Want to buy a new BMW but dealer not responding to my email inquiry

I was disappointed with the response from BMW India, because, no one ever read the content of my mail.

BHPian Brumby recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello friends,

I am a seafarer, and that makes purchasing a car a process where in I have to take into account how much of time do I get to spend with the car, due to long lead time for delivery.

Due to this reason, i decided that I will start a query through mail while on board and book a car with a tentative delivery within about 3-4 weeks after I come back home.

I had finalised BMW M340i or a 3 series Gran Limousine and sent a mail to a certain email id as this address was listed on the dealer's website.

I was surprised when the mail bounced back.

I tried my luck again and sent the mail to the certain addresses listed in the dealer website.

All these email addresses are of high ranking individuals working for the said dealer.

Unfortunately, all the mails bounced back and there was no response from the dealer.

I decided to contact BMW India, so sent a mail to the following address.

contact.india@bmw.in

I was disappointed with the response from BMW India, because, no one ever read the content of my mail, and in their reply the only information that they asked was my contact number and the city/dealer.

Infact, there were multiple replies for my mails to BMW India, and in spite of giving details of my requirements, location etc, the only way that BMW India wanted to proceed further was through phone calls. I was a little frustrated at the response, so BMW Germany was also in CC to my last mail.

I finally received some information, but the only way to proceed further was through phone call only.

It was really surprising that no one took a query on mail seriously, and no one had enough time to read through the contents of the mail and reply accordingly.

Of course nothing happened further, I am back home and car purchase has been postponed.

Makes me think as why:

• The dealer has email addresses with the business group as domain name (I might be wrong in quoting that) to which they do not want to respond to.
• Why is it that a sales enquiry cannot be addressed by BMW India through mail and only a phone call can be a genuine customer.

Since I was not interested in any other car at this point, I did not try to contact any other car dealers/manufacturers.

Probably this is one off case and its not the same with other car manufacturers.

Please share your experiences in this regard, and also a request to the members who possibly work in similar profiles to shed some light.

Thank you.

Regards.

Here's what GTO had to say on the matter:

Haha! Great point. It's quite idiotic of them to pay 3rd-party providers 1000 bucks a lead, but not pay much attention to the customers in their inbox.

Very few car dealerships pay attention to email inquiries. Most don't. Reasons:

The sheer volume. Car dealership email inboxes face a deluge of emails everyday. As part of the auto industry, I receive ~400 emails in my personal inbox everyday, so much so that I have added about 1000 - 2000 email addresses to "auto archive" (meaning, they don't even show up in my inbox). That helps keep my email inbox to a more manageable ~75 emails / day.

Time wasters. Car dealers get too many timewasters everyday, whether via phone calls or emails. Unless it's a "known" person or someone who sounds serious & stands out, they don't pay much attention to them. It's easy for anyone to make a phone call or email. But it takes effort to trot to the showroom. They use that effort on part of the customer to separate the serious from not-so-serious types. And even then, in showrooms too, there are a fair share of walk-in timewasters who just come in to test-drive a car with no intention of a purchase. Salesmen are driven by targets, so they have to really filter out the "serious" car buyers on their time.

No systems. Sadly, most car dealerships simply don't have a formal system to entertain email leads. If I was a car dealer, I'd have my team reply back to customer emails with a link to a 10-point questionnaire. Every question is mandatory. If a customer fills out that 10-point questionnaire, he gets a call from a senior salesperson.

Here's what BHPian Maky&87 had to say on the matter:

Being a Seafarer myself, I can understand the dilemma you must be going through. The way I see it, you have the following options:

What I have done in the past in similar situations [not car shopping] was that I did my research while I was onboard and then asked my Brother to book/buy the thing I wanted using my Credit card. I guess this might be feasible for you through your siblings or spouse.

From your post it seems your mind is made up about the 3 series. So, the research part is done. Test drive it now, if you like, exchange numbers with the SA and let him know your situation. Then, when you're about to sign-off next time, drop him a message, transfer the booking amount and get confirmation for delivery date. This has worked for me in the past, while shopping for cars. A face-to-face with a customer goes a long way towards building trust on both sides.

Go to the dealership, demand a car within the week. Offer to close the deal on lucrative terms for them[not extra money, but short payment time, or financing in-house, insurance through dealership, etc.]. Who knows, it might be your lucky day. Again, this has worked for me in the past while shopping for cars.

Good luck.

Please drop a word when you do get your 3 Series.

Here's what BHPian Boomerang had to say on the matter:

I had no problems with Honda dealership in Thrissur, Kerala (Vision Honda). They created a whatsapp group with Sales Executive, Sales Manager, Accessories person and even the Finanace person if needed. It was seamless! They responded to my emails within 24hrs.

Most of dealers do not add email management in any of their roles sans Managers and Leadership. This is indeed a huge missed opportunity. A little creative thinking will help manage bulk emails. Like sharing an email id of probably customers (on the wall sitters). Yes, once the team builds an email strategy it is easy to manage.

Cherio

Here's what BHPian bijims had to say on the matter:

I have had no problems in dealing through email in any of the dealerships here in Kerala, they are quite proactive and reply almost instantly, I guess it is a case of what @GTO said but the ones who are after customers definitely consider the emails and reply to them.

If a brand has multiple dealerships, I enquire through both to get the best deal, but in the case of Luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes, there are only a few dealerships, so this doesn't quite work.

Another thing that worked well for me while I was abroad besides email was contacting the dealership through WhatsApp specifically mentioning that I am an NRI, would be back in India by so and so date, and want the car within such timeframe. Dealerships and sales personnel will be more than happy to assist you and once you place the booking, everything comes into place quite nicely too. Just make sure to deal with the right people and forward your requirements to them.

Here's what BHPian V.Narayan had to say on the matter:

Very relevant issue to start a thread on. It is I believe a reflection of corporate culture of the dealer and the OEM.

Back in 2014 I was looking for a luxury brand SUV. I wrote to the Managing Director of Mercedes Benz - total silence. I then wrote on the general ID provided on the Mercedes India web site. Again silence. I then wrote to the M.D. of Volvo India and bingo I got a reply and long story short I purchased a Volvo XC60, then helped two friends buy the Volvo XC90 plug-in hybrid and then bought a C40 EV for myself - all in ten years.

Equally poor showing was from a certain CEO of an Indian OEM known for its pioneering EVs. I wanted to order 20 such EVs for my business and wrote directly to him who is well known for his tweets. But a couple of reminders later, forget about a reply from him, his office did not even connect me to the right person within his organization.

I think it is an Indian culture attribute.

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