Next, you have to land the customer on a car. If you don’t find out what they want, and “land” them on it, the customer will wander around the lot, poking their head into every car, test driving who knows what, until hours have gone by and nothing has been accomplished. The dealer wants to avoid all of that by asking the customer what kind of car they are looking for, sedan, mini van, sports car, pickup truck, or whatever. Next, find out if the customer likes a particular make, Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, whatever. Figure out what color the customer likes. Surprisingly, many customers buy by color and style first and make and model second.
With used cars, many dealers want to have the sales person take the customer on a test drive, rather than let the customer drive it off the lot, ostensibly “for insurance purposes“. In reality, if the car acts up during the test drive, the sales person can feign the malfunction on their own lack of product knowledge, if they can’t conceal the malfunction completely. Test drives are usually done on an established route that the sales person is familiar with. That can help avoid road and traffic issues that can bring out a car’s problems. Bad shocks can be harder to detect if you avoid certain road surfaces. If a warning light lights up on the dash, or the fan doesn’t work on high speed, the sales person is trained to quickly point out that it will be fixed before the customer takes delivery.
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