Ever wonder why it seems the car saIes people at dealerships frustrate car enthusiasts with their product knowledge or lack of? We came across a decent stab at it on reddit from a current dealer sales manager.
Let us know what you think of their take...Do you agree or are they WAY off?
Here you go:
"I work at a Ford, Lincoln, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, store.
I have at 42 different models of vehicles. On top of this each vehicle will generally have at least 3 trim levels, so many more so lets say an avg of 5 trim levels a vehicle. On top of that those vehicles have many packages, power trains, etc. O yea and know what really fun on that? Factory restrictions that are not generally public knowledge (Go try and order an F150 XL Regular Cab, I'll wait)
In addition to this my store sells used cars, so we also generally have some product knowledge on the used cars we sell.
That's a lot of knowledge. You want a sales person to know everything about every car they sell? That simply isn't feasible. Did you know the factory has product specialists that will generally only work on a select few vehicles? Those reps (that work for the factory) sometimes even get things wrong when we go to them for questions.
Then you have factory restrictions which is really important we keep track on. Most years that can be a headache, during COVID19 that can be a down right nightmare. I've seen spray in bedliners, certain wheels, etc, all put off limits. My sales staff need to know, especially with how many special orders we are doing now-a-days.
On top of that my sales people need to keep track of incentives, and dealership policies along with finance rates and so forth.
As a sales manager I train my sales people to deal with the majority of consumers, not the car enthusiast. At my store we generally sell 150-180 cars a month. Thats 150-180 customers I would say...maybe 5? maybe 10? Are what I would call "Car enthusiasts" and the 2.6 million redditors in this sub are going know more then the majority of the public are going know.
Also another thing is, I get my information through official channels. Many car enthusiasts get their information through a network of insiders who are all on the know. This is why its not uncommon for a car enthusiast to hear of a rumor that ends up being true and your local dealership is clueless. This is because someone on the manufacturing side, leaked someone on the car enthusiast side and it got out that way, well the factory is still deciding how they are going inform us dealers.
Selling cars is not about cars. Selling cars is about people.
You I had two applicants applying for a job, one is a waiter and the other is an experience mechanic and they both want to be sales people. Guess who I'm going hire? I'm going hire the waiter 99.99% of the time. Why you ask? Because that waiter knows how to talk to people, he knows how to deal with people, he knows how to read peoples emotions. That means FAR MORE to a successful sale then understanding the gear ratios of an F250 Diesel.
The best sales person on my team is a woman, she doesn't know much about cars. But she will make you feel right at home, she will make you feel like you are her best friend from forever ago. She will work really hard to understand what is important to you and find you the perfect vehicle that meets your needs, wants, and she'll work do her best to get into the budget you have set forth.
Last year she bought a Grand Cherokee from us. A new sales person asked her if she got the V6 or V8 she said "I don't know" the sales person said "What do you mean you don't know" she said "It drives fine, I don't know if its a V6 or V8 and I don't really care" Sales person saw I overheard this and was like "Can you believe she doesn't even know if her Grand Cherokee has a V6 or V8" and I go "Yea I can" the sales person goes to her and says "Then how do you know how much oil to put in your car"
She smiles and says "I don't need to know that, my mechanic needs to know that"
That woman traditionally sold 25+ cars a month, every month well the 2nd best struggled at 15-18.
This is why you find sales people who don't know a lot about cars.
Also turn over doesn't help, I hired a new sales person on Monday.
He quit on Wednesday at lunch. That's not terribly uncommon. But this post was generally written assuming the sales person has lasted at least a year.
So be nice, and don't expect your car sales person to know more about the car you've spent the last decade dreaming about and studying."