Unprofessional and misleading…read more
Website says, "we know that customers like you are tired of getting low, often insulting offers from most dealerships. That's what we're here to change, we'll give you top dollar for your car," but their offer was less than 1/4 of the offer I already had in hand.
Website says, "we offer our complimentary, no strings attached mobile appraisal service" but when I inquired they told me, "Our mobile service is also limited to specific vehicles within a certain mileage range."
After submitting an inquiry on a Wednesday, they replied the next day that, "Sorry, we are out of town and unavailable until next week." Regular business hours does not seem like an unreasonable expectation.
EDIT (in response to Ashley M.)
"I honestly have no idea how we were misleading or unprofessional. I promptly replied to your emails regarding your Pending Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer."
I received an auto-response email from your company immediately. However, I received no response to the "Request an appointment" that I submitted to KBB at the same time, so I then messaged you through your website. Two other prospective buyers called and texted me in response to my KBB submission, within an hour, but I did not get a response from you to my second request until 7.5 hours later. So, by the standard set by your competitors, you were not prompt. That to me is unprofessional.
"Your vehicle has 247k miles, a leaking head gasket and multiple other issues."
Your home page and your initial auto-response email did not mention that you were only interested in cars under a certain mileage, or without issues. Your home page, and your initial email, made no stipulation that you were only interested in vehicles that met certain criteria. To me, that's misleading. By not being specific, up front, about what kind of cars you were and were not interested in, you wasted my time and yours. The Kelly Blue Book inquiry clearly stated the vehicles mileage and condition. You could have saved us both a lot of time by simply not responding to my inquiry in the first place.
"As for our mobile appraisal service... we had to place a few parameters on the mobile appraisals we can offer - as to not waste our invaluable time being small business owners without any additional employees."
The best way to not waste your customers time is to state your "parameters" up front. Again, failing to specify these limitations up front is misleading, because it makes you sound equivalent to your competitors, who offer a similar service, but without your unstated limitations. Your competitors do in fact have different "parameters," and one was more than happy to come to me, and did inspect and purchase my vehicle.
"Being small business owners, we typically work round the clock and we value the rare occurrences we make the hard decision to shut our business down for 1-2 days to recharge."
How you manage your business, staffing, and business hours, is, of course, your business. However you should know that, by not stating your available hours up front, and by being less available than your competitors, your customer service falls short of the standard they have set.
"I hope this clears up any confusion regarding our business being unprofessional or misleading, as you can see by our hundreds of other 5 star Google & Yelp reviews."
I am not and was not confused. You, in fact, appear to be the one who is confused. A business can have thousands of satisfied, 5-star customers, but that does not in any way invalidate another customer's 1-star experience. Your prospective customers deserve to hear from all your customers, not just the ones who have had a satisfactory experience.
One of your competitors came to me, today, and purchased my car, in what was a smooth and trouble-free experience. They actually ended up increasing their previous offer, and paid me almost 7 times what you offered me for my vehicle. I will gladly recount my five-star experience with them, and prospective customers can read both reviews, along with all the others, and hopefully make a more informed decision about where to take their business.