As long as I’ve lived, I cannot recall a time in my life when I walked into a retail location of any type, looked around, and said to myself, “I really hope this takes longer than it should”. Never have I thought, “I’d really like one of the employees of this store to talk to me and slow this process down”. Nor has “How long can I drag this purchase on for?” ever crossed my mind. Yet, the old adage in automotive of “shoppers come to us excited – you need to slow ‘em down” is crazy to me. Like the classic maxim says, “time kills all deals”. Today I’m speaking about downtime. Downtime kills sales.
Process improvement is what I pride myself on. What is the most streamlined way to get from customer engagement to purchase to re-purchase, with as much work as necessary, but not as much work as possible? That should be the goal. Not to skip steps, but to speed up the elements so no downtime exists. There are activities to be completed during every transaction that improve close rate (or the profit margin) and those cannot be overlooked.
What can be rethought are all the times we spend both away from our customers.
Away from our Customers:
- Going outside to get the VIN off of their trade? The customer should be out there with them as part of a trade walk/silent walkaround.
- Leaving their side to hang out at the desk while numbers are being worked? Salespeople aren’t needed there.
- Taking the vehicle to get gassed or to the detail bay. Is that a salesperson task or might a porter be able to handle it?
Salespeople are needed by the customer’s side for the duration of their time in store, completing tasks or answering questions that will save time at the end. If this is meant to be a “people business” and one where relationships sell cars, then the more time you have the salesperson in front of the customer, the better the purchase experience. Hopefully that time is spent educating the shopper about the vehicle or accomplishing other tasks that are part of the purchase. Either way, don’t leave the customer alone figuring out how to spend their downtime.
Every time you leave a customer’s side, they’re on their phone. You can’t trust they’ll be on TikTok, or reading your amazing reviews. You must assume they’re shopping you. Expect them to be on a competitor’s website. Why leave them to their own devices (word “devices” used purposefully). If you take away all the silence that comes with empty minutes of downtime in a showroom floor, all of the second-guessing is put to bed, because they simple don’t have the time to dwell. No time to overthink. Wishy-washy on the vehicle, uncertainty about the budget, trepidatious on the interest rate – your salesperson is there to thwart those concerns, or to overcome them entirely.
Make every moment you spend with the customer useful. Not useful only for you, but for the sale. I frequently see salespeople sitting with their customers waiting for finance, both their customers on their phone, as are the salespeople! Not conversing. Not “shooting the breeze” in hopes of making a “friend” (word used loosely), but letting the clock tick away in dreadful downtime.
Identify those times when you feel a salesperson is required to leave the customer’s side, and then figure out…
- Where might multiple team members’ involvement speed up the transaction?
- Do we need the salesperson to step away from them?
- How do we eliminate that separation?
Once you find a way to do that, you’ll find the customer experience improves, and the overall purchase process flows faster. Speed and engagement are where sales are won, and downtime is where sales are lost. It comes down to how well you manage the time you have to make an impression on each and every shopper – and making the most of that time. Uptime. Not downtime.
