Rebecca let out a sigh of frustration. She had just finished planning a meeting with the dealership’s General Manager. As it turns out, Rebecca feels strongly that the Finance Manager is causing her to lose customers.
Rebecca sells a popular imported car. She has been on the job for nine months, previously, she sold exotic sports cars and before that ran an interior decorating business. The problem she is having is that the Finance Manager ignores the price negotiation done by Rebecca and her customer. Rebecca calls this as a major problem. First, for example, when Rebecca concludes a price negotiation on a car and her customer agrees on a monthly payment based on a sales price of $13,495 for 48 months at an interest rate of 4.9%, she takes that offer sheet in to get the approval from the Finance Manager. The customer agrees in principle then sits down with the Finance Manager to complete the mountain of documents to actually buy the car.
Rebecca sees quite a few of her customers leave angry in the car they drove up in. Why? Customers say that when they sit down with the Finance Manager, the numbers have gone up and they have to re negotiate the deal with the Finance. This of course, costs Rebecca commission dollars. Rebecca vents, “We aren’t splitting atoms here, we are selling cars, look out the window, we are on Auto Row here, my customers are walking because of this guy.” This is a game of price and delivery, if I can’t get my customer to leave in a new car, someone else has a better deal, leather interior, or whatever! Friends like this I don’t need!”
What is her plan to correct the issue? Rebecca went into the General Manager’s office with a file of lost sales. She smartly called the customer to find out what went wrong and in nearly every case, it was the fact that when they sat down to sign papers on what they thought was a done deal, they found themselves starting all over again with higher prices on everything. The Finance Manager was on his own wavelength. “Customers just voted with their feet,” says Rebecca, “and it is costing me dearly. I tried to call them but couldn't get them back on the phone." she said flashing her Android.
The General Manager listened intently and looked over the documents brought in by Rebecca. She thinks things will get better since the GM said he would have a conversation with the Finance Manager. Rebecca concluded’ “It is great to get the support of the General Manager, let’s hope this problem goes away real fast. It is hard enough as it is!” Rebecca smiled and headed back to the sales floor to begin her search for the next customer.
Comments