Your Guide to Automotive Industry Digital Marketing

Sell some tires? Did you sell a tire gauge? So you sold an oil change? Did you sell a tire rotation? Sold a new sound system? Did you sell a GPS as well?

You see a trend here, don’t you? I’m talking about selling add-ons, both on your sales floor and on your website.

Does your business promote add-on sales with every customer? Are you doing it in the correct manner?

Add-ons mean more money for the business and its salespeople. And you may even upset the client if you don’t practice suggestive selling.

Let’s say you sell that set of new tires. Your customer is traveling on down the road on their family summer vacation.  The return to their car after a night’s stay at the hotel to find a low tire pressure warning light on in the car. Dad hops out of the car, looks at the tire and sees nothing is wrong. So what does Dad do? Is the indicator faulty or is the tire losing pressure? If Dad had a tire gauge he’d be able to check and find out but because no one sold him one, Dad doesn’t know.

Do you think Dad will come back to you for help or maybe go somewhere else?

McDonald’s made a fortune teaching 16 year old kids to ask if you’d like fries with your order. Imagine your revenue line if your service writers, sales team and online store practiced strong add-on (suggestive) selling practices.

It’s easy to suck at add-on selling. If your salesperson is not properly trained, they can miss opportunities or come across as pushy. If your website does it incorrectly it could cost you money instead of make you money.

To avoid these problems, we offer this list of common issues that cause the salesperson or website to fail at add-on selling:

• MISTAKE # 1: Rush the add-on sale. Selling is all about timing. It’s important to close the first sale before trying to add on. Many times salespeople rush the add-on sell, which results in losing everything. On a website, it’s always a best practice to save add-on suggestions until the first item has entered the shopping cart.

• MISTAKE # 2:  Get greedy. Our friend Greg says greed is the root of lost sales. Every customer has a conditional dollar limit (the maximum amount they actually have to spend). Try to figure out their limit and stay within it in selling. Someone coming in for an oil change most likely won’t want a new engine; however, the sure might want to buy wiper blades.

• MISTAKE # 3: Don’t try to sell a snow blade in Phoenix. When adding on to an original sale, make sure the add-on is complementary and appropriate to the original product. You will confuse the customer and most likely lose a sale if you try to add on items that make no sense.

• MISTAKE # 4: Sell junk. Sometimes you need to sell old or discontinued inventory. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as it meets the needs of the customer. They also need to be aware that it is old, discontinued, clearance, etc.

• MISTAKE # 5: Don’t know the products. Salespeople, service writers or online programmers that are not fully familiar with your products can’t put them together to enhance the customer experience. Make sure everyone knows your products and how things work together.
•  MISTAKE # 6: Ask on the sales floor, “Would you like anything else?” This is one sure way to get a customer to say “no.” Be suggestive, proactive and look for ways to add value to the sale.

• MISTAKE # 7: Wait until they pull their wallet out. When it is payment time, either online or in the store, it’s too late for strong add-on selling. Waiting that long is not customer focused behavior; rather, it’s a desperate attempt to separate someone from their money.

Train your store team to show add-ons and optimize your shopping carts for add-on, suggestive selling. You’ll reap the benefits daily.