Running a car dealership is never easy, but it’s vital to keep growing and expanding. Here are some ways to make that happen.
Use Offers Cleverly
If your problem is that you don’t know how to find and keep hold of customers, this could be the best solution. All businesses should think about how offers can help them grow and expand. You could have a month each year in which you knock 10% off your used cars. Or you could introduce offers that encourage buyers to purchase some of the extras you offer. Dealerships offer rely on selling extras to go with the cars they sell. So, if your dealership is struggling to shift those products, it will become difficult to grow.
Improve Customer Interactions
Customers should find it as easy as possible to contact your business. If you make interactions difficult for your customers, they might move on and use a different business instead. In fact, research shows that 9 out of 10 customers want to talk to businesses through messaging, but less than half of dealerships have the technology to be able to offer this service. This gap means many dealerships are missing out on customers to competitors who are able to cater to their shoppers’ communication preferences. Luckily, companies such as VinSolutions are able to offer software that allows dealerships to connect with customers as easily as they communicate with their friends. This is something that can be used to improve the way customers’ problems are handled to make sure they are willing to come back again in the future. In order for dealerships to monitor the way in which customer relationships and interactions are dealt with, using a good Dealer CRM (customer relationship management) program is always a good idea.
Review Your Pricing Strategy
Pricing is something that is difficult to get right. If you price your products too high, you’ll struggle to hit your sales targets. But if you set your prices too low, you’ll be missing out on cash. It’s always a good idea to review your pricing strategy every so often so that it doesn’t become out of date. It’s also important to compare your prices to your rival’s pricing. Of course, if you can charge a little less than them, that is a good thing. But getting into a price slashing war has its downsides too, so beware.
Increase Employee Skills
One cost-effective way of improving the quality of the business is to improve the skills of your staff members. It removes the need to hire new people and pay them a wage. Instead, you can see how the skills of your current workforce can be improved to then improve the fortunes of the business as a whole. You might want to send them away on a sales training course. Or you could improve their customer services skills. It all depends on where your business’s weak spots lie and what your budget is.
Run Special Events
Thinking outside the box and doing things that people might not have expected is a good way to grow your dealership. So, why not put on a special event for people in the local community. It could be some kind of family fun day in the summer. Or could host a classic car show for people to browse. This option is clever because it ties in specifically with your business model and attracts the kind of people you should be looking to sell your products to. If you’re struggling for ideas, give these a try, it could make you a lot of money.