From what I've been reading, Towson Mini seems to be popular with the crowd here. For that reason, I was expecting a little more than what I encountered when my girlfriend and I went to look around there today.

We walked around the lot for about ten minutes and since no one came outside, I was wondering if the dealership was open. When we went inside, there were no less than 4 associates sitting at their desks, and no one even looked over in our direction. One of them seemed engrossed in his game of solitaire on the computer. We headed over to the "receptionist" desk... same treatment. She didn't ask if we needed any help. Mind you, there were ZERO customers in the showroom besides us.

At that point, I said "screw this" and was walking out when an associate finally came over and asked if he could help us.

I understand if they want to have a low-pressure sales atmosphere in there, but this is ridiculous! Do they not care that I may want to give them some of my money?

Maybe I'll have more luck at Tate in Annapolis.

 

the mini sales staff @ towson is extremely lowkey.
and the service staff at towson has gotten quite good reviews.

i've not seen enough reports that tate service has really improved.

 

i wuz in there today too, at around 11:30am or so the front desk girl did say hi to me but none of the sales people asked to help either i dont noe but its been my dealer of choice since day one, they are a TRUE 'mod' friendly dealer...trust me i noe
u should talk to the sales manager about ur day there most of the time things like this happen cuz people dont say anythin'

 

i bought my mini at towson. the sales men are alittle odd, they are not as amped up as you would be about the car. the whole deal worked out pretty smooth . the only complaint i have is my salesman was suposed to contact me about a blemmish in the clear coat on my hood. he never did and the blemmish is still there. i could understand if they were busy but like you guys said there is never anyone in the place. also my salesman was not at all educated about the car, i seem to know more then he did about options and stuff

 

Don't count on it.

 

Just do your research and take your test drives where you need to in order to figure out what you want. Trust me. . .there are several MINI dealerships that know how to treat a prospective customer.

I am in Virginia (Williamsburg Area) and one of the dealerships I visited yesterday, Crown MINi of Richmond is the same way . Low key to the point of being rude. Checkered Flag MINI is muck better for customer service . I finally decided to buy my Coop S through Classic MINi in OH, based on my experience w/ Mike and all of the freebies/discounts they provide.

Don't feel like you have to limit yourself to the immediate area if you want to buy a MINI. . .You might save $$ and get much better C/S in the long run

 

I agree with you about Crown. I was just in there for a test drive and got the same treatment. Some excitement would be great!

 

In my experience this is typical of most auto dealerships. I try to avoid them and have had many pleasant experiences in the used non dealer marketplace.
Sorry if this offends the dealers but there needs to be a very significant change in the way new cars are sold IMHO

 

I decided to stop at Tate in Annapolis and ended up walking out with a Hyper Blue MCS on order. The MA, Scott, was excellent. There was no pressure whatsoever, but I certainly wasn't blown off like I was at Towson.

 

I purchased my cooper-S convertible last week at TATE in Annapolis. It's a pleasure to own. I received pleasant service. Nice people.
Larry

 

I had a similar experience at Mini Of Towson when I ordered. Those Towson guys have no interest in anything but your signature on the dotted line. After I ordered, I tried contacting my MA via e-mail three times about changing options and confirming my financing, and had to elevate to get my questions answered since the MA never returned my e-mails. In fact, to this day, 4 weeks later, I still have not received an e-mail reply from that MA.
I spoke with Tate MINI recently and at least they seem to have a pulse and an interest in the customer.
Personally, i'll never do business at Towson again unless the Mini breaks down in the vicinity.

 

What makes you think that any MA even has Email, never mind reads it? I would not base a buying experience based upon email. Those MAs depend upon their ratings and anything less than a 5 is flunking for them. They take that very seriously.

I would bet whoever it was doesn't even know how to read email. I bought there and it never occurred to me to email anyone. I want to talk to a human being. You get the direct number to the MAs desk (not the general line) and just talk to him. I bet the experience would have gone much better.

Try talking to the human being next time and I bet you have a more pleasant experience. Never depend upon the Internet for something that requires a personal touch. IMO.

I might add that sales and services are two totally different departments and there is no way you can determine service experience via sales experience. Just look at the Tate threads on service.

 

[FONT=Arial]The customer service at Mini of Towson is poor. Our first visit to this dealership involved having to approach a MA about a test drive. About a week later when we decided to order a Cooper S we contacted the same MA and told him we were on our way to order a vehicle and that we would be there in approx. an hour. This was on a Monday afternoon. Our MA had a customer when we arrived and the lady at the desk told us it would be a few mins. No one else in the dealership had any customers. It took over a half an hour before our MA acknowledged us and another 20 minutes before we could speak with him. In the meantime he took the other customer on a test drive. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]So this is the rocky start…. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]We ordered the car and if it wasn’t for NAM I would have had no idea how to track it. We never received any status from our MA nor did anyone from the dealership call me when the car came in (we were on vacation during this time and the car was at the dealership for several days, no one left any messages at home, work or on my cell phone). At this point we called to confirm the car was there and what were the next steps. The MA was not available so we spoke with the manager instead. He told us to follow up with the MA on our questions regarding financing and the final figures. The long story short is no one would intelligently answer our questions without referring us to different parties within the dealership, the MA and others within the dealership would not return phone calls when they stated they would (this happened several times) and they acted as if nothing was a priority and that it didn’t matter if they ever sold the vehicle. At this point we were working directly with the manager and we needed him to fax a correct purchase order to our credit union. There was a long discussion about how it needed to include our trade, the correct taxes and tag fees. It took three tries before I was finally faxed over correctly and if I didn’t double check their figures I would have been charged $800 more for the taxes than was required. The last straw was when the manager stated we could pick up the car on Wednesday because our MA would be working. When I followed up that Wednesday morning I was told by my MA he was only working to 4 and that I should pick it up on a Thursday because it would be long process if I picked it up that night.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I did not buy my car from this dealership. I felt so strongly about how bad they handled everything I was willing to forfeit my deposit and not buy the car. The people I dealt with were rude and did not listen or care about how the customer felt. Nothing about this experience was exciting or what I expected. No one followed through- if you say you will return my phone call before you leave for the day and that doesn’t happen how does that make you feel? What about if this happens every time you call the dealership? It was truly awful.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]And about the email- if a MA has a card with their contact information including an email address why wouldn’t you use that as a means to contact that person? Some of us can’t afford to spend time on home waiting to be transferred or trying to figure out the other person’s schedule.[/FONT]

 

I just closed a deal on a new car there today, and had a pleasant experience. My calls were returned promptly EVERY time I called (at least 6 times) The MA spent a lot of time with me going over every feature on the car, and since I can be a dingbat, he had to be extra patient.

Sorry your experience was so bad, angiesm123. I'd be frustrated, too.

I also used email to ask a few questions, and the fellow did get right back to me (answered within a few hours, then went back and forth a few times)