Putnam Toyota Review By Rick N.

UPDATED REVIEW: I was contacted by Putnam's Service manager (Rad Reyes) a few days after my initial review to apologize for my negative experience at their service dept. Rad was quite polite and sincerely wanted to make things right. I was actually wondering why someone else would apologize for another person's bad behavior. In my opinion, if one of my employees made a client upset - I would have that employee call the client and apologize to win him back as a customer... *That would be a smart standard operating procedure for any business to adopt.* That way, employees would know in advance not to treat their clients poorly. I told Rad that I'd come back as a customer and give Putnam another try to be fair. I was given a rental, treated nicely and given updates by Hiram Rodriguez in a timely manner. I was also contacted by Joe the Customer Service manager to make sure everything was going smoothly. The vehicle was fixed in a few days. To be fair, I can't honestly say that I'd recommend Putnam's service department 100% at this point. I'd have to see how their future customer service is. More advice for Putnam (from a former GSM of 3 dealerships) 1) A vehicle damage check in sheet should be put in place to limit liability. 2) Have a "nice/pleasant" greeter to check in vehicles in the driveway instead of having customers try to hunt for someone to help them. Autobahn Mercedes has a greeter and it seems to work well for them. 3) Ask your sales staff to say "hello" to customers walking through the showroom instead of giving them the cold shoulder just because they're not buying a car that day. You're paying sales people a salary, so you may as well have them give your dealership a friendly face. 4) Ask your parts department staff to smile. It's free and won't cost you any extra money. Whenever I come to their counter, they act as though I'm wasting their time and I'm not sure why... 5) Ask your cashiers to smile. They're the first employees customers see as they enter the service department. Cashiers should have a perma grin as far as I'm concerned. 6) Free wifi & coffee is nice, but its also standard in 99% of dealerships. 7) Maybe shrink your sales floor and give service more room, since its where most of your revenue is at these days. Customers standing in front of your service advisors "podiums" makes it severely awkward and uncomfortable. Plus your sales floor is a ghost town most of the time. Having such a large sales area simply accentuates that. In a bad economy, the entire market shrinks and the customer base shrinks. The only real edge any business has at this point is customer service. Treat your clients as if they were the only clients you have...