This is the step that may also be called qualifying, profile building, or identification of wants and needs. It is simply getting to know your customers so you can help them make a better decision.
What is the purpose of this step: Getting to know them and making friends with them.
What am I trying to accomplish?
Learn as much as I can about my customers and find common ground.Why do I want to accomplish it?
To understand their wants and needs, and get to know them to start our relationship.How am I going to accomplish it?
By asking questions, actively listening to their answers, being responsive to their needs and showing them I care.
How do you get customers to like you and trust you in a fairly short amount of time?
You like them first! Find things about your customers to like. Ask questions about their personal lives and listen attentively. Be sincere. People like people who like them. Like your customers and they will like you.
How do they get them to trust you in a short amount of time?
They have to believe you first. Be truthful from the get go. Share a weakness you, your dealership or the car they are considering has. This weakness should be something minor that will not affect the sale. It should be something self-deprecating. People will believe you when you bring up a weakness which will condition them to believe you when you are sharing the strengths and positive aspects of your dealership and the car.
You want to know as much as you can about your customers as quickly as you can. By the end of this step you should have asked and learned about the following:
where they are from,
what do they do for a living,
how they found your store,
what car / make and model they are interested in and why,
whether or not they are trading a car,
primary driver and use for the car,
how long they have been shopping,
whether or not they visited other dealers,
any other cars / makes and models they may be considering,
how are they planning to pay.
How do you get all this information and more?
By asking questions.
This is called walking and talking. You must be genuinely curious about your customers, ask these questions and listen to them actively. If you let them, they will tell you what you can sell them and how.
The more you know about your customers the better you can help them.
Don’t be afraid to ask personal questions as well as questions about their buying motives. As long as you react to the answers with sincere interest, you will not offend your customers. People like to talk about themselves. Unfortunately — fortunately for you — they can’t get an attentive audience in their immediate family or friendships. Be that audience and they will like you.
Don’t be afraid to share tidbits from your life. This is a process of give and take. If they will open up to you, you should open up to them. Having common interests or experiences is a great way to build rapport.
This is the step where you are diagnosing before prescribing. You want help them get a car that will work for them. You need to know what they are trying to accomplish. You have to ask questions.
Even if the customers came in on a specific car you have in stock, you still want to know why they picked that specific car. Just in case they find something they don’t like about that one, you want to have alternatives to show them. You can’t do that unless you know why they picked that car.
Even though most customers visit dealerships after they do their research and with a particular model in mind, you still need to determine their “WHY” — hot buttons– to be able to offer them alternative vehicles that will fulfill their wants and needs. Incorporate your customer’s research into your presentation.
Before you move to the next step of presenting the car you should uncover the main buying motive and customers’ hot buttons so you can land on a right car and and make a tailored presentation.