More Car Dealers Employing Product Specialists

A relatively new job position at many car dealerships is gaining importance as vehicles become more technologically sophisticated, according to the J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index Study.

Product specialists help car buyers understand how to use various on-board technological features. The more owners know how to do that, the happier they are with the purchase, and vice versa, the customer survey says.  

The study says 24% of luxury-vehicle owners and 16% of mainstream-vehicles owners this year worked with both a salesperson and a product specialist when buying or leasing a new car. That’s up from 19% and 15%, respectively, two years ago.

Of the things they do during the vehicle delivery, product specialists:

Owners who work with both a salesperson and product specialist are overall more satisfied with the sales experience than those who work only with a salesperson (836 vs. 829, respectively, on a 1,000-point scale), the study says.

“Owners can be challenged with the complexity of today’s vehicles,” says Chris Sutton, J.D. Power’s vice president-automotive retail practice. “More dealerships are employing product specialists, and more brands, especially the luxury brands, are requiring that the dealers have them.”

Explaining or demonstrating the technology at the time of the purchase not only increases owner awareness, but also increases the chances an owner will use the particular features, see value in them and want them in their next vehicle, he says.

J.D. Power cites an average 98-point drop in satisfaction when owners have difficult-to-use technology issues. Product specialists help minimize those issues, says the study.

Among dealers using product specialists is Quirk Ford in Quincy, MA. It hires high school students – dubbed “the Technology Team” – who spend 15 to 30 minutes giving tutorials and answering buyers’ questions during the vehicle delivery.

Customers needed more time than the salesperson would normally take to help them learn various features, Mike Quirk, the store's general manager, told WardsAuto in a previous interview.

“Customers often don’t know which questions to ask, so the students are trained to engage with them,” he says.

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