MY OLD IRON RUNS FINE”
Posted on 11/20/2025 9:42:56 AM PST by Red Badger
Sometimes, image is everything
As someone who has formerly worked in retail spaces, I learned firsthand how the setting in which a particular brand displays its products in its stores could make or break the shopping experience for both buyer and seller. This is the reason you see sales associates and other employees in clothing stores like Zara and Uniqlo meticulously and continuously adjusting displays, removing clutter, and rearranging loose clothing pieces.
While the buying experience may not be exactly apples-to-apples, much of the same sort of mindset can be applied to car dealerships. Everything from a sales associate’s introduction and the way cars are presented in a particular showroom can be the first impression of a specific brand to many new car buyers.
Furthermore, Ford knows firsthand that the dealership experience can awaken a sense of anxiety or dread in even the most eager car buyers, and has unveiled a new concept to help buyers get into new Fords.
They’re not salespeople, they’re “brand ambassadors,” says Ford
Ford is revamping the way buyers visit the dealership, as it has recently introduced what it calls “Ford Signature 2.0,” a new, unified global retail experience developed in collaboration with Ford dealers worldwide to enhance the purchasing and servicing experience for buyers. The automaker says that its new approach has been developed on “years of learnings and pairing behavioral science with human-centered design to foster lasting relationships,” and is meant to offer seamless options to ensure that each and every buyer’s Ford experience is painless, whether they buy in-person or online.
As part of the Ford Signature 2.0 experience, dealerships are tasked with creating spaces that establish “trust and community” between the dealership and the community at large, as dealership staff globally will be trained on guest experiences that prioritize service, communication, and anticipating customer needs.
Ford is focusing on some core principles in its newest endeavor. Dealers will be focused on providing a “hospitality first” experience, where dealership staff aren’t salespeople, but “brand ambassadors,” where food and beverages are available in showrooms and service areas, and where sales and service talks can be done in less hostile “dedicated hospitality spaces.”
In addition, the Blue Oval says that its redesigned dealers will provide customers with “immersive brand experiences” that enable more familiarity between buyers and the cars they want to buy, allowing them to “see, touch, and learn about products, accessories, and technology.”
Ford hasn’t gone into specifics on how it designed its dealerships, stating that the redesigns are meant to “optimize flow and functionality and enhance the experience for guests.” From the pictures that Ford released, it seems to envision dealerships that look more like an Apple store, where walled cubicles are replaced by common areas with big tables, and an emphasis on customers, with some interesting arrangements displaying certain vehicles in their environments.
As for the service side, convenience is the game that Ford is aiming for. For customers who do not want to potentially spend hours on end waiting for their cars to get serviced, Ford is offering its Pickup & Delivery service to allow dealerships to pick up customer vehicles for service and return them to customers at their convenience when service is done.
In addition, for select routine services, Ford Mobile Service dispatches certified technicians to service customer vehicles at a preferred location, including their home or workplace. They state that through the third quarter, Ford has offered 3.8 million remote experiences around the world, including Pickup & Delivery and Mobile Service.
Ford isn’t the only automaker embracing change
Ford isn’t the only automaker that is hard at work revamping its dealerships into experiential gathering places. Subaru of America announced the first full redesign of its retailer network, a bold, new immersive redesign of its facilities intended to transform the dealership experience.
Dubbed the Subaru Connection Hub, it aims to go beyond selling cars, focusing instead on creating a deeper sense of brand immersion that speaks to long-time loyalists while also attracting a new generation of first-time buyers. Subaru is banking on interactive product displays, digital configurators, and customer-focused lounge areas to make dealerships feel less like a traditional dealer and more like a Subaru community hub.
Final thoughts
It’s a good thing that automakers are responding to customer concerns about the dealership experience, because, truthfully, buying a car is not a pleasant experience for everyone. Buying a car at a dealership is a fearful experience that many people dread. Unless you are buying from an automaker that does direct-to-customer sales like Tesla, Lucid, or Rivian, car buying is a complicated, deceiving ordeal that involves mind games and a lot of willpower. It’s no wonder that digital partners like Amazon are seeing car sales as an opportunity.
But as a bona fide car enthusiast, I feel seeing cars up close is an essential part of car buying. Although you can buy clothes and return them to retail stores, I think these kinds of “additional touch-and-feel” retail experiences are needed going forward, especially given that cars are considered a major purchase for many Americans.
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Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
I do the car deals in our family.
I don’t give a rat’s patootie about any of the above BS.
I want to get the vehicle I want at a decent price, and I always do.
And I want to make sure the people working at the service department know their stuff and that repair pricing is honest and transparent.
And that is ALL I care about.
Note to Ford: At the moment there is not a car in your lineup that I would buy.
So I won’t be setting foot in one of dealerships any time soon.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
THERE IS NOT A SINGLE VEHICLE OUT THERE TODAY THAT I WOULD BUY-—NOT EVEN IF I HIT THE LOTTERY.
MY OLD IRON RUNS FINE
How to really make it easier.
1. Fixed price sale at a reasonable MSRP like Saturn did. No negotiation, but the price is reasonable without the markup to give negotiating room.
2. Make the Finance and Insurance guys dig their own graves and the shoot them.
Apparently our local Ford dealership sells only two things, Pick-ups and Mustangs. Nothing else is even on the lot............
“brand ambassadors”
“collaboration”
“dedicated hospitality spaces”
I see Ford hired a bunch of MBA’s.
A better approach would be to build dependable cars the customer wants, not DC.
Nothing about keeping salesmen from lying like rugs or building cars that don’t fall apart. I guess I will stick with used Toyotas and Subarus.
Hard to believe, but GM and Stellantis are even worse than Ford. They never learn.
Cut to the chase: free beer.
They’ll do anything but build basic, affordable, good cars.
How’s that EV effort going? Hahahaha.
Last stats I saw had most US sales still off the lot rather than made to order.
So it makes sense auto manufacturers would stuff the lots with high margin vehicles.
I’ll drive a very long way, if I have to, for a deal on a car.
There is no way I will ever consider spending five figures on a hole in the road I throw money in to be painless.
And I will never spend a bleep load of money of features I don’t want and will never use.
And that, Subaru, includes your bleeping sun/moonroof that’s obligatory on everything other than your base trim.
I will never buy a car with a hole in the roof, and that was true BEFORE we were in a rollover.
THIS! Buils a 30K, non-compputerized small pickup or sedan, and I’m a buyer. I don’t want a bus sized suv, EV, or 100K F150.
“THERE IS NOT A SINGLE VEHICLE OUT THERE TODAY THAT I WOULD BUY-—NOT EVEN IF I HIT THE LOTTERY.
MY OLD IRON RUNS FINE”
What is your old iron. I think you said so in the past?
btt
It reads like they didn’t even ask a single customer about making the experience better, they just made some stuff up.
We used to go to a Lexus in Texas that had made-to-order sandwiches.
The Lexus here has canned and bottled drinks, a professional expresso machine, snacks from Costco and several types of fruit.
“Buils a 30K, non-compputerized small pickup or sedan, and I’m a buyer. “
You can get a Ford Ranger for 30k.
Honda Civic, According and many others.
Everything is computerized, now.
.
MY OLD IRON RUNS FINE”
Takes writing like 10 e-mails, saved me thousands.
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