"I'll Meet You at 2 AM...."

I keep seeing this ad on the local Dallas-area cable system, for Lewis Chevrolet in a small town, Canton TX. It's a folksy car dealer ad, not shouting like most car ads. The ad features a guy who must be the owner, he's at least 80 years old, it appears, and has probably had the dealership forever.

What jumps out is his statement, "I'll meet you here at 2 in the morning if I know you're coming."

Now, THAT is customer-focused. I wonder if anyone ever takes him up on that offer? I'm not commenting on it as a "lean" issue, other than it's great to see someone so customer focused, I guess I will call that "lean."

You want to buy a car on your schedule?? How rude.

By comparison, I remember growing up in Detroit, where the auto dealers conspired in the 1980's to not stay open evenings or weekends, when most people might want to buy a car, but it was inconvenient for the dealers' employees, I suppose. This was later ruled to be an illegal restraint of trade.

So, we wonder why the American automakers are in trouble... it's not just lack of customer focus on the product side, the dealers, other than bend-over-backward small-town Texas dealers, didn't necessarily do them any favors either.