One of five Ford dealers saying Five Hundred instead of Taurus
Ford is learning change is not always a good thing when it comes to selling cars. Ford’s dealers sold Taurus‘ for 20 years until the company ditched that name and began selling the Five Hundred. Until February, of course, when the Five Hundred became the Taurus again. At most dealerships.
Winding Road reports that CNW Marketing shopped around and found about 20-percent of Ford salespeople still trying to sell Five Hundreds instead of the revived Taurus. And another 60-percent of the sales team usually call it a Taurus, but occasionally let slip the old name.
We agree with Winding Road that Ford needs to get a handle on this. No matter how good the product, if your sales force can’t even remember the proper name, how are the buyers supposed to? Personally, when I’m shopping for a car, if I know more about the car than the the person selling it, I walk. And if they can’t get the name right, how am I supposed to believe them when they tell me the Taurus is the best car available? Come on folks, you’ve had six months to get used to Taurus rolling off the tongue, get out there and sell some cars.
If your Ford sales staff is having trouble keeping the two names straight, feel free to print our handy Field Guide to the Ford Taurus above.
[Source: Winding Road]
Related posts:
- Ruh-roh: New name hasn’t helped Ford Taurus sales The 2008 Ford Taurus isn't the running bull it once was or was intended to be -- at least, not yet. Combined sales of the 2007 Five Hundred and new 2008 Taurus -- with its new name, new engine and...
- Ford Taurus goes abroad, on sale in Korea later this month Ford is launching the Taurus in South Korea at the end of the month where it's expected to compete with locally manufactured sedans like Kia's Opirus, which we know in the U.S. as the Amanti. Korean...
- Hertz will continue to buy Fords Ford may spin off its Hertz, but the two companies have wrapped up an agreement that guarantees Hertz will buy cars from Ford until 2010. Of course, Ford has to help pay for advertising costs for...
- The Taurus reborrn! Ford may dump Five Hundred name Click on the image for a gallery of images of the Five Hundred/Taurus?Ameritech/SBC/AT&T/BellSouth spent the better part of a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars marketing the Cingular...
- Will the Ford Taurus return? Just when it seemed that we would never see the Taurus again, new Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally says that he was a big fan of the Taurus and even rented one on a recent business trip to check it...
Tags: best car, cars ford, cnw marketing, five hundred name change, FiveHundredNameChange, ford, ford dealers, ford five hundred, ford sales, ford taurus, FordFiveHundred, FordTaurus, handy field guide, road reports, sales staff, salespeople, selling cars, six months, tongue, winding road