CustomeRules – A Marketing Blog from BI|Digital Marketing

Talk about leading with your chin. A car dealership in Minneapolis is actually suing one of its customers because they made a mistake — this has to be one of the best worst practices I’ve seen in awhile.

The case in point is a woman named Tammie Townsend who leased a 2007 Chrysler Pacifica from Walser Chrysler in Hopkins, MN, then agreed to purchase the vehicle when the dealer offered a very attractive buyout price, well below blue book value. She opted to finance through the dealer and signed the contract, driving off with a pretty good deal. Or was it a steal?

Soon after, she received a call from Walser informing her they had a made a mistake, that the price on the purchase agreement was not the actual price for the vehicle, and she would have to pony up another six grand or return it. Tammie told them she had no intention of doing either as she had purchased the car at the price offered and “a deal is a deal.”

According to Doug Sprinthall, director of vehicle operations at Walser, the woman was told what the buyout price was and she should have known the price stated on the contract was “too good to be true.” He threatened to sue her if she didn’t return the car. There’s a reason we don’t put operations people in charge of customer relationship management.

Here’s where Walser really blew it: rather than try to negotiate a quiet resolution to this problem of their own making, they took a hard-line confrontational position, pulling her financing and sending a couple of repo guys to take the vehicle back. When they couldn’t locate it the dealership filed suit, they accused Tammie of fraud and unjust enrichment. What, they didn’t think the media was going to jump all over this juicy story?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a prominent article, putting it online where it quickly circulated and creating plenty of buzz, most of which was sympathetic to her — it’s not often we see the female buyer getting the best of the used car salesman. The car dealer ends up looking like the big bad villain and Tammie the victim. Just wait, the publicity is only going to intensify if and when this thing goes to court. Not real smart, guys.

I guess nobody clued Walser Chrysler in on the fact that the world has changed, and in a contracted post-recessionary economy where the customer rules, it doesn’t really matter who was right or wrong. Companies simply don’t want to be threatening and bullying their customers no matter what the circumstances, especially not car dealerships which don’t rank very high on the trust-o-meter to begin with.

“It’s the Walser way,” the tagline on their website proclaims. One would think the potential damage to the brand, one of the largest automotive groups in Minnesota with 13 dealerships, would outweigh the financial gain in this case. By the time this is all over, paying a few thousand dollars to keep this story out of the media will look like a bargain.