Ring dealer again or "feck em"

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
The ag machinery trade gets many complaints about people either not following up an enquiry or not returning calls. To many for it not to be a problem, and one the machinery industry needs to take on-board and sort out.

It's fair to say it is polorised, some are first class and never miss a chance of a sale, some are worse than useless. As for all this respect, and calling to say thank you bxxcks, if we did that in business all the time we'd be doing nothing else.

You agree a spec, you make a deal, you pay the bill on time, what more respect is needed ?

If your in business and need people to beg to buy from you, and then need them to tell you how wonderfull you are, it's time to pack up and go home.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
same as many on here, we buy a lot of 'bits' direct off the computer now, rather than ag dealers shop, because it is cheaper, more convenient, and delivered. However, all those 'bits' when bought at a showroom, all helped the dealer to make a profit, while a few £'s here, or there, doesn't sound a lot, x number of farmers, it adds up to huge amounts, we know how much cheaper they are, off e'bay, or similar, the difference, is the dealers profit. Most main colour tractors, are restricting, or reorganising, their dealerships, into regional areas, that will put more pressure on reps, and the 'personal' touch, will, unfortunately, get less and less. That is the way things will go, whether we like it, or not.
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
same as many on here, we buy a lot of 'bits' direct off the computer now, rather than ag dealers shop, because it is cheaper, more convenient, and delivered. However, all those 'bits' when bought at a showroom, all helped the dealer to make a profit, while a few £'s here, or there, doesn't sound a lot, x number of farmers, it adds up to huge amounts, we know how much cheaper they are, off e'bay, or similar, the difference, is the dealers profit. Most main colour tractors, are restricting, or reorganising, their dealerships, into regional areas, that will put more pressure on reps, and the 'personal' touch, will, unfortunately, get less and less. That is the way things will go, whether we like it, or not.
It's OK buying bits online but what happens when you need that bit today or your not sure what bit you need, diameter or spec.

When the local dealer is gone it's gone for good.
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
It's OK buying bits online but what happens when you need that bit today or your not sure what bit you need, diameter or spec.

When the local dealer is gone it's gone for good.

They rarely have parts on the shelf.
You pay for next day delivery to the dealer which you then have to collect. May aswell have it delivered to your own door.

It is certainly worth supporting local dealers to have access to their specialist knowledge but those days seem to be numbered. It is often just a member of staff flicking through a parts book following the information you are providing so you just as well order it yourself.
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
I got some earth wearing stuff ten days ago.some ordered from agri linc which came next day as promised and some differant parts from pan anglia which was promised for 2 day delivery but I had to chase it after 8 days and then when it came some was missing which I was told was in stock at ordering and now got to wait another couple weeks for it.
nick...
 

icanshootwell

Member
Location
Ross-on-wye
It's OK buying bits online but what happens when you need that bit today or your not sure what bit you need, diameter or spec.

When the local dealer is gone it's gone for good.
Its ok getting the odd thing on line, but for me you can,t beat looking around a well stocked farm shop like Hereford industrial supplies, you see items and tools you did,t know existed sometimes.
 

Agrijas

Member
I went to local LR/RR and at the time Isuzu dealer, never dealt with them before asking about a SH Isuzu, 4-5 year old, they gave me the keys and said take it home and put it on your livestock box and fill it with animals and see how it tows 😮 I’d never dealt with them before and they didn’t know who I was. Had another pickup from a smaller family firm not come up a few K cheaper I would have bought the first one, unfortunately the RR/LR dealer eats reps and I’ve never seen the same rep there twice.

Turned up in the wife’s Fiat 500X to test drive a Freelander 2, we were told they were too expensive and nothing was under £18k and the rep didn’t even step outside of the door to show us the cars. Went in the next day in my 4 year old Isuzu and we were given red carpet treatment by the same rep and he didn’t recognise us, tried every RR/Disco and FR2 on the court (12 cars), cained the daylights out of them all within a rough 2 mile circuit and then told said rep where to go as he’d shund us the day before 👍🏻
Had similar in 2007 went to buy new vw golf salesman told told me it was expensive and I probably couldn’t afford it so went next door and brought an Audi A4. Took it to the the vw dealer when I collected it and told the manager what had happened and what the salesman said, no idea if anything happened to him but like I was always told...don’t judge a sausage by it’s skin!
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
It's OK buying bits online but what happens when you need that bit today or your not sure what bit you need, diameter or spec.

When the local dealer is gone it's gone for good.
l know, that is the worry. Nuts/bolts etc, over £10, free delivery, next day, tool station, 1/3 price of local dealership, + travel, water fittings, elec fencing, etc, less than 1/2 price of local. You are dead right about the going of dealerships, but their prices keep going up, ours don't, and then it's the travel, and time spent getting it. It isn't a lot different than the high street, shops cannot compare on price, and become convenience places. There is very little not available off the net, delivery is usually pretty good, but l see voss, elec fencing, are now saying 20 days, they are german based.
It's the way the world is going, might not agree with it, but it will happen. Very few machinery parts, are kept in store now, it's mainly overnight delivery, from a central store.
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
l know, that is the worry. Nuts/bolts etc, over £10, free delivery, next day, tool station, 1/3 price of local dealership, + travel, water fittings, elec fencing, etc, less than 1/2 price of local. You are dead right about the going of dealerships, but their prices keep going up, ours don't, and then it's the travel, and time spent getting it. It isn't a lot different than the high street, shops cannot compare on price, and become convenience places. There is very little not available off the net, delivery is usually pretty good, but l see voss, elec fencing, are now saying 20 days, they are german based.
It's the way the world is going, might not agree with it, but it will happen. Very few machinery parts, are kept in store now, it's mainly overnight delivery, from a central store.
People allways think their time is worthless and never consider what it costs and also running a vehicle maybe 10/20 miles there and back to get something.all ads up.
nick...
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
When I had my last hilux just over a year ago I went online to the above and put all the required details in and got offered £10k less than I paid for it a few hours earlier
nick...
There online valuation system does not work well with agi stuff I had a discovery commercial and it was 10k out or there about s.
It’s more the principal that you don’t need a dealer for px (your always best private anyway) but if you did not want to sell private you can take a px price of wbac, or you could just send it to car auction
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
There online valuation system does not work well with agi stuff I had a discovery commercial and it was 10k out or there about s.
It’s more the principal that you don’t need a dealer for px (your always best private anyway) but if you did not want to sell private you can take a px price of wbac, or you could just send it to car auction
My wife buys and sells the odd car, quite often doubling the money she paid selling to we buy any car, they are a good guide on what to price a vehicle at but they don’t take into account spec, options and collector models etc...

best was a rare fiat 500 auto (unmarked arbarth) and she didn’t know only 20 of that model were ever produced, we buy any car said £1800 so she paid £1600 for it, sold it 2 weeks later after she put it in for a service and the dealer said they’d never seen 1 of that model but had heard about them, sold for £4200 to a collector up north 🤙🏻
 

pgtips

Member
I always thought it was just me who had the same problems as the OP, until I asked around friends and read this thread and obviously not. I always now ask for the contacts name and note the time of the contact so if nothing happens I go straight to the top. If someone answered phones for me and didn't pass messages on or get back to a potential customer I would not be happy, that is their job. If said company is so busy that they can't respond due to sheer volume of calls as has been suggested, they need to rethink their staffing levels as they are either missing out on orders or potentially offending people, neither of which bodes well for long term success.

,
 

marco

Member
As said above, if these companies are so busy, ie 20 or 30 calls a day per salesperson why wouldn't they just employ another salesperson? They wouldn't have to sell too much to make their wages back
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • Up to 25%

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  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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