12:13 pm, December 2, 2016
BRITISH car dealers focus too heavily on short-term sales results, according to the UK managing director of DS.
Speaking at the launch of DS’s new Urban Store at the Westfield shopping centre, West London, Bek Hassan said dealers across the country were “often too short-term” in their sales techniques, concentrating on meeting targets rather than focusing on customer experience.
‘I think that our industry – and we’re also part of that – is often too short-term in its approach to the customers,’ he said.
‘The dealership environment is very much a selling environment. The customer goes in, they take them through a process to qualify the customer’s needs, build a car, build a quotation, then try and close the deal.
‘That really doesn’t deal with the fact that some customers just aren’t ready to go through that transaction. They just want to go in and experience the brand.’
Hassan also claimed that he wants his DS dealers to buck the trend by employing low-pressure tactics that allow the customer to relate to the brand before making the decision to buy a car.
‘I think it’s really important that we take a much longer-term approach,’ he said.
‘We are looking to create a new crop of customers. To get the attention and build the awareness of a whole group of new customers, we’ve got to engage with them for a longer period of time before we can shift them from being aware of our products to almost becoming fans of our products and then becoming customers of our products.
‘It’s really critical, and I think in our business, in our industry, we’re too short term.’
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