The Cox Automotive 2018 Emotional Connections Study examined the emotions and pain points that customers experience when purchasing a car. There are some positive highlights related to interactions with a well-informed salesperson, taking a test drive and taking delivery of their new car, but in between is a lengthy period of unsatisfying and frustrating activities.
Much of this trough of negative experience takes place during portions of the sales process that are crucial to your dealership’s bottom line. Therefore, it’s very important to find solutions to take the pain out of activities such as trade-in appraisal, negotiating deal terms and financing, and evaluating insurance and add-on products.
Here are some ways you can keep customer moods lifted, even during the business-heavy portions of their transaction.
Don’t let your technology bog you down
If your data and processes aren’t truly integrated, you could be wasting a lot of your customers’ time entering and reentering information that should flow smoothly from your CRM through desking, aftermarket selling, electronic contracts, titling and more.
Worse still, all that data reentry could be introducing errors, which have the potential to cause additional disruption and delays, particularly for financing and titling.
Get all deal options out in the open
The key to structuring the most profitable deal possible is having a full view of all available lender programs and vehicle choices. Dealertrack Salesmaker helps you generate the most profitable proposals and quickly structure all types of deals, including retail, lease, balloon and special finance programs.
It also lets you view more than one lender program at a time and seamlessly connect with credit application and lender decisioning. If your customer needs help choosing the vehicle that works best for their budget, Salesmaker can display the most profitable vehicles in inventory and let you do a callback to the lenders to get financing data for each vehicle in the consideration set.
Make good use of your customers’ time
If your usual sales process involves leaving your customers in a lounge twiddling their thumbs while their salesperson or F&I representative handles trade-in or financing details, it’s no wonder they get bored and frustrated. A much better activity for your buyers would be to set them up with an interactive F&I menu to introduce aftermarket add-ons.
A mobile menu lets your customers learn about all your aftermarket offerings, including their cost. This research will keep them engaged in the sales process and make them more receptive to purchasing the items that they find valuable. It will also help you finish out the deal with the bottom-line price so customers won’t feel uneasy about last-minute cost changes due to add-ons.
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