I just got a call from my local Subaru dealer. “We notice it’s been four years since you bought your Subaru and we just wanted to check in to see how everything is going” It doesn’t take much to translate that into, “It’s a slow sales month and we’re going back through our records and calling people who might be ready to buy a new car”

This is the only time in that four years that anyone from the dealership has contacted me, other than to send oil change coupons or follow up on service visits. Their attempt to “engage with me felt spammy and one-sided, in no small part because it came out of the blue. I’m sure the strategy is “contact customers who might be ready to buy,” but in practice it becomes “contact customers every four years and start over again.”

By the time the sales process was complete, I had spent a fair amount of time with the salesperson, and we’d developed a bit of a rapport. That vanished the moment I drove off the lot. I can’t remember his name. If I wanted to buy a new car today, I wouldn’t have a clue how to find him. “Hi, I was in here four years ago and bought an Outback from a white guy, kind of young, about yay high, blue shirt. Is he around?”

The fact is, I did buy a new car about four months ago. And I test drove a Subaru. I suspect, knowing me, I probably talked about it online. If Whitey McBlueshirt had stayed connected with me, I might have bought a Subaru WRX from him instead of a VW GTI from another guy who dropped off the face of the Earth as soon as the ink was dry on the contract.

If you engage with your customers in an honest and mutually-beneficial way, they will appreciate it. If you build a relationship, there are many tools available to help you maintain it. If you repackage traditional, hackneyed, one-sided sales techniques with a veneer of “engagement,” all but the most naive will see through you.

image by s myers