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I just leased a new fully electric car. I want to tell you about my experience as a sales veteran dealing with car salespeople.
For the most part, it was a fairly pleasant experience. Salespeople are generally nice and friendly. Test driving cars is pretty fun. However, I couldn’t help monitoring the experience from the perspective of a fellow salesperson. Here’s what happened, and the sales lessons learned each step of the way:
I tested many different electric vehicles, which means that I dealt with salespeople at several different dealerships. Since electric vehicles (EV) are in their infancy, many of the salespeople were not very knowledgeable about electric vehicles in general. They knew the features of the particular cars they were selling, but most of them were not brimming with helpful information about how one can embrace this new electric vehicle lifestyle (and believe me, going EV is a lifestyle choice). It would have made a world of difference if the salespeople were EV drivers themselves and could speak to issues like “Where can I find charging stations out in the wild?” or “How important is it to have fast charging stations nearby?"
I had a lot to learn as someone not just getting an early stage EV, but also having never leased a car before. I’ve always been one to avoid car payments by buying used cars with my savings, so this was a whole new world for me. In one of these dealerships, I was asking lots of questions about how leasing works. The salesperson was responding by talking about how much he believes in leasing and how he leases his own vehicles, but he was not answering my specific questions. This did not make me feel warm and fuzzy and wanting to break out the checkbook. He was a nice-enough guy but he wasn’t listening to me carefully enough to answer my question.
Our roles as salespeople are to provide information, answer questions and help guide people through their buying decisions. If we do this well, and the product is a good fit, we should get the deal. His product was probably the most rational and pragmatic of the EV choices and I had shown up at the dealership ready to drive home with one their cars, but his inability to answer my questions resulted in me going home sans new automobile and continuing my search.
Lesson #3: Be careful anytime you talk about cost
At the next dealership, I was thrilled when during the test drive the salesperson implied that the payments and “drive off” cost would be a certain amount that was lower than on any of other cars I was looking at. It was hard to believe that this was the case, because this was the nicest car of the bunch. When my husband and I left the dealership with a courtesy car that we could test drive for a couple days, it was with some amount of certainty that we would be getting this car based on what the salesperson had said.
When we returned to the dealership to bring back the borrowed car and get the lease going on a new one, I was gravely disappointed when they showed me payments and drive off costs that were significantly higher than what I had been led to believe. I wanted the car and showed up ready to buy, but now the salesperson had a whole new hurdle that he could have avoided by being more clear when talking about what my future payments would be. It turned out that the fabulous deal I had heard about while test driving was real but only for a specific car on the lot which was now gone. As you can imagine, I felt baited and switched. I still wanted this car, but now the salesperson had to spend another hour or more with me resolving the confusion, helping me get over this hump of mistrust and looking at how we could make this all work.
Lesson #4: Get help if you can’t answer the question
I was very clear about my interest in the electric vehicle when I entered each dealership. At one particular car dealership the young salesman, who was the in-house EV expert, was tied up with another customer so I was handed off to another salesperson. The second guy was great, but not really able to answer every question that I had, specifically about the lack of fast charging stations for the European EVs. He did get my husband and me into a car for a test drive and attempted to show us how the car’s navigation would show us where the charging stations are. Unfortunately for him, I knew more than he did about the different types of charging stations so he was fumbling. To his credit, when we returned from the test drive, he handed us back over to the EV expert rather than try to keep our business to himself. I don’t know what their arrangement was in terms of sharing a commission or otherwise, but I appreciated that their focus was on getting me the answers I needed to make a decision that was comfortable for me.
Lesson #5: Keep in touch after the close
In the end, I leased the car that I liked the best and I leased from the salesperson that was focused on getting all my questions answered. Although I ended up with a monthly payment and drive-off cost that were more than what I had originally planned for, I’m delighted with my choice. And I’m very happy to report that the salesperson followed up with me a few days after the sale to ask how my commute went in my new car. When my lease is up in 2 years, do you think I’m going to wander in to the dealership and work with just any salesperson? No, I’m going back to Jon, who called me after the sale.
Alice Myerhoff is author of the e-book “Social Media for Salespeople: A Step-by-Step Guide to Increasing your Leads and Sales” and a business development/sales/marketing/management executive with over 18 years of experience in industries ranging from online games, educational technology and Social business to online news media, real estate & mortgage. She is currently heading up Sales at EdSurge, and has worked at Electronic Arts, Inman News, Pivot Conference, Philips Professional Publishing, Countrywide, Princeton Capital, and the Tomorrow Project. Her party trick is being able to count to 10 in 6 languages and she is fluent in German and French. Find her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter: @motodot
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