Ah, the car buying experience. The ultimate in sales games. My lease is up and I needed a new car. I did my research, found the deal I wanted and went to the showroom. Got a very nice sales guy but when I presented him with the offer I wanted, he couldn’t believe it was that easy. In fact he said that several times. In fact, he kept asking his usual questions about color, interior, etc. even though I had told him it was about the money.
There is a fine line between making sure your customer isn’t making a mistake and doing what the customer wants. He handled it well (which was nice) but it could have gone very badly. If you do have a sale go easily, be glad! But, he was smart to double check a few things before we signed the papers. It was entirely possible I didn’t know all the facts and would have gone away unhappy if it didn’t turn out I had thought of everything. And let’s be honest, a customer who gets exactly what they ask for and then realize it isn’t what they wanted, blame the sales person.
So, how do you manage the easy sale? You should have a list of the questions you need every customer to answer. Explain that you are thrilled they know what they want, but you just want to double check to make sure you understand the details. Make it about you rather than them so it doesn’t sound like you are questioning their judgment.
Someone who comes to you knowing what they want generally wants things quickly. Know your process well enough to know where you can shave off a few minutes to buy more time. For instance in the car example, while I was signing paperwork, they needed to fix it up for me to take the car right away. Multi-tasking in that case would have been helpful.
Show your respect for them. Steve, my sales rep, remarked on multiple occasions how impressed he was that I could handle the process the way I did. It felt good and made me feel like I was doing things the way I had intended. We parted company all smiles and I will definitely recommend him to others. (Not to mention the car is COOL!)
I think the most important thing here is to make sure the customer doesn’t start to wonder why more of your sales are that way. Steve was clearly surprised by the ease of the negotiations, but that doesn’t mean he went overboard. It wasn’t like it was completely out of his experience. If it had been, I would have questioned if I could have gotten a better deal.
Enjoy the easy sale – they don’t come along often enough!
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