How to guarantee your new customers come back time and again

Aim: Put in place the foundations of a post-sale customer relationship at the point of sale that is focussed on the customer’s potential needs and requirements for car change in the future.

Background: We normally regard the delivery or handover stage as the final part of the customer journey; the customer moves into their ownership period and will be handled by aftersales. We will keep in touch and, hopefully, if the customer decides to change their vehicle we will be informed.

However, this point in the sales process is probably the most important part of any internal prospecting or retention process. What you say at this point and the impression you make on the customer will be the lasting impression they take with them; it might even determine whether you get the opportunity to sell again to this customer.

How: At the handover stage, in addition to our GDPR responsibilities, we should agree and set a ‘contact agenda’ with every customer.  At this stage in the process, we will have an excellent relationship based on trust and openness. We know the customer will change their car at some point in the future and we know that there will be factors that will trigger or influence that decision during their ownership period, and it is vital that our contact agenda has purpose and reason. 

Our knowledge of the customer’s circumstances and requirements and what will influence their choice of car in the future is very high at this point and this must form the purpose of keeping touch – to keep the customer up to date with the latest developments, new models and innovations that will specifically interest them.

The purpose of the contact agenda should be agreed with the customer, and it should also include the method of contact and preferred timing of contact. Following the handover, we must conduct a full sales debrief and set in place a retention plan for every customer; this should be conducted within 24 hours of every sale and the salesperson should immediately update their DMS or prospecting system with the details.

Outcome and follow up: Observe handover in action and check that a contact agenda is described to the customer including the purpose and reason for the contact and most importantly that it is agreed with them.

Put in place a post-sale debrief and (randomly) check that the details and systems are being updated. This is also a great topic for sales meeting and an opportunity to conduct short, sharp role-play sessions.

By John Brannigan, managing director, Fimtrac and RTS UK