No time for a test drive? Bring it to your door.
We're all pressed for time.
Ironically, the many innovations that should've helped us save time -- from washing machines to email to smartphones -- have simply given us more time to be busy with other stuff. "Oh, great, my Roomba can vacuum my house! I think I'll start a blog about fishing." And so it goes.
In the business world, the time crunch has made customer service a battleground where the hearts and minds of consumers are won. The company that resolves our issue the fastest earns our undying loyalty. (Until the next crisis rolls around, anyway.)
On the auto front, this has forced dealerships to spend a lot and anticipate their every need. 聽Heck, Chevrolet even to grab a few pointers.聽
has taken customer service one step further. If you're shopping for a new ride, Tred will deliver a vehicle right to your house for a test drive -- and not one of those dinky "once around the block" drives, either, but a true, 15-mile outing. And that's all for the reasonable price of $19. If you want to compare two cars side-by-side, Tred can make that happen, too.聽
Even better, if you have a car of your own, you can swap overnight. The Tred employee will take your car back to the dealership to evaluate its trade-in value. The only stipulation is that you can't put more than 30 miles on the vehicle, and you have to return it to the dealership within 24 hours.
No matter which of those paths you take, the Tred staffer arrives at your home with paperwork on the new vehicle, including some very competitive pricing. According to , CEO Grant Feek thinks Tred will be particularly attractive to those with aversions to showrooms and salespeople. That could mean shoppers who feel less-than-confident about their car knowledge or those who simply don't enjoy haggling.聽
For now, Tred is only available in the Seattle area, but , the company hopes to expand operations very, very soon. Considering that Feek has already raised some $1.7 million in start-up funds from folks like聽General Motors聽CEO Rick Wagoner, we wouldn't be at all surprised.聽
