My family is in the market for a new SUV. We’ve got a Toyota Sequoia that’s nearly a decade old with about 160k miles on it – and it’s time for us to get a new one. It’s been a good truck for us – so naturally, looking at new Sequoias was part of our purchasing plan. After some other research and a few peeks at various other brands and models, we narrowed our search down to a Toyota Sequoia or a Ford Expedition.

After a lot of discussions, research on both brands and price negotiations, we decided to stick with the Toyota. So my husband struck a good deal and signed the papers with McGee Toyota in Hanover, MA, on Friday. We bought our last Toyota from McGee and we have gone there for every service need for the last decade. So, it seemed to be a natural and feel-good move.

He had such a good experience with the salesman on Friday that on Saturday, after running a road race, we headed right back to the dealership with my sister-in-law who was also in the market for a new SUV.

After another great experience with the same salesman, we sat down do talk price – including an option for trading in her existing SUV (which we were driving, so the dealer could see it on the spot). The natural back and forth took place with the manager in his office (ivory tower) and the poor salesman running back and forth between him and us – trying to strike a deal.

Let me just point a few things out:

1. We’re repeat customers
2. We’ve been loyal customers for a decade
3. We brought in more customers/referrals
4. We just bought a car the day before
5. We came after a road race – in our running gear!
6. The point being, clearly, we were serious buyers.

As I mentioned, my sister-in-law had a car to trade in. And the manager refused to tell her the estimate for the trade in – or negotiate the cost of the car she was trying to buy – until she would commit to buying RIGHT THEN AND THERE. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen if a) she didn’t know the value of her trade-in, and b) the bottom line cost of the car she wanted to buy, and c) her husband (who wasn’t present) had an opportunity to see the car and hear the possible deal (i.e., value of the trade-in as well as the deal for the new car after negotiation). Oh, and also – why would we commit to buying something without knowing the cost? Who does that?

This was the exact opposite experience than the day before – with a different manager (same salesman). What a shock.

After several rounds with the poor salesman – embarrassed and frustrated, recognizing we were serious buyers and repeat customers, shaking his head and apologizing – that went nowhere, we decided to get up and leave. My sister-in-law wasn’t about to commit to buying a car without understanding the costs or even the courtesy of an estimate or starting point. Why were these games necessary when we were obviously serious about buying?

Before we left, my husband (keep in mind, it was his sister he brought in and thus, he’s naturally protective) stated that he couldn’t believe the way we were being treated after having just bought a car yesterday. And he began asking about the timeframe available to us to change our minds on our earlier purchase, considering we were not only being treated rudely, and being toyed with, but the manager didn’t even have the courtesy to come out and thank us for not only buying a car the day before – but coming back the next day with another customer.

So my husband said he was going to look into the time we had to change our mind on our purchase – unless we heard from them on an estimate for her trade in soon. (Keep in mind, it’s not that he didn’t know the estimate – the salesman confirmed the manager had a price; he just didn’t want to give it to us – wouldn’t write down a number – until she committed to buying on the spot.) The salesman said “I don’t want to tell him [the manager] that, you tell him.” And my husband said, “I would if he ever had the courtesy to come out here and talk to us.”

So we walked out and as we were getting into our car, the manager finally found a reason to walk out and talk to us. He boldly sauntered to our car and walked right up to the window as my husband got out. The manager then said, “Oh, you wanna call off the deal? That’s fine, we’ll rip up the contract right now.”

SAY WHAT?

Does this bullying tactic work on others? Because it didn’t work on us. This man couldn’t give us the privilege of a face-to-face discussion when we were ready to buy another car, and insisted on playing unnecessary, old-school games with a serious customer – and then he comes out with bravado and ego and tells us he’d rather lose TWO SALES than give us a simple estimate?

What is going on here? Would YOU do this? Is this how you treat your repeat customers? I sure hope not.

