Jim’s Simple Philosophy – Take Care of the Customer

After being in the business for 30 years, Jim Falk had one goal in mind when he started his dealership in 2000, and that was “to take care of the customer”.

It may sound simple, but it is extremely powerful; and Jim knew it. Jim knows that putting customer satisfaction first puts everything else in line.

From selling the highest quality automobiles, to offering the most competitive pricing available every single day, to never adding unnecessary charges or hidden fees, to giving an enjoyable buying experience with friendly and educated salespeople, to being upfront and honest, to providing a service department with top notch certified technicians and an uncompromising determination for customer satisfaction, to providing a comfortable and nice setting to do business, to taking care of the customer before during and after the deal.

All of these things must fall in line if you are simply ‘taking care of the customer’. And taking care of the customers as he had planned, has clearly shown itself in the success and reputation the dealership has received in the past 10 years. Jim Falk Motors is known for being very busy – and by busy I mean – we sell the volume of our entire used car lot nearly every single month and in addition sell a higher percentage of our new cars than most dealers in the Midwest and the nation. To reach this volume of sales simply would not be possible if our prices weren’t extremely competitive, the customer service impeccable and the vehicles top quality. Driveplicity’s online and offline reputation is stellar, with 100% eBay feedback, hundreds of positive online testimonials, a very busy Service and Parts department – and the growing never stops! As he would say, when you are putting integrity and your customer’s satisfaction first, people will follow.

In a recent article by Jim, this was his final thought on how we can continue our fantastic growth:

“So what do we have to do to do it better? I guess double down on our unrelenting commitment to excellent customer service. Providing the highest quality new and used vehicles. Then stand behind every sale, with the best, most committed to excellence, service and parts department.”

The Journey From Jim Falk Motors to Driveplicity

As Driveplicity’s online presence grew, our standards had to be sharpened. We could see that in order to give our eBay customers and customers from out of state impeccable service, we had to have a process and a team in line that could deliver this every single time, to every single customer.

We understand that our customers time is extremely valuable and we not take for granted that they have entrusted us, sometimes from across the country, to provide them a flawless process on purchasing a quality vehicle at a great price. We plan to deliver this every time. We have a team in place that has incredible vigor, over 50 years of sales experience with 25 dedicated only to eBay, fantastic gathered knowledge of vehicles and the sales process, and a backup support to assist the sales team – that is dedicated to upholding the stellar reputation of Jim Falk Motors, as well as to complete customer satisfaction.

The creation of the Driveplicity really has Jim’s main theme running through it – “Take Care of the Customer” – National car buying can be the best car buying experience of your life – when the right people, process, and vehicle is involved.

It Takes a Team! And Jim’s Marketing and eBay Team Represents Who He Is

It makes sense that a morally good and hard working man would attract and keep hard working good people. Our marketing and national team represents everything Jim has put in place and we all work with his main motto always in the forefront – “take care of the customer”. To see more about our team, please CLICK HERE to view the Meet Our Staff page.

Call Centers – Tent Sale Gimmicks – We Refuse to Belittle This Business or Our Customers

Let’s be honest with one another, and ask – WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE CAR INDUSTRY?

I have put in a few test leads at different dealerships and have absolutely been attacked with auto email after auto email after auto email from not just the salesperson, but numerous different people in the company – but I knew it was all automated, so their ‘concern’ for me and my purchase of a vehicle did not feel at all sincere. In one case, I had a call center call me over 30 times! And the only thing that made it worse than the sheer frequency was the number of different people that called – all saying the exact same message “Hi Mary, thank you for your recent request. We have some great news for you! Give us a call….” This is the second largest purchase a person makes in their life… so I must ask, where is the customer service? The relationship? The quality? Being in the business, I know exactly why this is happening – because to many, it’s a sheer numbers game – out of 100 calls x number will respond and out of those responses, x number will buy. Same with emails – if they can send 500 emails a day – x number will open – x number will respond and x number will buy. So the call centers and auto emails are ramped up to warp speed! We don’t like this numbers game of performing the highest possible number of low quality contacts in order to get our customers attention. We focus on quality not quantity – because we believe that 2 quality contacts from the actual salesperson can make a bigger impact than 50 auto emails (that the salesperson has probably never even read before).

We believe in making such a great FIRST impression with our vehicles, great prices, top notch and quick customer service and personal attention, and overall genuine care for you and your family that you know that you have found the best place to purchase a vehicle. As our eBay Senior, Rod Berry, once told me – “They may be able to match our price but they will never match our customer service!” And then it is up to us to create a LASTING impression that keeps you coming back.

We Don’t Need to Cut Corners to Keep Our Prices Low

We see it – we understand it – we don’t believe in it.

For a few reasons… the first is, how does being as cheap as possible in the process benefit our customer? If you think it’s in saving $500 on the sale – we have to respectfully disagree. Did you know a lot of these types of dealers don’t give you one direct salesperson for the entire deal – I have read one book made by one of these dealers and they even say their customers have likened them to a fast food restaurant…and that didn’t bother them! It is a growing trend in dealers across the nation to direct the first incoming call to a BDC rep in a call center – where their goal, as covered above, is to make x out of x calls into appointments for the sales floor. What I’m left wondering is how this is what’s best for customer? Do you think these call center employees have been thoroughly trained about the vehicles being sold, how a 4WD will differ in the snow than an AWD, the current market and how it can benefit you.… Probably not; You can probably guess what I assume most have been trained on – How to set an appointment. Our customers first conversation and continued conversation during the deal is with their salesperson, a manager, or one of the National Sales Team members Read More About Our Dedicated National Sales Team.

They also save money by streamlining the service/detailing/marketing/sales process as much as possible. How is that we have no hidden fees or closing costs, pay our employees a generous amount for their hard work, do not automate our entire system but instead rely on the best local photographer to take nice clear pictures, a girl to personally sit in each car and write a description that gives details that one cannot experience unless they physically sit in the car (yes, there are MANY tools out there now that automate the description of the car using the VIN and fancy software), a person that manages the operation simply to make sure that every single vehicle and online ad is perfect, a position that simply follows up to make sure our customers are completely satisfied with their purchase and overall experience and on top of all of this, pay our service and detailers a fair wage to take top of the line car of the vehicles. In fact, Jim Falk is known for taking care of his employees!

And somehow still we have extremely competitive prices on quality vehicles. It’s pretty simple really, we sell the entire volume of our used inventory every single month – focusing on high volume instead of high gross allows us to turn our inventory often and that is what keeps the prices low.