Yesterday, I took our Saturn Aura in for service. I thought it was idling poorly. While waiting I spoke with Ben, the salesman who sold the car to us. He is a young guy, very earnest and pleasant. As we stood outside in the warm sun we surveyed the lot chock-a-block with cars. Everywhere one looked there were cars for sale. Ben admitted that things were very, very slow and that they had recently fired six people. Ben related stories about customers about to sign for new autos but turned away with credit scores below 700. 700! I asked Ben how customers would react to a GM bankruptcy. He felt it would hurt since on-going service would be in question. I suggested GM might consider packaging service into the auto’s cost. This morning I saw a BMW ad offering just that. Their 3-Series offers four year or 50,000 miles of free service.
The Saturn service manager brought my car around and said it was operating just fine and that there was no charge. Oh, he had had the car washed as well. No charge. Is American business learning how to satisfy customers and cement loyalty?
