Be The First To Get The Latest Automotive Industry News As Soon As It Becomes Available
Ben Pate
With tough times upon the auto industry many people feel dealers should be giving the customer whatever they want or need. While this may sound good in theory, for the automotive industry you have to consider that many different things come into play that makes theory not always feasible.
Most of the time automakers are the ones that don’t meet those need or wants of customers, not the dealers. Inventory orders are a very prominent problem when it comes to this step in the process. Dealers will order on time, but those makers don’t always come through with the deliveries quickly.
So, instead of getting what the customer wants at times, dealers are left getting an inventory they don’t want or need for their customers. This creates the situation where they have inventory that will be hard to sell. Due to that situation, customers are left with looking at vehicles they don’t really want, but for which they will have to settle.
As this continues to happen dealers are left trying to sell customers vehicles that are by far not their first choice, and that considers that they may not be given a choice of the vehicles they want. As the automakers continue to ignore what the dealer is requesting, it continues to build up.
In that case the dealers are left trying to sell what are called “brown bananas”. It’s what that inventory is called as it sits around losing value as each day passes. So what do those dealers have to do to fix the problem?
Sure, they could get rid of the vehicles at a lower cost and that would thrill the customer. But many of those dealerships will then suffer the fate of possibly being closed down by the automaker when they don’t make enough profit. Short of reverting back to hard sale tactics, it can be very hard for the dealer to be able to make the customer happy.
Remember those old days when you use to head to shop for a car and the salesperson would basically jam a sale down your throat? Yes, we really don’t need those days to come back again, because it made the process of looking at vehicles a real pain.
A classic step that many dealers would use would be asking for your keys, stating they needed them to look at your trade-in. As those keys were no longer in the customer’s hands they could continue working on you. Trying to wear you out and get you to agree to a new car.
Something that has left a bad taste in many people’s mouths and memories is this type of sale. Basically feeling like you had to agree to the deal at some point, no matter how good it sounded. At times it would lead to you agreeing and be stuck with a vehicle you really didn’t want or need.
There should be a happy medium when it comes to making customers happy, and providing them with automotive industry news. The makers need to pay attention to the needs of dealers and customers both, and this can occur when everyone is in the know of the latest automotive industry news.
