Re: Is Audi listening...yeah right (Bucksnort comments)

[Alex Kowalski (audial@aol.com) (Alex Kowalski) <akowalsk@wppost.depaul.edu>]

Marty Liggins wrote:
>Audi is sales and service.  OK, let's say there are 2000 members of
>this list and all of us buy a new car every year.  Audi MIGHT then pay
>a bit of attention to us, because then we would represent about 2% of
>what they need to do a year in volume.

You don't necessarily need all X listers to buy new Audis to have the
people on the List make a perceptible impact on Audi sales and the
perception of the brand.

I've never purchased a new Audi, but I have impressed many would-be
auto buyers with my cars and done a pretty good job of getting them to
at least consider Audi when they might not have done so, by doing
things like debunking the U.A. myth and demonstrating some of the car's
advanced thinking.  Before my accident, many of the people I showed
my car to (including several relatively affluent folks in the market for a
new car, two considering Volvos because that's all they ever had)
couldn't believe it was a 1986 anything.  

I can make a reasonable guess that out of the few hundred people I've
had conversations with about my Audis over the last eight years that at
least a few percent subequently wound up in an Audi dealership to take
a look, because many of those conversations were with people in the
market for a new car.  

This isn't to toot my own horn, but to higlight the fact that this List helps
keep a lot of older Audis on the road and in good shape, in the public
view, and  in the hands of owners who aren't afraid to speak out in
favor of owning an Audi.  Like a living, breathing advertisement,
sometimes.  

That's more than any of the dealerships I've been in, so far (Audi or
otherwise), have ever done for me.  If some of the aforementioned
people actually did show up at a local dealership, all I can do is hope
that they had a good experience -- that's Audi's job...

OTOH, I've also met people who seem to feel "burned" by Audi who are
still driving their cars, both embittered and apparently unwilling to do
anything about it except complain publicly.  Happened the other day
when I walked into a convenience store -- a guy had parked his 200TQ
Wagon in front of a crosswalk to dip into the store and someone asked,
"is that your Audi?" and he shot back "yeah, and I'm paying for the damn
thing every day".  I tried to strike up a conversation with him while we
were waiting in line to tell him about the List and he dismissed me, kinda
gruffly, saying "I'm not interested in anything like that".  Sorry for trying
to help!  Oh well, maybe he felt he'd been burned so bad that he wanted
to just wash his hands of it, or who _knows_ what...but I got the feeling
he wasn't going to be saying anything good about Audi any time soon. 
Too bad for Audi.

If they're not listening, they should be.  

Best Wishes,
Alex