Customer perceptions matter
When baseball legend Joe DiMaggio was asked why he put maximum effort into every play, even when the outcome of the game was not in question, his answer was simple: “There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first time. I owe him my best.” DiMaggio understood the power of customer perceptions.
Sometime today, a prospective customer will visit your dealership for the first time. What impression will you make?
Perceptions create reality
Convenience. Is your dealership easy to find? Is the entrance from the street well-marked? Have you made it a no-brainer for customers to find parking for Service and Parts as well as the Showroom? Is your customer parking adequate or is it full of vehicles that were demonstrated three hours ago, but not re-parked?
Appearance. How many weeds will customers see between the property line and the building? Is your lot full of wind-blown litter? Were the parking lines painted back when cars came with carburetors? Does the glass in your entry doors look like an experiment by the FBI fingerprint lab? These visuals are silent spokespeople for your dealership and they begin speaking to customers before your paid employees get in the game. What are they telling your customers?
Treatment. Eventually, prospective customers will encounter your personnel. Are they greeted promptly? Courteously? With enthusiasm? Does every employee who comes within ten feet of a customer make eye contact, smile and say something appropriate, even if only “Good Morning”? People seldom buy on logic alone, which means feelings matter. How do your people make your customers feel? Welcome? Respected? Valued? If customers feel good about being in the dealership you can consider that a good start, but at some point your people will be called upon to actually do something for the customer. Are your people competent? Have you hired the right people with the right skills and attitudes? Did you train them appropriately? Did you establish processes that actually work? Perhaps most importantly, do you set performance standards, communicate them clearly to your people, then regularly monitor performance against those standards?
Customer Perceptions: Keeping score
It is easy to become so accustomed to the environment in your dealership that you stop seeing it the way your customers do. When your intentions don’t align with customer perceptions, your ability to convert prospects to customers declines. From the customer’s point-of-view, their Perception = Reality.
Customers start keeping score before they cross your property line and they continue adding/subtracting points as they encounter your facility and your people. The score you earn determines what will happen when the customer reaches the buy-or-leave decision point.
You influence that score by controlling the message your customers receive. Successful political campaigns put a great deal of effort into crafting a specific message, then work to stay on message. Take a look at your store and determine what message you are sending. If you can improve it, do so. Don’t expect, however, that you can control the message by simply calling a meeting or writing a memo. Messaging control is an all day-every day job. It starts at the top and must be rigorously followed in spite of unplanned events . When you grow tired of the task, think of Joe DiMaggio. There is always someone visiting your dealership for the first time. You owe him or her your best.
Photo credit: iStock_000000657537 Jon Stephenson