On today’s episode of Kain & Co., David Kain discusses selling the appointment and creating an environment that your customer will be comfortable in.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:
David Kain : Hello and welcome to Kain & Co. My name is David Kain. I’m the President of Kain Automotive. And I’m proud to be here on the CBT Automotive Network, providing you some ideas to go back and help improve your digital processes at the dealership.
David Kain : One thing that really stands out to me is selling the appointment and creating the environment to where someone wants to come in. So let’s get right to it. David Kain : When it comes to creating an environment where someone wants to join us at the dealership, it’s important to imagine what it’s like from the shopper’s viewpoint. When they go back and they roll the tape in their head of their last experience, sometimes they remember it wasn’t that pleasant. Perhaps the salesperson wasn’t as knowledgeable or able to provide them the answers. Maybe they got caught on a busy day and they didn’t get the attention that they were looking for or they just didn’t enjoy the type of experience that was provided just in general at the dealership. Maybe the salesperson wasn’t kind to them or maybe pressured them too much. David Kain : So what we’ve tried to do is encourage our clients to change the movie, if you would. A lot of movies are made about the car business and none of them are particularly flattering. They’re normally a way to lampoon us and make us look [inaudible] all the stereotypes that are out there about us. And 99.9% of car dealerships and car sales people do it exactly the right way. We sell millions of cars, both new and used because we’re able to give our guests the kind of experience that they’re looking for. David Kain : Now in the digital world, a lot of people are in a position where they’re kind of hunkered down at home, at work, they’re hiding behind their computer, their tablet, their smartphone, and they just don’t want to engage with us at the dealership. So one of the things that we’ve tried to help our dealerships create is the VIP appointment concept. You hear it by everybody. Nearly all the scripts that you can look at in the industry, say, “When you come in, you’ll be treated like a VIP.” Well, there’s one reason why VIP really is used over and over again is because it immediately crystallizes in the mind of the consumer what a VIP experience is. David Kain : When we go to a ballgame, we want to have VIP seating or VIP experience. If we go on a vacation or if we go to a resort, we want to be treated like the VIPs. When we go back to our high school reunion … I’ve got my 40th coming up here real soon … we want to go as a VIP. It’s one of those things to where it just immediately connotes something in the mind of the consumer that’s really important. David Kain : There’s a couple of elements that we’re asking dealerships to utilize and bearing in mind that consumers are very visual from a mental standpoint. So we can paint a picture with words, but also with the use of video, we can go to the next level. Let me just try it with you guys. David Kain : If I’m on the phone with someone, I can say, “Ashley, thanks for considering our dealership for the next vehicle. We’re going to offer you a VIP appointment. And that VIP appointment works by just setting the time aside for you to visit the dealership and when you come in, someone is going to be there to greet you and that’s going to be me. The first thing we’ll do is go over the vehicle. I want to make sure that you see that and when we drive it, we’ll have a fun time trying out all the performance features. When you get back, first thing we’ll do is make sure you get your special VIP pricing and all the financing details so that you can make the best purchase decision. And the best part is you can take it home with you today if you decide it’s the right vehicle and the deal or we’ll just package everything up and you can go home and think about it. Does that sound like a VIP experience that would be good for you?” And cut. David Kain : We now have presented to the guest a new visual orientation to what a visit to the dealership would be like. Left to our own words where we just say, “Well, when would you like to come in?” Or, “Are you doing anything today?” Or, “You know your schedule better than I do. Would you like to make an appointment? Or let’s schedule an appointment so you can come see the car.” All of those kind of leave out the visuals and what we want to do is to just take it up a notch. David Kain : So along those lines, what we’ve tried to do is get our clients to go online. There’s a lot of places like Vista Print that can create a photo for you. In this case, you could go as simple as a VIP. If you wanted to put your dealership logo or some sort of graphic on there, feel free to create something that’s good for you. And then what’s nice is you have a folder you can … in this case if you wanted to put a mirror dangler you’re in a position where you literally can show that to the guests in a video and tell them …even if we took a picture of it … I like to take a picture or video standing in front of the vehicle and say, “I’ve got your VIP folder already prepared. We’re going to have the vehicle history. We’ll have the information on the deal so that we can get started and save you time when you visit the dealership.” David Kain : That kind of visual orientation really goes a long way to making the guests feel like, “Oh my God, this is different than what everybody else was doing. Everybody else was trying to be the lowest price, or promise me if I come in, if my presence was there, I’d have more leverage.” Well, what I want to do is to say to the guests, “My presence is your leverage. And I’m in a position to offer you a VIP appointment. We’re going to be ready for you.”
David Kain : By giving them the visuals and giving them the video or the pictures, letting them know that you’re going to be ready, you’re going to roll out the red carpet, really will pry them off the couch and cause them to want to come see you. I promise. Give it a try. Let the words paint the picture, and people will start responding more positively when you ask them for the appointment the right way.
David Kain : Thank you very much for joining me here on Kain & Co., and I hope to see you again next week.
Speaker 2: This has been a JBF Business Media production.
