Salesmanship |
Service what you don't sell well, By: Bob Zagami About the author:
Anyone can sell anything the first time, but it is the quality of your service that will sell them the next time. You have probably heard several different variations of the above sentence. Most often when talking about the value of sales people versus the after sale service and support required to satisfy all of your customer's requirements. The more I study the RV industry, the more interesting it becomes. The April issue of RV News had an excellent Letter to the Editor from the owner of an RV dealership in Illinois. The main theme of the article was that dealers should not service what they don't sell. Especially when it comes to the customer who shows up with a rig that was purchased out-of-state at one of the larger dealerships that flood the magazines with full page color ads and "800" telephone numbers. The dealer made several excellent points in his letter, but let's take another look at this problem, from the consumer perspective. As discussed in earlier articles, there are many similarities in your industry and mine. We have the same problem. We have other dealers who sell the same products that we do in New England. We sell a product line that is also sold by eight other dealers in New England. All nine dealers are not the same. One of them publishes a fancy catalog and takes orders over an "800" number (sound familiar?) We are the largest of the nine dealers, and the only one who has won the manufacturer's dealer service award for four straight years (since its inception), and none of the others have even received it once. We generate a lot of service revenue by servicing machines sold by the other dealers. We don't like losing a sale and are very aggressive in the marketplace. However, if we do lose a sale, we don't shun the customer forever or chastise them for purchasing the machine from our competitor. We just wait for an opportunity to give them the kind of service they would have received had they purchased the unit from us. Once we get that opportunity, we take full advantage of the circumstances that brought the client back to our company. If we do our job the right way, they never go back to the other dealer. When dealers lose a sale, they must be mature enough to realize that they were "outsold." For a variety of reasons, the customer chooses not to do business with your company - this time! It doesn't mean they will never do business with you; it just means that you didn't tell your story well enough or didn't justify the added cost of doing business with your dealership versus your competitor. The competitor can be across town or across the country, but you lost and they won. How do we get them the second time? We spend time talking to them about why we lost the sale in the first place. This may be something that we did not do very well the first time around. We explain that we are not going to be the cheapest guy on the block - we are going to give them quality service at a justified price. We find out what brought them back to our dealership. Was it a reference from another satisfied customer? Was it the manufacturer who explained that our service department was better than the company they brought the product from? Or was it the competitor who they did business with, when they realized that they did not have the expertise to solve the customer problem. Why would I want to turn this customer away? Why would I want to turn ANY customer away? Nobody gets every sale. If you lose the customer the first time, you have an excellent opportunity to get them back the second time. Let me give you two examples of how you handle the situation can dramatically affect your business. One is a very positive experience and unfortunately, one was a very negative experience. Let's see what happens when you do it wrong. As my company grew in the mid-80's I finally got to a point where I could afford a Cadillac. All my life I dreamed of owning a Cadillac and was like a kid in a candy store when I was out hunting for my new car. Not having a relationship with any dealer, I visited several to see what they had on their lots. I selected one from a dealer North of Boston and called my leasing company to purchase the car from the dealer. After a few trips back to the dealer, I realized that they did not provide the level of service to keep this customer happy. The vehicle required a lot of service. I tried several other dealers but was treated poorly by all of them because I had not purchased the vehicle from them. I agreed with them. I didn't buy the car from them, but if they prove to be a satisfactory dealership then I would have a reason to purchase my next car from them. As it turns out, the car was a lemon. The experience with all the Cadillac dealers was below any acceptable level. Therefore, it was my first Cadillac ... and my last Cadillac. I will never purchase another Cadillac for as long as I drive. Let's see what happens when you do it right. I purchased a converted Suburban in 1993 from a Chevy dealer West of Boston. This time I really had no choice. Dealers in the Northeast don't stock converted Suburbans. This dealer had brought it in for the 1993 Boston RV and Camping show. Once again, the service left a lot to be desired. It didn't help that the dealership never followed up on the sale of the $43,000 vehicle once I drove off their lot. Quite by accident I met a gentleman who lived in my town at the coffee shop one morning. As it turned out, he owned a Chevy dealership in the next town. We saw each other several times after that and would talk business. I mentioned my poor experiences with the other dealership and he "asked" if he could look at the truck and see if he could help me. He didn't complain because he lost the first sale. He didn't try to take advantage of me because I needed service on the vehicle. He didn't try to embarrass me because I lived in the same town but had somehow never purchased a car at his dealership. He asked for my business, and just wanted an opportunity to earn my future business. He went out of his way to make me comfortable with the dealership. The relationship started out a little rocky because there were some conversion problems that they experienced difficulty with. However, they always let me know what was going on and worked diligently at solving the problems. I finally had found a dealership that knew what "customer service" meant. Because of that experience, and the level of professionalism displayed by the entire dealership, I have purchased three vehicles from them in the last four years, and will probably make it four by the end of this year. How comfortable are we with this dealership. Very comfortable. We are willing to pay for the services rendered. Are they the cheapest dealer around? Probably not. Are they the best dealer around? I think so. They develop relationships with their customers. The customer may come to them from the sales side of the house, or the service side ... either way, they are treated the same. The objective - and we have talked about this in earlier articles - is to make each new customer, a customer for life. We don't look anywhere else for new cars now. We simply go to the lot, pick out the car we want, and tell the sales rep to write up the order. They earned the business. He earned $55,000 in business in three years by simply asking me for an opportunity to be of service to me. Think about it. Do you really want to refuse doing business with a potential prospect? Nobody owes us their business. We have to earn it everyday. I don't live in a vacuum - I know what you are up against with the larger dealers. When I travel on business I visit RV dealerships when I have spare time. There are good ones, and there are bad ones. I've been to Lazy Days in Tampa, it's a fantastic operation. If they can (and we all know they do) convince customers to fly all the way to Tampa to buy a new motorhome, then there is a lot of room for improvement in the RV industry and the way dealers handle customers. They are very successful at what they do, but they are not perfect. Why would a customer do business 1500 or 3000 miles away from home when they probably have a dealer that sells the same product within 100 miles? They do it because they are not convinced that you are the dealer they should do business with. There are no simple answers. Manufacturers are partly to blame because of the way they market their products. Dealers are partly to blame because they have not stayed competitive in the marketplace. Large dealers are partly to blame because they take advantage of market conditions. Small dealers are partly to blame because they did not reinvest in their business. If you don't get to know your customer, then you will never earn their business. You don't develop relationships overnight. You must work hard to get them in the door. Once you get them there, do you want to tell them to go away? I sure hope not. I'll service any machine a competitor has sold. Everyone in our company is trained to be on the alert for a competitive customer. We may have lost them the first time, but we will not lose them the second time ... I guarantee it. The frustration in your industry is justified, but don't let it cost you the opportunity to turn a relationship around with a prospective customer who may come back again, and again, and again. If you turn them away, they never will come back. Period. Good luck and good selling. RVN
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Bob Zagami is the National Sales Director, Engineering
In-formation Solu-tions for Image-Max; a single-source, national provider of document
management solutions. He studies the RV industry as a hobby and has owned trailers and
motorhomes. You can reach Bob at 978-461-2143 or via e-mail 