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The old
adage that you learn more about a subject when you have to
teach someone about it is still valid, particularly for the
employees in your parts department Their knowledge of parts
gives customers confidence that the dealership knows what
it's doing. Unfortunately, extensive and detailed knowledge
of parts seems to have become less important to dealership
principals.
When I
was in parts management, we held an after-hours meeting once
a month with all parts employees. Each 90-minute session covered
three areas of the parts business: product knowledge, process
knowledge and selling skills.
In the
area of product knowledge, parts employees would develop a
10-to-15-minute presentation on a specific commodity or parts
family. Each month a different parts employee was called upon
to make the presentation. Because no one wants to be embarrassed
by not knowing the subject about which they're speaking, every
employee benefited from the exercise. After the presentation,
there were questions and answers. We wrapped up with a short
written test.
On the
surface this may sound like a bit of a drag. But it worked.
Parts employees learned about things like heat treating, the
technical measures that are used on steel and other materials,
and terms like "tensile strength," which should be a common
part of a parts employee's vocabulary.
In the
process, they grew more confident about their work and became
more valuable to customers.
These
two results are extremely important. The more the employees
who touch customers each day know about the products they
sell, the more satisfied those employees will be. And satisfied
employees contribute more to the bottom line than those who
are just clocking in.
Confident,
competent employees are part of the service profit chain that
provides the direct relationship between employee satisfaction
and loyalty and customer satisfaction and loyalty. If you
don't have a monthly parts meeting, try it. You'll like it.
Developing
the selling skills of parts department employees was a more
abstract challenge.
Most parts
employees-especially those who work the counter or telephone-don't
think they know how to sell. They're busy. When customers
are milling around the counter, they're stressed out trying
to serve everyone at once.
Dealer
principals used to try to enhance the sales skills of parts
employees by giving them basic training on the how-to of selling.
Whatever you decide to do to improve your employees' skills,
make sure they're given a structure with which to work. The
structure should work whether they're calling or talking to
a customer, or whether the customer's calling the dealership
or standing at the counter.
Effective
telephone selling can be broken into four steps.
When
talking with a customer, the employee should be prepared and
direct.
The object
of the employee's interaction with the customer is to arouse
interest and adapt the discussion to the customer's response.
By the
time the conversation is over, the employee should have achieved
an attainable result. And that doesn't necessarily mean making
a sale. It could be something as simple as sharing literature
or setting a date for following up with customer to find out
if the dealership's input solved the customer's challenge.
Immediately
after the conversation, the employee should completely and
accurately record what happened during the conversation: What
did the customer need? What did the employee do to serve that
need? Is follow-up necessary? If so, when? That's how employees
demonstrate the value of doing business with your dealership
and not someone else's.
Never
forget: It's not how good you are at what you know that's
most important to customers. They assume your dealership knows
what it's doing. It's more important to be good at who you
are. Each employee who touches the customer is the dealership.
Make
the customer's experience with the dealership personal, and
both your employees and your customers will be happier and
more satisfied.
To learn
more, check out the offerings from Quest,
Learning Centers.
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