Be as Thrilled as Customers

The art of selling often is overlooked when considering the elements of a dealer's Internet success formula.

Frankly, too much time is spent on website architecture, lead sourcing, search engines, etc., and not enough time is spent on selling skills.

A balance must be achieved if your dealership intends to reach its full online sales potential. A good place to start is making sure your sales team matches the excitement of the buyer.

I think about how my whole family gets involved to simply select a DVD rental or recently how excited we all were when we were thinking about buying new cell phones.

Just imagine the conversations taking place in the home of your car-buying prospects the days and weeks before someone in the family goes online to submit a request for new vehicle information.

My guess is that, when people are in the market to buy a car, it's a big part of every dinner table conversation for weeks and there are printouts lying all around the house to reflect the hours spent researching vehicles online.

I would guess that the day the family's request gets typed in that every member of the household is anxiously awaiting the response from the dealers.

The lucky salesperson that receives the request will really benefit from imagining these scenes being played out in the homes and offices of their prospects and focusing on mirroring this excitement with his or her own brand of it.

How frustrating it must be for an excited car shopper to run into a dud dealership that responds robotically to their request.

I mystery shop dealerships each week and can count just a few times when someone has really impressed me with a quality email, voicemail or phone conversation that exudes the joy a typical customer could experience in buying a vehicle.

I am fortunate to work with some exceptional dealers. One general manager at a dealership in Wichita, KS stands out in my mind, because he is always excited about selling.

Whether he is leaving a voicemail, writing an email or talking on the phone with prospects he never forgets to let them know he is personally excited about the fact they have selected him and his dealership and that they are about to buy a new car.

You can tell from the way he interacts with the prospects that they are feeding off his joy. This truly separates him from his competition. This simple strategy is so often overlooked because so many sales people are worried about specifications, pricing, payments, objections, etc.

I have seen first-hand the magic that can happen when a salesperson is as excited about selling as the customer is about buying.

Keep in mind that you cannot fake this and make it work. You have to truly be excited and happy, and care about giving the customer a unique experience.

We see so many emails from dealers that promise a no-hassle, no-haggle and best buying process that it weakens the proposition, especially when we don't meet our own billings.

I would recommend changing your approach and instead of “saying” you are going to be the best — just simply try to really “be the best!” When you truly are the best, the customer will reward you by purchasing from you and then bragging about the experience to their friends.

Work on your own excitement level in all your customer interactions. I promise you will experience the remarkable results that come from it.

If we can ever be of assistance please let us know. Incidentally, we will cover this information and much more during our NCM Internet Bootcamp August 13 and 14 in Atlanta. Go to www.kainautomotive.com/bootcamp for more details.

David Kain is president of Kain Automotive Inc. He can be reached at [email protected] 859-533-2626.