Every person who visits your dealership, whether they come into the showroom or into the service drive, is a potential sale. In this day and age, every opportunity should be taken advantage of when the chance is presented — especially when customers come up into the service drive. These opportunities are not the main focus of salespeople on the dealership floor, but they definitely deserve some attention and time.
Selling in the service drive is no easy task, but it’s by no means impossible. There is a lot to gain by pushing your sales staff to put their sales techniques to good use and sell to service customers. To ensure that your time and effort is not wasted trying to sell in the service drive, here are a few things that can be done in order to make it worth your while:
- Leverage Your Data — You have to find the right customer who is in the perfect equity position to upgrade to a new vehicle. Once the service appointment is set, look at the customer’s history and their equity and see if the time is right to draw them towards a new car. Providing them with a loaner while their car is getting serviced is a great way to help transition them from the service drive into sales. Prepare some offers for the customer, and once the car is returned and they say they love it, provide them with the offers to purchase the vehicle with no money out of pocket. Thanks to your data, you already knew the customer’s situation before they arrived and were able to draft offers that fit their particular situation.
- Appraise Each Vehicle — For every vehicle that comes through your service drive, perform an appraisal. Once a value for the car is determined, let the customer know. Also, let them know that they have no obligation once the appraisal is presented to them. If this is presented to the customer in the correct manner, it adds value to the interaction. Instead of going to auctions to purchase used vehicles for your showroom, let the used vehicles come to you. Make an appraisal, present it, and then make an offer — all right out of the service drive.
- Have a Smooth Transition — Having a dedicated person and/or team is a great way to help ensure that the first two points — leveraging data and appraising vehicles — are accomplished. This way, their main focus is on these specific types of customers and are able to dedicate all their time to transitioning them from the service drive into the showroom. Have their office located right in between the service drive and the showroom, making it a smooth path from one department right into the next.
Many opportunities are often missed due to lack of forethought or preparation. Having a strong strategy that uses your data to pinpoint the right customers, appraises vehicles to prepare an offer and then transitions them from service to sales is a great way to take your dealership to the next level. All the tools you need are already there — all you have to do is put them to good use.
