for service dept repair jobs (pick up dead mowers, atv's side-by-sides etc), you get the idea. We will sell the truck but I doubt it'll bring much more than $15k and even then we gotta replace it, and this time we're getting a gas burner. We've lost money. They all lose money. It is simply a tool that is used to make the process more convenient for the consumer-and nothing more

 

[GeoHorn]

When I bought a used piece of equip’t…(compactor-roller) 100 miles away (San Antonio) the transport company used a roll-back truck… and charged me $600. He hd no other deliveries in the area and went back empty. (Driver tried to gouge me with a “fuel fee” but I told him to stuff-it…and he caved.
He loaded it down there and unloaded it up here. End of story….and except for the attempted gouge…is how it should work…. the job aint’ “done” until it’s “done”.

 

[DustyRusty]

Without the truck, and a way to deliver how many sales would you have made? Possibly you should look for someone to outsource the delivery and not get involved in delivery at all.

 

[lugbolt]

Without the truck, and a way to deliver how many sales would you have made? Possibly you should look for someone to outsource the delivery and not get involved in delivery at all.

we have done that and in the end, that's more money for the sales dept and dealer, cheaper to pay a rollback service to deliver at $200 than to spend $100,000+ on equipment to do it ourselves. That worked for a number of years. Customers started yelling cause "we" don't have a recovery service at their beck and call and nobody understands the actual costs of doing that. Secondly and sort of conversely, when a business makes money they gotta do something with that money. Either spend it, or get taxed on it. Sometimes buying a big expensive truck (or whatever) can offset some of the potential taxes paid enough to justify the costs of buying/running that truck. Most smart businesses will reduce their taxes as much as they can; if they don't the government will make sure they get the majority of profit in one way or another.

times have changed. 30 years ago when I got started in dealer work, the delivery truck ran about 4 times a year. Now it runs 4 times before lunch and often at least 4 times after, 6 days a week. Sometimes 7 days a week depending on what the truck is being used for. Way back when, customers had their own way of hauling things and they hauled them willingly. Now we've become such a society of convenience that we (customers) no longer do many things that we used to solely out of inconvenience--and there are reasons for those inconveniences that I won't dive into at this time. Dealers have had to make big changes to accommodate.

 

[fried1765]

we have done that and in the end, that's more money for the sales dept and dealer, cheaper to pay a rollback service to deliver at $200 than to spend $100,000+ on equipment to do it ourselves. That worked for a number of years. Customers started yelling cause "we" don't have a recovery service at their beck and call and nobody understands the actual costs of doing that. Secondly and sort of conversely, when a business makes money they gotta do something with that money. Either spend it, or get taxed on it. Sometimes buying a big expensive truck (or whatever) can offset some of the potential taxes paid enough to justify the costs of buying/running that truck. Most smart businesses will reduce their taxes as much as they can; if they don't the government will make sure they get the majority of profit in one way or another.

times have changed. 30 years ago when I got started in dealer work, the delivery truck ran about 4 times a year. Now it runs 4 times before lunch and often at least 4 times after, 6 days a week. Sometimes 7 days a week depending on what the truck is being used for. Way back when, customers had their own way of hauling things and they hauled them willingly. Now we've become such a society of convenience that we (customers) no longer do many things that we used to solely out of inconvenience--and there are reasons for those inconveniences that I won't dive into at this time. Dealers have had to make big changes to accommodate.

I own a 14K 20' equipment trailer that I probably should have sold long ago.
It is on blocks, and stored inside.
Towing vehicle is gone.
I could only use sons's truck at this point.
Makes no sense why I have not sold it.

 

[Henro]

I own a 14K 20' equipment trailer that I probably should have sold long ago.
It is on blocks, and stored inside.
Towing vehicle is gone.
I could only use sons's truck at this point.
Makes no sense why I have not sold it.

Must be an age thing! LOL.

Not being critical. I am there too...