Omni Automotive Advertising Blog

It seems every great dealer stresses the relationship they have with their employees and their customers. Now, in this quarters’ AIADA magazine, Ron Esserman speaks of training his employees to better help potential customers.

Esserman pioneered the very innovative YES customer satisfaction program, You are Empowered to Satisfy. He explains…

“Every employee must find a way to say yes to all our customers. We have extensive training of all our employees… We want to help (our employees) get where they want to go, so that we can get where we want to go.”

It’s very interesting how the successful dealers all concentrate on the relationships they have with people. I’ll post the article when it comes live on the net.

According to Gerald Zaltman, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and author of “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market” car dealer advertising that “yells” at the consumer only provides short term success. He cites that only people who are interested in buying a car at that exact moment will even listen to the message. Which causes a bump in sales for the time the ad is running.

However Zaltman notes car dealers ads contribute to their negative publicity and hurt them in the long run.

“In one study we did involving auto dealerships, customers described themselves as feeling like `prey.’”

He believes dealers would benefit, “from a more respectful yet engaging style of communicating and establishing awareness.”

However dealers can’t pin their hopes on long term success. Everyone in the business knows you must produce month end and month out.

But perhaps instead of just “screaming” prices and rebates at a customer, you also provide reasons to come to your dealership in the future.

Branding your dealership is not just limited to playing a jingle in your spots. You have to find that niche that makes you unique compared to your competition. Otherwise you’ll always be struggling to find the short term solution to your sales problems.

Last month, after selling less vehicles than imports for the first time ever, the Big 3 outsold imports for the month of August. However it was GM that was doing all the heavy lifting. GM sales rose 6% (8% less in cars sales, 16.5% increase in light truck sales). Both Ford and Daimler Chrysler posted loses (-14% and -6% respectively).

Toyota also posted loses while Honda, Nissan and Hyundai all posted positive gains.