Properly Exposing the Need for a Service Contract

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In this video, Trent White reviews techniques to effectively expose clients to the need for a service contract based on a major buying motive in today’s market.
Recognizing the value and importance of taking care of our customers long term, begins with understanding their buying motives. Let’s look at one of most common reasons clients purchase newer vehicles in our market today.
Safety
Safety is no longer just antilock brakes and crumple zones. Safety in today’s vehicles is in the hands of technology such as lane departure indicators, corrective steering, braking assist and the 100 million lines of code that controls it, most of which your manufacture doesn’t build.
And that’s why Service Contracts are so important to our clients and their long-term ownership as they continue to provide the experience clients have come to expect from the vehicle they love.
To help them with making service contract decisions it is important to expose our clients to the need for the Service Contract and that begins the sales team actually demonstrating how the technology works to provide the safety in our trusted vehicles. Let me explain.
To build value, we would recommend using the F.B.I. technique… Feature, Benefit, and Individual Impact to the customer. Vehicles today are “Glorified Computers” wrapped in sheet metal with technology to control the safety features. This technology uses millions of lines of code to communicate within the vehicles computer systems to provide that safety our customers rely on to protect them and their most important assets.
To illustrate how this technology works, let’s take a vehicle with the lane departure or lane keep assist technology and during the demonstration drive allow the client to let go of the steering wheel “in a safe zone” not rush hour traffic. Allow them to experience this feature and benefit from the lines of code redirecting the vehicle back to the center of the lane. During this time simply have the salesperson share with the client how the technology within the feature is reading the painted lines on the roadway, the speed of the vehicle and the needed amount of adjustment to benefit the client by re-positioning the vehicle safely. The individual impact protects the client from potential danger of drifting into other traffic or off the roadway all together.
Perhaps another great opportunity to demonstrate this same technology is with the Adaptive cruise control, allowing the client to again experience this technology while sharing how it uses sensors and cameras to communicate the desired safe traveling distance and the speed of the vehicle to adjust the braking systems, engine, and transmissions to safely adjust and even recognize when to stop and then re-accelerate to speeds previously set. The Feature is Adaptive Cruise, the Benefit is the vehicle maintaining safe travel distance, and the Impact is while traveling on the roadways today taking your children to school, the technology on your vehicle is there to keep you safe when you become distracted in conversation with you most precious cargo!
Here at the Automotive Training Academy, we recommend working with the sales team to properly expose your clients to the need for a Service Contract early and often. Having a conversation and illustrating safety technology and the impact it makes on them early in the process, sets the stage for and establishes the need for the Service Contract.
And let’s face it, With the ever-increasing cost of repairs to replace technology and provide our clients with protection of the Safety Features they have come to trust, service contracts are key to providing them with the ownership experience they demand and deserve, and as an a added bonus, it increases your long term repeat and referral business.
From all of us here at the Automotive Training Academy, that was your tip of the week.
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