8:04 am, April 20, 2020
Used car dealer RS Car Sales has sold and delivered three cars and taken four deposits since lockdown began, showing there’s still an appetite from car buyers who need to switch vehicles.
Rory Anderson, owner of RS Car Sales, explained that their case-by-case assessment of enquiries meant they were able to help get three local key workers back on the road in difficult times.
‘We’ve sold three cars to NHS staff; a nurse, a health worker and another to a doctor. Whereas I think a lot of people have said no we’re not dealing, we’ve looked at things on a case-by-case basis and thought there’s a good reason to do a deal with this person – let’s make it happen,’ Anderson said.
‘The nurse had an old Beetle. It had an electrical fault and wasn’t working when she was under more pressure than ever. Someone recommended our business to her and she bought a car from us, which we did with an extended warranty, free MOT and service for the ownership of that vehicle.
‘It’s only a small gesture but we wanted to give a little back. It got a nice bit of support locally and on our social media pages.’
The car dealer had also shared a deal for any key worker looking to buy a car, where they would extend the warranty, offer paint protection, and free delivery with any social distancing measures in place.
With Anderson adding ‘for non-key workers who want to buy a car, we’re letting them secure a car until we’re able to move around more freely, so to speak’.
Fortunately for the Cheshire-based business, they were already operating a largely digital business and were set up for delivery. Anderson explained that the lockdown has forced them to modify this to work within social distancing though.
‘It was a bit of a strange one. We had to post the key and then we did a FaceTime handover with questions about buttons and how they work on the car,’ he told Car Dealer.
‘We do a lot of delivery anyway, and have for about three years, so it wasn’t a huge change for us to do that but it was the actual handover bit at the end where we found ways to do things and still give a high level of customer service in a challenging time.
‘The V5 has been done online, the rest of the paperwork we leave in the car in a silver pack, invoicing we did electronically. It’s just an adaptation of what we’d normally do.’
Anderson explained that they had been off to a flying start in 2020, but obviously went to nothing overnight. He had forecast for no sales during the lockdown, so explained any little boost helps them through.
He said: ‘We’ve had a lot of people asking if they can view cars, come and have a look around, can we test drive. It’s quite surprising, maybe the message hasn’t got through to everyone, but they’ve been knocked back and refused.
‘I’d forecast to do zero sales and I’ve based everything off the absolute worst case scenario. I thought we were going to sell nothing but that’s three cars paid for that we weren’t expecting which takes some pressure off getting money back into the business.
‘We’ve noticed the enquiries have picked up, particularly over the last seven days. Maybe people are getting frustrated now and they’re looking forward to the end of this in three weeks or however long. Whenever it is, people are getting ready to go with it. We’ve got four other vehicles reserved with small holding deposits, too.’
A quirk of their business – having twin brothers who live together on staff – has helped them to be more flexible under lockdown, too.
‘We’ve got twin brothers working for us who live in the same house so we thought if we kept them on then if there was an opportunity to do a delivery or something, they’re in the same household anyway. They can come in and prep a car together and delivery it,’ he said.
‘I thought that was a good way to look at it. They’re good guys and they’ve worked for us for a long time, we were going to put them on 100 per cent of their wages anyway.
‘We said that to all of our staff, we’re only a small team, and we said we’d have to look at it after two months if this carries on. They’ve all got outgoings and commitments though and I think they’ve really appreciated that.’
More: Should car dealers be selling and delivering cars during the lockdown?
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