It’s all about the customer experience. How Sales cost their company thousands!
Customer experience is everything. First, some background:
My husband is a bit of a car guy. And he’s often researching ‘my next car’. Inevitably this leads to the occasional “let’s just stop by the <whatever the brand> dealership and check one out.”
A few weeks ago we stopped by a local dealership to test drive something he had an interested in. Our experience was horrible.
First, we were ignored for about 20 minutes (even though we were all over one the cars on the showroom floor) before the sales manager asked us if we were being helped.
Then, after a few minutes of chatting, he lined up a test drive but then handed us off to another member of the sales team. She was awful!
To be kind and generous I’d say she was disengaged. To be honest I think she couldn’t care less about us and wanted to be done. Throughout the entire drive we could hear her texting away on her phone in the back seat. Not paying attention to what we were asking, not fully aware of the route we were taking, and blatantly dismissive. Once we returned to the dealership we promptly left.
Not only did our customer experience (how we were treated) turn us off of that salesperson, but also to the entire dealership. If that was what we could expect from the sales experience, why would it be any different at service or any other car brand and location that dealership or parent company owns? It also very nearly ended any chance of buying any vehicle from that brand.
However, as it happens, we decided to stop by another dealership (same car brand) earlier this week and drove a different model. The customer experience was totally different. More team-based. Positive. Helpful. Engaged. Interested and willing to spend time with us… even if we were ‘window shopping’. And while we weren’t really looking to change cars, it won them our business.
We estimated the dealership would make close to $10,000 over just the next few years from our purchase, and if we choose to do business with them again, even more. And referring others to them and the three people who worked so hard to establish our trust and build a relationship with us, even more still.
It took just one bad experience and a 20-minute test drive to lose a sale and at least $10,000 in total revenue. Multiply that by just one similar prospective customer experience each week and that dealership could lose $40,000 or more—every month! Multiply that by 12 and that’s close to half a million per year! All because of one disengaged salesperson at one dealership location.
Company culture and the ‘customer experience’ matters.
It can cost you $500K or win you $500K a year. In this case, that one disengaged employee (who still works there) turned out to be an expensive employee!
I encourage you to run your own numbers and see how an aligned culture could help you and your company do more.
If you’re interested in understanding how your company culture might be contributing to lost leads and sales, we can help — and this Summer we’re running a big discount.
>> To learn how your culture affects your leads, sales, and company value, check out our resources page for more information.