Today's consumer coming into a dealership is unlike those from any other era we've ever known. As always there are four basic guidelines that a salesperson should follow, regardless of what training system you may have in place. The four basic guidelines are: a proper greeting, a proper qualification, a proper demonstration and a proper turnover. In today's automotive climate, however, we are experiencing a customer who is already qualified prior to their arrival at the dealership. Typically, a salesperson walks out and greets a preowned customer, welcomes them to the dealership and starts the qualifying process. Today, a vast majority of these customers are already prequalified from the Internet. The individuals coming into our stores today, being greeted by a salesperson and walked through the inventory in many, many cases know more about the product they're coming to view than the salespeople in the dealerships. We put our used vehicle department on the Internet, we talk about the product we currently have in stock on the Internet and we show pictures of our inventories on the Internet. When they come into our dealerships, they have selected an assortment of vehicles that they would like to look at. Nevertheless, within our qualifying process, our consultants are unable to extract this information because they have never taken the time to stop and think, or the sales managers have never taken the time to stop and think, that this new array of customers that we have coming in today and they are knowledgeable. On average, we have a consumer stopping in 50% of the time from a visual drive-by, 16% from repeat, 19% from referral, and approximately 8% from advertising and other. But what percentage of those, regardless of what brought them to the dealership, have prequalified themselves via the Internet? I suggest you immediately start including how to qualify these new preowned customers in your next sales meeting and/or training session.
How To Qualify The New Preowned Customer
After properly greeting and welcoming the customer into the dealership, the salesperson in the qualifying process should then ask, "Did you have the opportunity to view our product or our web site on the Internet prior to arriving at the dealership?" What this does is give our sales consultant (and sales manager when T.O. time comes), the ability to understand the knowledge base of the consumer, which in turn, helps us all make this process a lot smoother and easier for everyone concerned. I recently asked a question in a management meeting, "How many of you have your inventory listed on the Internet?" All but one or two raised their hands. "How many of you have photos?" All raised their hands. "How many of you have prices?" Again, they raised their hands. "How many of you have had a sales meeting and shown your salespeople exactly which vehicles you have online and how you have them priced?" Only one in the group raised his hand. It is very important if we are going to take the time to venture onto the information highway that we learn as much about our consumers and their shopping habits as we possibly can. Everything you hear today is "Internet, online, shopping online." Our industry is not exempt from it. We have got to stop and think. This has been one of our greatest problems in our industry; we run so fast that we don't stop and think. We have to train our people in as much depth as the individual has and have them as knowledgeable of the same product that we have online that same customer has prior to coming to the dealership.
I've been doing this now for eighteen years and have seen two generations of management and dealer changes. With the advent of the Internet, recent changes have been the most dramatic. You now have an opportunity unlike any you have ever had to capitalize on this market if your salespeople are the most knowledgeable and professional in your marketplace.