Brian Carroll had never been fired or let go from a job. Never.
A year ago, he was dumped, very simply, because his boss needed to trim costs. No warning. No dip in performance. Just a handshake goodbye on that Monday morning in late January because the car dealership that employed him for eight years needed to save money.
“The owner came up to me and said, ‘I’ve been thinking, why should I pay you when I can do what you do?’ And he let me go,” said Carroll, 51, of Macomb Township. “I was driving home, crying my eyes out, to tell you the truth. I thought, ‘What are you going to do? How are you going to make it?’ ”
He called his wife on his way home.
“It was shocking and overwhelming and upsetting,” Angela Carroll said. “He was very good at his job. We thought we were very stable. I didn’t want him to know how freaked out I was. It makes you sick to your stomach. He had health insurance, a salary, things set in place for the future. I’d been a stay-at-home mom with three boys. I was so scared.”
Carroll loved selling cars. He had worked for dealerships in Detroit, Eastpointe, Clinton Township and Troy. And now he was out in the cold. Literally.
Then a guy called wanting a car. Carroll said he didn’t work at the dealership anymore. And the buyer said he didn’t care. Carroll decided then he would go solo. Not as the usual car “broker,” who tends to charge a direct fee to shoppers, but as a car “concierge” who planned to charge customers $0. He would work on commission.
After all, he figured, fewer people have time to go to dealerships and people like the idea of enhanced personal service. He would ride a trend of changing consumer expectations in the automotive industry, not by choice but by necessity. All by word of mouth. (...)
Just 367 days after losing his job, Carroll is selling 30 to 35 cars a month and even as many as 52. He has transformed the car-buying experience for customers in Michigan, New York, Florida and Wyoming.
Andrew Behe, 38, of Oxford wrote an online customer review that praised Carroll as an immediate gratification "Amazon Prime" experience for car shoppers.
Behe explained, “I have four kids, run three different companies and nobody has time to go to dealerships and spend the whole evening there on multiple days. I told him what I wanted and he brought it to me. He came to my house, picked up my car — a Lincoln Navigator — then drove my new car to my office. I wanted a 2019 GMC Yukon. He picked up the old car and drove over the new car the same exact day." (...)
"The auto industry from top to bottom is being disrupted, and the dealership experience is no different," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader, an online car shopping site. "We tested concepts on 2,000 consumers about how to improve the car buying and servicing experience. When people purchase a vehicle, they want it delivered to them at any location at any time, home or office, and if they have a trade-in, they want it picked up. They basically don't want to go to the dealership for certain parts of the buying transaction."
For now, options to visiting the dealership are limited, she said.
Carvana provides the ability for buying used cars at a kiosk or online and the vehicles are dropped off at people'shouses. There are some dealers offering pickup and delivery options, Krebs said. While car brokers often charge a modest flat fee from buyers who want to avoid haggling, the idea of an independent car concierge working directly with buyers and getting paid by dealers isn't widely viewed as an established model. (...)
Skeptics may wonder how a car concierge can be trusted, that he must be getting big money from someone or inflating prices. But what he does is work now with a network of dealers so he can find the best price and offer options.
“I’m not a broker,” Carroll said. “I don’t even use that word. I don’t know that I have a title. But I’ve learned that if you take a little piece of the pie every time, the pieces will add up to a whole pie. A lot of people try to make a house payment on one deal. I want to be everybody’s ‘my guy.' If you have an accident. If you have a body shop issue? I take care of things. If you take care of one person, it turns into 10. If you do one person bad, it turns into 100.”
by Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press | Read more:
Image: Carroll family
[ed. See also: Brand Experience Centers, At-Home Maintenance, Service Pick-up and Drop-off: These are the Modern Automotive Dreams, New Research Shows (Cox Automotive).]
A year ago, he was dumped, very simply, because his boss needed to trim costs. No warning. No dip in performance. Just a handshake goodbye on that Monday morning in late January because the car dealership that employed him for eight years needed to save money.
“The owner came up to me and said, ‘I’ve been thinking, why should I pay you when I can do what you do?’ And he let me go,” said Carroll, 51, of Macomb Township. “I was driving home, crying my eyes out, to tell you the truth. I thought, ‘What are you going to do? How are you going to make it?’ ”
He called his wife on his way home.
“It was shocking and overwhelming and upsetting,” Angela Carroll said. “He was very good at his job. We thought we were very stable. I didn’t want him to know how freaked out I was. It makes you sick to your stomach. He had health insurance, a salary, things set in place for the future. I’d been a stay-at-home mom with three boys. I was so scared.”Carroll loved selling cars. He had worked for dealerships in Detroit, Eastpointe, Clinton Township and Troy. And now he was out in the cold. Literally.
Then a guy called wanting a car. Carroll said he didn’t work at the dealership anymore. And the buyer said he didn’t care. Carroll decided then he would go solo. Not as the usual car “broker,” who tends to charge a direct fee to shoppers, but as a car “concierge” who planned to charge customers $0. He would work on commission.
After all, he figured, fewer people have time to go to dealerships and people like the idea of enhanced personal service. He would ride a trend of changing consumer expectations in the automotive industry, not by choice but by necessity. All by word of mouth. (...)
Just 367 days after losing his job, Carroll is selling 30 to 35 cars a month and even as many as 52. He has transformed the car-buying experience for customers in Michigan, New York, Florida and Wyoming.
Andrew Behe, 38, of Oxford wrote an online customer review that praised Carroll as an immediate gratification "Amazon Prime" experience for car shoppers.
Behe explained, “I have four kids, run three different companies and nobody has time to go to dealerships and spend the whole evening there on multiple days. I told him what I wanted and he brought it to me. He came to my house, picked up my car — a Lincoln Navigator — then drove my new car to my office. I wanted a 2019 GMC Yukon. He picked up the old car and drove over the new car the same exact day." (...)
"The auto industry from top to bottom is being disrupted, and the dealership experience is no different," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader, an online car shopping site. "We tested concepts on 2,000 consumers about how to improve the car buying and servicing experience. When people purchase a vehicle, they want it delivered to them at any location at any time, home or office, and if they have a trade-in, they want it picked up. They basically don't want to go to the dealership for certain parts of the buying transaction."
For now, options to visiting the dealership are limited, she said.
Carvana provides the ability for buying used cars at a kiosk or online and the vehicles are dropped off at people'shouses. There are some dealers offering pickup and delivery options, Krebs said. While car brokers often charge a modest flat fee from buyers who want to avoid haggling, the idea of an independent car concierge working directly with buyers and getting paid by dealers isn't widely viewed as an established model. (...)
Skeptics may wonder how a car concierge can be trusted, that he must be getting big money from someone or inflating prices. But what he does is work now with a network of dealers so he can find the best price and offer options.
“I’m not a broker,” Carroll said. “I don’t even use that word. I don’t know that I have a title. But I’ve learned that if you take a little piece of the pie every time, the pieces will add up to a whole pie. A lot of people try to make a house payment on one deal. I want to be everybody’s ‘my guy.' If you have an accident. If you have a body shop issue? I take care of things. If you take care of one person, it turns into 10. If you do one person bad, it turns into 100.”
by Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press | Read more:
Image: Carroll family
[ed. See also: Brand Experience Centers, At-Home Maintenance, Service Pick-up and Drop-off: These are the Modern Automotive Dreams, New Research Shows (Cox Automotive).]
