Battling Statistics: Making Your Dealership Stand Out

Battling Statistics: Making Your Dealership Stand Out

At some point in your middle/high-school years, you probably heard the phrase, “don’t be a statistic” blurted out at the end of some horror-inducing presentation on drugs, STDs, or the dangers of texting while driving. Statistics like “65 percent of all incarcerated citizens never received a high school diploma” are intended to motivate otherwise lazy students to study harder for the next test.

If your world is car sales, especially if you own or manage a dealership, what statistics motivate you? Are you informed on the dealership next-door to you? What about the one in the next town over? If your dealership is focused on value-based selling, it should be acutely aware of the market at large. Here are a few of these statistics, compiled from Nada and the Joe Verde Group, and how you can be actively working to either exploit the statistic or fight it.

Statistics to exploit:

78% of customers who visit your showroom will buy a vehicle somewhere.

The only question to ask here is, “why not here?” Sure, they could have found a vehicle that better suits their needs at another dealership, but there’s a reason they walked into your business. Proper value-based selling and adequate product knowledge should be more than enough to make sure the customer doesn’t take their money somewhere else. 

30% of customers have a family member who will purchase a vehicle in the next 90 days.

Are your salespeople focused so much on the sale at hand that they forget about the connections their customer has? Getting to know the customer as a mom, dad, military serviceman, stamp collector, etc. goes a long way in setting up your next sale. A person known is a person valued, and that value will be remembered when their family member asks where they bought their latest car. 

85% of customers made up their mind to purchase a vehicle before they left their house.

In today’s internet-empowered world, this should hardly be a surprise. Pressuring the customer with closing techniques typically utilized 15 years ago will have an adverse effect, possibly making the customer rethink their decision. Instead of the classic “Ben Franklin” close, where a pros and cons list of buying the car is put together with the customer, know that the individual has probably been watching the car’s price drop online for the past month, and have already thought long and hard about this decision. Instead, focus more on the numbers, and get to know their bottom line, so that today is the best day to buy that car. 

Statistics to fight:

90% of salespeople do not do any follow-up whether the customer purchases or not.

Customers tend to hate harassing phone calls, but in this competitive industry, building value in your dealership has to come from the ground up. If 82% of customers cannot remember the sales person’s name one year after purchase, that’s a bad thing. One dealership has every sales person send a personalized happy birthday card to every former customer. However, the simple occasional phone call or email checking up on how the vehicle is performing would also be above and beyond the typical. 

88% of customers said they received a lousy presentation and demonstration.
A salesperson quickly loses the respect of the customer when they have to ask the manager about every question posed. The salesperson should be able to answer the majority of questions and objections, as well as present a clean and aesthetically pleasing product. Also, a factor of the car-buying process often overlooked is the ability to do math on the fly. In addition, improper spelling or grammar can quickly turn a customer off from the whole process, as the salesperson quickly loses their professional image.

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