I can tell you what’s going on now:

1. McGee Toyota just lost two car sales – over ego. (Ask yourself, will your investment matter to them either?)
2. They just lost a loyal, potentially life-long customer
3. They showed how little their customers mean to them
4. They created a negative brand experience associated with Toyota
5. We’ll not only never return, and never refer someone to them again, but we’ll continually tell everyone we know not to buy from them – ever
6. We’re now back to discussions with Ford and may abandon Toyota altogether – we’re still negotiating
7. They showed that the value of a deal is more important to them than the value of a customer relationship.

A customer deal is great. But a salesman – especially a sales manager (or, perhaps he was the owner, which makes it even more ludicrous) – should be savvy enough to recognize when a customer is a serious, loyal and repeat customer who not only continues to give you business, but also refers others. This manager basically took the customer referral pyramid and chucked it out the window.

Am I out of touch here? Are $40-50k cars flying out the door in this economy? Are ready-to-buy customers flocking to the doors for you? Even if they were, would you treat a long time, loyal customer in this manner?

Make sure your sales team can recognize the difference between a customer deal and a customer relationship – and if you care about your business, train them to treat every customer with respect and gratitude. Even if you are in the car sales business.

Mobile Users Want Branded Apps that Are Useful, Not Just for Marketing

Want to Lead Corporate Social Strategy? Read This.
Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, shares highlights from Altimeter‘s “Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist” report. The Slideshare version of the report is also included.

Could Facebook replace your e-mail inbox?
Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore speculates on Facebook‘s rumored plunge into the email provider space. Do they have what it takes to lure people away from the likes of GMail and Yahoo Mail? Read on for one perspective.

B2B Social Media Resources
Chris Brogan shares a plethora of great B2B resources that go beyond his ongoing collection of case studies on Delicious.

Social Media’s Impact on Offline Sales
Elizabeth Glagowski explains how social media can impact the bottom line through actual sales and provides several real world examples of businesses that are doing it right.

Forrester Recommends Caution with LBS
Mike Schneider challenges Forrester‘s stance on Location Based Services they published in a recent report, and he provides an alternate point of view that should definitely be considered.

B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media
Brace youself for a new wave of Social Media experts. This Bloomberg Business post from Sommer Saadi explores the new trend where business schools are starting to offer MBA courses on Internet Marketing and Social Media Strategy.

Altimeter Report Provides Facebook Page Guidelines, Benchmarks
Dave Fleet provides a brief overview and commentary on the Altimeter Group’s free report entitled The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing.

To Block or Not to Block Facebook and Social Media in the Workplace
Klint Finley shares highlights from Cisco’s Mid-Year Security Report that recommends “better security education and social media policies in the work place instead of technical restrictions” based on its findings on end-users accessing social media tools at work.

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples
Marketers looking for a plethora of social marketing examples should look no farther than Peter Kim’s Social Media Marketing Wiki. The site is constantly being updated by the community and is definitely worthy of a re-mention here in the picks!

How to Build a Social Media Campaign
Hilary JM Topper reminds us that “a successful social media program must be mindful of consumers’ interests” with this great guest post on BusinessWeek.com that includes sounds advice and an overview of Coca-Cola’s recent marketing efforts.

4 online brand gimmicks that failed
Bryan Maleszyk contributes to iMediaConnection with this post containing multiple examples of social campaigns that show how failure can often teach more than success.

Ford’s Got a Reason to Fiesta
Scott Monty recaps the success of Ford’s “Fiesta Movement” campaign that culminated with a grand tweet-up with Guinness Record potential. He also offers a glimpse of what’s next for Ford with the beginning of “Fiesta Movement Chapter 2.”

Study: Social Media, Mobile Set to Impact Holidays in Big Way
Retailers might get a little extra business from social media communities this holiday season. Christopher Heine from Clickz.com cites some interesting facts from a recent study by Deloitte.

