In-house dealer financing is not just a way for dealerships to make money, it’s also a wonderful tool to help your customers from the day of sale and well into the future.
Happy customers are the ones who feel like a positive and supportive sales relationship carries on well past a deal’s closing. It’s what brings them back over and over, but often, the financing and add-ons we can offer to support that relationship are some of the hardest sells. How do you emphasize how useful they can be?
I’m Mike Hoyser, and I’m excited to share some car sales training tips to help your team maximize the services and support you can deliver to your customers beyond the sale. The training techniques we’ve developed at Phone Ninjas ensure your sales team connects customers with common-sense financing solutions and never leaves a revenue opportunity on the table.
Sell Convenience
Emphasize that working through the dealership to finance a car saves them lots of time and effort, and the convenience is worth it:
- Shopping around for loans can take weeks, while dealers will do all that work in minutes, often with customers only filling in a credit application.
- Financing with a bank or credit union means lots of extra trips (shopping for rates, pre-qualifying, closing, dropping off extra paperwork).
- Getting pre-approved can be a lengthy process and require significant paperwork, whereas this process is streamlined at the dealer.
- Buyers with less-than-ideal credit often have an easier, smoother, and faster time getting approved at your dealership.
- Dealers often have special financing programs customers never find at a bank.
- They can negotiate the loan’s interest rate with us, and fairly quickly, too. Banks have the rates they have and rarely budge even with substantial negotiating and documentation.
Focus on Monthly Payments vs. Total Cost
Your car sales training program should instruct employees to only discuss price in terms of monthly payments vs. overall cost. Since 80% of buyers will have to finance, that’s the only number that will mean anything concrete to them.
Additionally, the bigger the number the scarier it is when there’s a dollar sign in front of it. It’s a whole lot easier for most people to psychologically absorb and afford an extra $30/month as opposed to a multi-thousand dollar expense.
Selling the Extended Warranty/Service Contract
The details and extent of these plans vary from dealer to dealer, but here are a few car sales training techniques to best demonstrate the value of common benefits:
- Certain wear-and-tear items are covered outside of the original warranty. Point out that cars have a lot of parts that need to be changed over the life of the car, and that it’s normal for things to break down. These plans usually cover wear-and-tear items at rates below the off-the-shelf price.
- Oil changes, tire rotations, and other regular maintenance items are expenses the customer has to plan for. Dealer plans usually offer these at a significant discount. Longer-term plans that include major regular maintenance (50,000-mile service, for example) can deliver even more savings.
- With the above two items, inflation is removed as a factor. 2022 inflation was well over 8% and is running at about 3.2% as of March 2024. Not only does the customer save money off today’s sticker prices on maintenance, but they’re avoiding future inflation.
- “Peace of mind” is a sales point that has no price. Knowing that whatever happens within the warranty will be covered is worth tons to most people.
- Point out the statistics that show when customers use these plans as intended, their cars tend to last longer.
If you haven’t done so already, your dealership should back up your sales team by implementing a program that contacts customers when service is due. It could be a simple robocall database, but a human in your BDC department is a much better option.
So, when a customer presents the inevitable objection, “Well, I won’t remember to use it…”, your staff can easily overcome this classic objection with, “I understand— did you know that 55% of people who buy car warranties and service plans never use them? Not our customers, though, because you’ll have our [customer notification program] reminding you when you’ve got service due.”
Use Sales Scripts
You’ve got fantastic salespeople on your team, but the fact is, the automotive business and customer trends are evolving. It’s more important than ever that your team presents a unified message that aligns with your online content no matter who picks up the phone, and inconsistencies always end up costing you revenue opportunities.
This is why sales scripts have become an industry-standard part of running a modern and competitive dealership. Properly written and presented sales scripts work great to guide employees toward closing efficiently and on-brand. Any common questions, objections, or tangents are planned for and scripted well.
Scripts will unify and streamline your customer service, and make selling financing much easier.
Invest in Long-Term Training
I’ve worked with industry professionals for years building sales strategies that maximize revenue from financing streams. If you’re looking for a proven expert to keep your sales team on point, Phone Ninjas is your ideal partner!
To start, I fly out (or remote in) to train your staff personally with in-depth, interactive sessions. Then our roster of amazing Phone Ninjas work with each team member in weekly, individual coaching sessions where our scripts and training are mastered for natural workplace performance. Finally, we mystery shop your team to make certain their presentation is first-rate and follow up for more coaching if anything needs a little more work. We’re only done when your roster is packed with all-stars. Just take a minute to hear what our clients say about the amazing results we deliver!
Two free mystery shops and an in-depth demo are just a phone call or email away! Reach out today and get your KPIs soaring!
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
