If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

Our law firm is made up of (drum roll, please!) lawyers. While most of us spend hours and hours researching laws, advising clients and noodling over difficult consumer credit issues, like you, we have homes and families. Some of us even have lives. And yes, every once in a while, we even buy cars.

One of our lawyers shared with me her recent car-buying experience. She explained that, after forwarding an e-mail containing the terms she received from the “X Organization” to the “Y Organization,” to see if the “Y Organization” could beat the “X Organization’s” price, she received an e-mail from the general sales manager of the Y Organization. The e-mail, in pertinent part, read as follows:

“I’ve attached a copy of a window sticker for [the car you want]. Just so you know I worked at [X Organization] for 5 yrs before joining [Y Organization] 10 years ago where I have been ever since. When they tell you employee pricing, it’s an absolute lie. Only reason I tell you that is because that’s the kind of continued service you can expect to get from them, little white lies. Anyways just so you know I will let you know what my employees can actually buy that vehicle for and what I will sell the vehicle to you for. … In addition I will provide you with a 2 year [maintenance agreement] which will pay for any and all of your required maintenance on that vehicle over the next 2 yrs. This would include oil changes, tire rotations, windshield wiper blades, even brake pads and rotors if required. So not only are you getting a better price, dealing with an honest dealer, but also getting your next 2 yrs of maintenance paid for. Hopefully I can expect to see you on Saturday or before then. Please feel free to call or email me with any other questions.”

As soon as this e-mail landed in her inbox, my colleague decided to cross the “Y Organization” off her list. She was looking for a long-term relationship with a dealership, and this e-mail did not reflect the type of attitude or character that she wanted in a dealership.

But, this e-mail exchange certainly caught my attention—not because of any glaring compliance issues, the potential for a libel lawsuit by the dealer accused of lying or some technical violation of some archaic regulation, but because this story is just another example of some of the challenges dealers and managers have in trying to run a tight ship.  

For starters, I wonder if the dealer knows what the employees are writing to customers in e-mails. In the case of my colleague, the e-mail was merely off-putting, but it could have been much worse. What if the e-mail had false or misleading statements? What if the e-mail attempted to pull a “bait and switch” to lure the customer to the lot by providing information about a car that was not available? What if the e-mail quoted payments that were “packed” or “loaded” with optional products and services? Would the dealer have any way to know about it?

Moreover, the story goes to show that dealers and dealership employees can never really know who will be on the receiving end of an e-mail. I’d bet dollars to donuts that if the GSM had known that he was responding to a dealer compliance attorney, he would have crafted his e-mail a little differently. I’d hate to think what would happen if an e-mail chock full of legal snafus made its way into the inbox of the state Attorney General, or worse yet, one of those professional plaintiffs or lawyers who make their living suing car dealers. After all, these folks buy cars from time to time too, and as far as I know, there’s no real way of knowing if the person on the other end of the information superhighway is friend or foe.

So, what’s a dealer to do?

For me, this story really underscores the importance of putting strong training programs in place at the dealership. Frankly, the dealer may be a boy scout who can recite Regulation Z backwards from memory, but it won’t matter much if the knowledge and ethics are not communicated to the folks who are actually making the day-to-day decisions and have real customer face time. The personnel are the face and mouthpiece of the dealership.

Whether you offer training in-house or look outside for training resources is really up to you and will vary based on your specific needs, but be sure that any training you offer has a strong ethics component and focuses on all facets of your operations, including e-mail, Internet, texting, telephones, smoke signals, or any other methods that your employees use to communicate with customers. After all, your personnel will be the ones representing your organization, building (or ruining) your reputation and navigating their way through the regulatory maze that governs how they do business.

Of course, you may not care about any of this, but good luck in keeping those e-mails out of the wrong inboxes!