1st Service Positive Experience

t2015MKC said:

I've been pleasantly pleased and surprised by my overall Lincoln experience. That goes a long way as I'm very "particular" according to my friends. hehe. I was disappointed that Lincoln doesn't offer loaner cars for routine maintenance, only for warranty work. As others have mentioned, there needs to be more stand alone dealerships to bring the Lincoln brand up to "luxury level" and separate from Ford. Overall, I feel that Lincoln is working towards Lexus level of luxury. The big difference is the stand alone dealership and when I take my car into Lexus I can get a loaner even for routine maintenance if I make an appointment ahead of time. I've gotten it down with my SA that I can be in and out in 10 minutes (car drop off, paper work, and loaner). To me that's customer service, they value my time and needs. Amazing. This is what Lincoln should strive towards.

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I think my experience (with the dealer specifically) probably would have been very different had I not had this "defective" car. It seems everyone else is very pleased. It's a stand alone Lincoln dealer. They need to separate Lincoln from ford. I initially went to a combined Lincoln/ford dealer. My initial experience was TERRIBLE. And it's not a bad ford dealer. We walked out and I almost crossed the MKC off my list because our initial attempt to get info and work with a salesperson was so bad. We stopped in the ford dealer we go to (husbands business trucks/vans and they take care of our motorhome) one evening to look at edges, platinum explorers, and the MKC I had only looked up online at this point. Was already very familiar with the ford products. We walked in and a beautiful black C was sitting on the show room floor. I wanted to see all of the lighting of course. We started looking and no one was around the Lincoln side of the dealership. The cars battery was dead so we couldn't see anything. A salesman finally came over and couldn't answer the first question I asked. He knew nothing about the car and it was so awkward we just went back over to the ford side to look at the fords. They did take my basic info though and had it not been someone at Lincoln got my number and kept texting me during my car search about coming back to test drive it. Had they not done that I might not have ever gone back but after looking at all the other cars for months I kept coming back to the C for the features, etc. if they weren't texting me I might have blown it off.

Luckily I am actually not a person who needs the "pampering" and "special treatment" of a luxury dealer but it certainly is nice. I'm probably not your typical person buying a luxury car, I am way more down to earth in so many ways but I have always loved cars and love the high end/quality. It's the one thing (besides my outdoor sports equipment )that I spend money on.

But a lot of others buying a luxury car want to be treated like someone special, part of the experience of buying/owning such a car. And they have very high expectations as well. I picture someone with that attitude walking into the ford dealer and having the experience I did when wanting to buy a Lincoln. That's just not going to work LOL. When I compare my standalone dealer to the ford/Lincoln dealer it's like night and day when you go in there. So people all across the country are getting "different" "inconsistent" Lincoln experiences and that will do nothing to solidify Lincoln as a luxury brand along the likes of MB,BMW, Audi, Lexus.

But lincolns sales aren't such to fully go independent at this point particularly in certain areas of the country so what do they do? I think having the inconsistency between the dealer set ups are not going to help but what do they do in the meantime? They have to keep selling and get them out there and their only way to do it right now is through the ford dealers. Lincoln has their work cut out for them.

Well, in a short about way....you can actually notice the separation on the FORD product line....my Mustang GT CS IS a ford product, but there are no badges to identify it as a ford.
Consistency is KEY in any business..."Customer focus" should NOT just be a catch phrase, nor the word "Quality".....companies need to learn a simple approach....."Say what you mean, mean what you say" people HATE dealership inconsistencies, and I could write a book on those...but there are a few that rise above the rest, and those are the ones that get my repeat business.
I will NEVER give my business again to the terrible company called "Weather Tech" I offered them plenty of opportunity to make things right, and they chose to look the other way.....They realize the product line they are now manufacturing is inferior to other brands, hands down....their products used to carry merit years ago...nowadays, complete crap that clearly shows sub par quality(with a high price tag to boot).
I would NEVER recommend Weather tech liners to anyone, because the quality and customer care simply is non existent !