3 Effective Ways to Improve Your Car Sales

Whether you’re a franchise, independent or buy here pay here car dealership, you’re in the business to sell cars and make a profit. But in order to do this, it’s important to have the right systems and strategies in place for your sales team to achieve and maintain consistent, positive results.

Here are 3 tips that may help improve car sales in your dealership

1. Manage Your Web Presence & Reputation

To be visible in today’s digital climate, it’s important for your dealership to have a solid online presence and reputation, which means it’s important for your dealership to have quality, engaging online content as well as positive customer reviews. According to Cox Automotive’s 2019 Car Buyer Journey study, car buyers spend 60 percent of their time shopping online, which shows how big of a role the Internet plays in the car-buying journey. Additionally, a 2019 Local Consumer Review Survey from Bright Local found that:

• The average consumer spends 13 minutes and 45 seconds reading reviews before making a decision.
• Among consumers that read reviews, 97% read businesses’ responses to reviews.

This goes to show how having a strong online presence and reputation builds trust with consumers. Whether it’s generating new leads through your website, sharing valuable, engaging online content, or actively monitoring customer reviews, how you interact with potential customers online is important to your dealership’s success.

2. Follow Up with Your Customers

Generating leads for your dealership is as important as communicating with your customers, both prospective and current. Having a customer relationship management (CRM) tool in place to help prioritize your sales team’s prospects based on customer needs, demand, etc., is an effective way to stay communicative and top of mind with your customers.

3. Analyze Inventory

Since car buyers spend the majority of their time researching a potential vehicle purchase online before making a purchase decision, having a variety of quality inventory for them to choose from is important. You also want to make sure you are stocking vehicles that are popular and sell well in your market. You can do this by taking note of which cars customers inquire the most about and by monitoring your monthly reports to see which cars are selling. Giving customers what they want—not what you think they need—is key to improving your dealership’s sales performance.

Becoming an enrolled dealer in the Credit Acceptance auto finance program is an effective way for you to serve more customers and grow your car business. If your dealership is interested in learning about the benefits of offering subprime auto financing through our program, fill out the Become a Dealer form on our website!