Are We Relying Too Much On Technology?
So we’re in the computer age, but is it really smart to expect customers who buy on emotions, to interface with machines and computers in order to do business with us?
Are we really better off as a company, as a profit making dealership after we have trained our customers in every advertising venue we have to go to the computer for any information they might need?
There are many areas where technology has taken over, and in the endeavor to mention just a few of them without offending computer lovers everywhere, I will try to make this as painless as possible.
1. On the telephone….
Do we really want a potential buyer to call the dealership and get,
“Welcome to Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Auto World, please note that our menu has changed: for new car sales press 1; for used car sales press 2; for finance press 3; for service press 4; I’m sorry, zero is not a valid option; for new car sales press 1; for used car sales press 2; I’m sorry, 9 is not a valid option; for new car sales press 1” I’m sorry, that statement is not a valid entry”…..Is this what we want potential buyers to go through when they call our dealership?
Sure it is the latest technology, and of course the telephone company sold it to you for a nice chunk of change. By the way, have you ever received good, courteous service from your telephone company? What would they know about how to treat your customers?
Of course they’re going to tell you that it saves time and money. Of course they will tell you that everyone is using it. But what they are not going to tell you is that your potential buyers who are absolutely fed up with that sort of technological nonsense are, in Chris Farley’s words, going, c-l-i-c-k.
Buyers are people who have relied for centuries on other people. The more we force them to listen to machines, the wider the gap between our dealership and their inclination to buy.
They want to talk to a person. They may be tired, busy, nervous, and in a hurry to talk to someone. They do not want to listen to a menu that sounded clear and neat to some computer geek who wouldn’t know a sale from a pre-Columbian Aztec artifact. Our business is about sales. Sales is about communication, and real communication is about people.
Do you really want to trust the profits and future of your dealership to someone whose given business is “telecommunications,” when you can’t even reach them by phone?
Solution: Have a real person answer the phone. Better yet, get a real person with people skills. Teach them about the different personalities. Teach them selling skills. Teach them how to not offend that multitude of people who call your dealership. Teach them that the telephone is your lifeline to business in the real world. And stop giving them paperwork to do so that when the phone rings, it is an interruption. The people on the phone deal with 100% of your telephone business. They should receive as much training as anyone in the dealership, and they should be paid an amount equal to their value.
2. About advertising….
Fifteen years ago, I was going around telling dealers that if they put their entire inventory in the newspaper, customers wouldn’t have to visit the dealership. They could just check the paper until they found the vehicle they wanted. Dealers laughed, and said that the paper had worked so well for years that their customers had come to expect the weekly ad. Besides, customers brought the ad to the showroom, and of course dealers didn’t want to upset management at the paper and blah, blah, blah. So, when ups started dropping off, they just knew that it had to be for some other reason.
So now what do we do? We still advertise, and, in every advertisement, we direct everyone to the internet. If we can’t put 100% of our inventory in the paper, TV spot, or radio, we make the website the focus of the ad. So what do customers do? They check the website, search for the car of their dreams, and --- they don’t need to visit the dealership. And the same newspaper which still expects a big check from you every month is telling their readers that all they have to do to shop for a vehicle is check dallascars.com, chicagocars.com, limacars.com, miamicars.com, longbeachcars.com, and on and on.
Meanwhile, the advertising genius down at your local paper who is making less per month than your new salespeople sold you on that concept, you bought it, and now……..all you have to do is explain to your managers and salespeople why ups are so slow and inconsistent.
Perhaps an over-dependence on technology is the reason that all across the country, ups are down? Nah, that couldn’t be it, must be something else.
Solution: Stop advertising. Let your advertising be the way you operate your dealership, and the way you deal with people. It is cheaper, it is real world, and your people will have to work twice as hard, learn twice as much, and be kinder and gentler with your customers. You can do eet.
3. About sales….
What do we really want from technology here? We do seem to have a choice, and this is what it breaks down to:
we can have people who can sell, but who don’t like the computer; or - - we can have people who are good at the computer, but who can’t sell.
Dealer’s choice… which do you want? Because we seem to be having a problem across the country, in little towns and big cities, and the problems are the same. Some computer geek convinces a manager that a computer program can track sales and calls and follow up and prospecting, and customer birthdays, and lease expirations, and leads and what’s between the toes of the Komodo dragon, --- my question is --- but can the computer sell anything?
If I hear a manager say “contact management” one more time, I think I’ll lose my sushi. Isn’t sales and calls and follow up calls and customer birthdays and lease expirations and prospecting what every successful salesperson did before the computer?
I have heard dealers say, “If my salespeople don’t do the computer work, I’ll fire them and find people who will.”
N-i-c-e, and so very profound. So what you end up with then is that good salespeople quit, and we get people who can run the internet and enter all the data, but who have to give stuff away in order to get a sale. H-e-l-l-o….$300 over invoice is not selling, it is computer clerking, and it is not helping anyone. It is ruining grosses for the dealership, it is simply destroying salespeople, and it is teaching buyers that they can get something for nothing. The only one making out is: you guessed it - - - the computer company.
I’ll say this as nicely as I can, the computer industry is now doing to the car business what the advertising business has been doing to the car business for the last 40 years: they are taking the cash cream off the top, and forcing the profit out of front end sales.
Solution: Make the computer your servant, not your master.
The number one problem at every dealership and with almost every salesperson is sales and grosses. Make it a rule that the internet people must follow the same guidelines for a sale as the salespeople on the showroom floor. Make teamwork between the showroom and the internet something positive and cohesive. Sales is sales is sales, and everyone needs to make a profit to stay in business.
Like George Carlin says, “I sense that I have gone too far.” I am not against computers, but I do know that people buy from people, from people they like, from people they trust, and I have yet to see any computer program that customers like and trust.
John Brentlinger
Author of The Little Blue Book of Selling