Usually, I find it rude to be interrupted. But when phone calls did just that during my interview with Mike Mooney, president of Mike Mooney Chevrolet-Cadillac Inc., I was impressed with his desire to speak with customers and work to solve their problems.

You may be saying, “Hold it right there. A desire to help customers? That doesn’t make sense. After all, car salesmen are wheeling-and-dealing, slimy people who only have a desire to empty your bank account to the very last penny if at all possible, right?”

Such is the stereotype.

But earlier this year, the 2007 TIME Magazine Quality Dealer Awards were announced, and Mooney was one of 60 out of nearly 20,000 dealers to receive this honor.

This raises questions. What constitutes a quality dealer, and why does such a negative stereotype still exist about so many of them?

For Mooney, it comes down to the dealer’s relations with his customers. He gave several examples of how his dealership meets its end of the deal.

He described an incident when a man brought in his vehicle for an oil change first thing in the morning. When the customer was informed that the maintenance was completed, about an hour had elapsed, and the customer expressed their dissatisfaction with the wait, especially since the visit was scheduled. It turned out the service department had overscheduled their morning and, in apology, they gave the customer a certificate for a free oil change at the next scheduled time of maintenance.

In another incident, a customer called requesting an order for multiple parts. Upon receiving the bill, they claimed that the price was more than what they had been told over the phone. Rather than risk a confrontation or loss of a customer, they sold the parts for what originally had been told to the customer.

“These are just common-sense practices, or practices that any business with any degree of integrity will follow,” Mooney said. “Just be as genuine as you can.”

Along with integrity, Mooney has the small-town atmosphere of DeKalb to keep him accountable.

“I sure don’t want to be walking down that grocery aisle and see someone I don’t feel comfortable saying ‘hi’ to or smiling at,” he said.

A car dealership is a business as well as a service to the community. As a business, the dealership will do what is in its best interests. Generally, this will mean doing whatever it can to keep a customer, because it’s more expensive to lose a customer than work with them fairly.

“We’re forthright as we possibly can be,” Mooney said.

To balance these aspects of business and service, Mooney said it must be understood that both buyer and seller have expectations of each other. It’s when these expectations are understood by each that you have a successful transaction.

Also important to what constitutes a quality dealer is its role in the community. Mooney’s dealership provides two vehicles to NIU and three to DeKalb High School for driver’s education, and the dealer sponsors numerous community events.

So, why is there still this negative stereotype in light of the existence of dealers such as Mooney?

As with most stereotypes, there is some truth behind them. There are dealerships out there, operated without this degree of integrity and honesty, that will try and use the customer as much as possible.

This stereotype can change. If dealers continue to work with integrity and honesty, hold themselves personally accountable for all sales and service, place the customer in high regard and be a positive influence in their community, their actions will speak for themselves.