Fontain experience yesterday?

[david7m]

I had the same problem with Audi, had to leave a £500 deposit before they would let me out in an S3. Turned out it had been involved in a crash (asking £22k) and when I pointed this out, he struggled his shoulders and made out I couldn't afford it. This was Wolverhampton Audi.

Sounds like Fontain are a waste of space! Makes me wonder how on earth these type of garages survive! I know this is not the only Audi website in the UK, but I doubt it is only our experiences that have been poor.....

Dave

[GrahamS4]

They survice as they have as many Audis under one roof as you are likely to find anywhere, especially a non Audi dealer and I don't think they are any worse than a typical car sales garage. I have a fairly low opinion of a typical car sales garage however.

[lemond]

There was once a Playtime Fontain (Fontayne) in the Viz!.... Do I win a prize?

Dippy what kind of discount was the imported car when you bought it 10-15%?

Paul

[Marcus@Fontain]

Hi everyone,

I know a couple of you have suggested I come on so you can hear Fontains side of the story but it is difficult because I’m in danger of making us just look defensive. I can’t comment on all the individual cases, we have after all been specialising in selling Audi for over 12 years now with many thousands of Audis sold and I guess some of the experiences date back a bit. Alps Comment for instance mentions a servicing agent to the rear of us which would have been over two years ago at our old site in Langley Park Road. The company referred to was never part of Fontain although we do now have our own integrated service department at our new site in the High Street.

I can only really try to answer Carpy’s original comments which I do find rather disturbing. At the time of your enquiry Carpy, we would have had 2 B5 Avants in stock, although the Nogaro blue example might well have been sold at that point. Therefore it is almost impossible to think that one of my sales team would have said we never get them. Our small Sales team is mature and very experienced with the brand, they pride themselves in good customer service and in my experience receive generally excellent customer feedback. However, I’m not about to say everyone is wrong here on the forum, we aren’t perfect, it’s quite possible that on extremely busy days and when we are short staffed, customer service might slip but that is certainly something every one at Fontain tries to avoid. I know for example that our service department has expanded hugely over the last two years; there have definitely been times when customers have not been rung back quickly enough although with the expansion of our support staff, that problem has largely gone away. However, as regards Carpy’s Comments, why would someone say we never stock B5’s when we have two on our website? Just doesn’t make sense.
Of course I’m not saying it didn’t happen but can I ask a couple of questions Carpy?
1. Do you remember the person’s name you spoke to?
2. Did you get our telephone number from our website or search engine?
3. When you rang which option did you press?
4. Did you see the B5’s we had on our website and enquire about them?
5. Do you know you definitely rang Fontain?
The reason for asking is I wonder whether it is possible you accidentally rang one of our competitors? There is one based at our old site just down the road in Iver, they don’t seem to get any Audi S models but they sell a lot of TT’s. Just a thought


Just one other general point on test drives. We do offer them although sometimes with the rarer models such as S and RS we do need to be careful. Quite a few we sell are unique, for instance the Nogaro B5 Avant sold a couple of weeks ago was a genuine immaculate original one owner 40,000 mile example. As you can imagine, we get quite a lot of people who would like to drive a car like that with no intention of buying. A car in the sort of condition of that one is kept in our showroom and potential customers qualified before a test drive which is usually the last thing before purchase. We cannot be compared to test driving new cars at Main dealers who have a pool of cars specifically registered for customers to drive. We are at the specialist end of the market; most of ours cars are unique.
I hope that helps guys, like I said don’t want to sound defensive, just want you all to know we take customer satisfaction very seriously.

[GrahamS4]

40K miles? Galactic!

I don't think you can say fairer than coming on and giving your side of the story.

I'd like to say have more sales staff on on a Saturday, but the reality is I imagine that is near impossible to happen.

[Jarv]

Fair play for sticking your head above the parapet. I always think a response like that would look better of it was signed off by the individual writing it, but that's a minor point.

I certainly believe that the owners of Fontain have got more to lose by their business providing poor customer service than anyone on this forum or members of the public. They will react by looking elsewhere. So, I hope for your sakes that you take all this negative feedback on board and improve your customer service, which includes calling people back when they leave a message. Simple.

[lemond]

This type of feedback is bloody useful especially for the ones it is directed at! I've always worked on the basis that criticism should be taken as a lesson. Praise does not matter.....in some cases it is too easily given or shallow....The person (in whatever walk of life) who can build on criticism is a winner.....others are just mardy bums..and if you dont agree I'm going to log off so there! ner ner ne ner ner!

[Alps]

Thanks for the reply FontainRS. Like I said on my posting, I wasn't sure if the garage was part of Fontain, so I tried to make that clear so apologies if I wasnt

I guess all these comments from us Audi Nuts can only help to rectify any problems that may exist, and can prove useful for both business and client.

[Marcus@Fontain]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

If ever you do make contact with Fontain in future and dont feel you are getting the service you had hoped for, don't hesitate to contact me directly, I would like to hear from you.

Oh yes sorry Jarv, my name's Marcus Robinson by the way.

[derdle]

Many years ago they seemed quite enthusiastic about doing a Revo remap on my previous S4 (didn't have it done in the end). Ended up selling the S4 to them as I couldn't sell it privately (I didn't know about this forum at the time ... doh!).

AS for Audi dealers, the one I bought the S4 from 7 years ago was brilliant at the sales side and offered me test drives in the S4 and a comparison with an newer S3. My current dealership, though, can't be arsed to contact me for a test drive in a B7 RS4.

So carpy...why don't you post a "wanted" advert in the classifieds section and specify what you want..perhaps anotehr member has one for sale or is planning to sell in a few months time?

Hope you find your car and I'd agree with the dtiching of the Volvo.

Paul