Your Social Media Content Must Be Valuable
Content might be king, but SearchEngineWatch.com’s Liana Evans reminds readers that quality outweighs quantity when it comes to maintaining your high search engine rank.

Companies Identify Major Business Benefits in Listening to Online Conversation
More great facts, stats and examples of the importance of paying attention to online conversations about your brand, courtesy of Aberdeen and CNN Money.

How Ford does Social Media
JD Lasica shares this great video interview featuring Scott Monty who heads up Social Media at Ford.

Ways to Be Human at a Distance
Chris Brogan reminds readers of the importance of showing the human side of your business when engaging your online communities. Lots of great tips here along with many additional bits in the comments.

When social media attacks: learn from others’ mistakes
Henry Elliss from the econsultancy.com blog shares five great real-world examples of how companies have made mistakes in handling their brands online.

4 Lies about social media
Penelope Trunk sheds some light on four common lies that many people wrongly believe about social media. We’re fond of correcting beliefs about all of them, but especially #4: “Social media is no place for business.” (Still don’t believe it? Let’s talk – we can help you understand why it is and what ROI you can receive.)

10 Proven Applications For Social Media
No, Adam Singer from the TopRank’s Online Marketing blog isn’t running through a list of tools to start using, but rather a more helpful list of business objectives to which social media can be applied. Read on for inspiration.

Making Social Media Work (for your business to business marketing)
David Libby from the Inspiring Dialogue blog shares 5 tips to help B2B companies start getting their social media efforts working better for them.

Leading by Example
Scott Monty (head of Social Media at Ford) shares two stories that show how some simple gestures from CEO Alan Mulally have gone a long way to help build long-lasting relationships with a few customers.

Video – Participation Marketing, Social Media and Teams
Sports Marketer, Jason Peck shares the basics of Alan Rosenpan’s take on “Participation Marketing” and why it matters to pro sports teams and other businesses alike.

Feedly Mini Updated: Now with More Twitter and FriendFeed Interaction
If you’ve taken the plunge into social networking and are an active user of Twitter, FriendFeed and Google Reader, then you might be interested in taking a look at Feedly. Its a nifty little plugin for Firefox that not only allows you to more easily share blog posts back out more easily, but also allows you to see how many other people have shared it in Google Reader or Digg. It even tellls you how many people have had conversations about the post on FriendFeed – neat! This post from Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb gives a great overview.

Dave Balter on Word-of-Mouth
John Moore from the Brand Autopsy blog shares his thoughts on Dave Balter’s (of BzzAgent) new manifesto entitled “The Word of Mouth Manual.” While a hard-bound version is available on Amazon, John links readers over to the PDF version for a free read.

How the Red Cross is using Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS and WordPress.com in their disaster response efforts
RexBlog.com shares how the Red Cross is utilizing new media to aid in times of disaster. They’ve been using a wide variety of online tools for a while now and this list is good starting point for building the full picture of the Red Cross’s social and new media efforts.

Now You Can Have a Great Facebook Profile and Have Fun Too!
Ok…you caught me. Technically this post came out last week, but questions about mixing personal and business networking with a single Facebook account continue to be at the top of the list with clients and employees alike. Phil Rosenberg from the reCareered blog lends another perspective on how to reach that happy medium.

Large Firm Getting into Facebook Apps – Many Eyes from IBM
Bill Ives shares some incite and links about IBM’s “Many Eyes” project in the social media software space. Registered members of SocialMediaToday.com might also find IBM’s social media case study white paper useful. A link to it is located on the right column of the SMT.com home page after signing in.

Bonus Pick!

Why I’m Blue
Boston’s own Scott Monty recently announced that he’ll be leaving us here in the east to head up social media for the Ford Motor Company out in Dearborn, Michigan! Obviously, this is an amazing opportunity for Scott and his presence in the Boston social media circle will truly be missed! Congratulations Scott, and we’ll be looking forward to using your future accomplishments at Ford as case studies for how social media in the enterprise is done right! Cheers!