How To Sell Cars Online or Offline (PART 6)

How To Sell Cars Online or Offline (PART 6)

TRANSCRIPT: All right. Listen, great experiences, they also make sense. That’s the second thing about all great buying experiences. Customers should see the WIIFM in every step of your process, the what’s in it for me? It should make sense to the customer. “I understand why he’s doing this. I understand why they’re doing that. I understand what’s on the iPad in front of me.” They should see the WIIFM, what’s in it for me in every step of your process. In everything they do at your dealership should make sense to the customer. Does it make sense to the customer when they arrive on your lot ready to test drive for you to take them back to step one, meet and greet, needs analysis, product selection, feature presentation. They’ve already done all those. They want to come in and get on the test drive and go.

Does it make sense to your customer to wait for 45 minutes or longer to get into F & I? Absolutely not. They’re sitting there going, “You know what? I’ve got this 40,000. I want to give it to you people but you’re making me wait. I don’t understand this.” A visit that makes sense values their time. There’s no down time. A visit that makes sense is seamless. It’s smooth. It’s continuous. Everything is in order. A visit that makes sense is transparent. That means there’s no mystery throughout. There’s no mystery at all. A visit that makes sense gives them a sense of buying, not of being sold. A visit that makes sense is even fun. “Steve, it’s a car purchase. It’s fun?” Yes. This is a huge purchase for them. It should be fun.

How do you make it fun and seamless? We do this by engaging them throughout the process. Engagement changes their clock, their concept of them, if you will. This is what makes it efficient. Keeping them engaged, keeping them doing things. Again, think about it. What takes longer? What feels like it takes longer? Watching a 30 minute TV show or sitting in a waiting room with nothing to do for 30 minutes? Clearly, the process will seem efficient if we keep them engaged.

We can keep them engaged with things like iPads that have the F & I products on them, that take them through, even if we’re not going to have them buy the F & I products with a product specialist yet, even if they’re still going to see the F & I manager, imagine your offline process that presents them the products, take them through, let’s them self-educate, let’s them self-select and see what it does to their payment before they get into F & I. I guarantee you, you’re going to see higher back-end grosses, just by implementing that little piece because it’s an engagement. It’s an efficient process. It starts to make sense to the customer.

By the way, engagement is easy if your processes keep the rep with the buyer the entire time. Engagement is easy if you have a kiosk or an iPad where the process starts versus a rep disappearing right to scan your license. Imagine I step on your lot to buy. Your sales person says, “Hey, what vehicles did you come to see today?” I say, “Well, I came to see this 2015 Civic you’ve got on Autotrader.” He says, “Great. Give me your license, sir. We’ll go scan it so we can get you out on a test drive.” He walks me to a kiosk and he scans my license. He keeps me engaged. That’s engagement. That makes it efficient.

You’re already using applications like AutoFi, where the rep consults on a purchase. That’s what makes engagement easy. Engagement’s easy if you’ll add an application like the AutoFi where the rep sits next to the customer and walks them through on the iPad and consults with them on all these purchases. Engagement is easy, by the way, and it’s easiest if you just give them the iPad themselves. Give them the iPad and help them value their trade. Give them the iPad and help them self-desk. Give them the iPad so that they can chose F & I products and select the lender. That’s engagement. That creates a buying experience that seems seamless and transparent.

“But Steve, we don’t have all this stuff yet.” Okay, listen. You don’t need the technology yet but technology helps everyone stay on the process. If you think about it, if there’s a technology piece that can walk the customer through the process, couldn’t it also walk my … Yeah, say it with me, product specialist through the process.

There are three engagement rules to remember. One, never leave them alone. That’s engagement rule number one. Even if you’re not using technology yet. Engagement rule number one, I’m never going to leave the prospect by themselves. Engagement rule number two, I’m going to make sure they participate in everything even if I means I have to turn my monitor towards them, whether it’s a sales person or whether it’s F & I, I’m going to have them participate in everything. Where possible, engagement rule number three, is I’m going to have them actually do the work.