Selling auto accessories is more than just tacking on extras to a car deal—it's about enhancing the driving experience and building customer relationships. To successfully navigate this niche, understanding and applying best practices can significantly boost your accessory sales and customer satisfaction. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you refine your approach and achieve better results.
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Best Practices for Selling Auto Accessories: Manageable Steps for Any Dealer
Topics: sales team, Accessories sales, tips, increase sales
What To Do When a Customer Wants To Think About It
Topics: sales team, Accessories sales, tips, increase sales
4 Ways Car Accessories Boost Dealership Retention
Topics: Increase Profits, Best Practice, Accessories sales, increase sales
3 Reasons Service Writers Are Your Best Salespeople
Your service writers are in the ideal position to boost your accessory profit.
When customers come in for service or routine maintenance, there are things they’ve been thinking about that they didn’t buy when they purchased the car. Though customers are less likely to make a major upgrade on the spot, like upgrading audio or installing retractable side steps, they’re highly likely to add lower-cost everyday accessories.
A service writer’s selling stance is one of convenience. Boiling down your offering to a handful of accessories that appeal to the masses will simplify the process and produce a higher sales volume.
Think of accessories like mud flaps, body side molding, cross bars, and all-weather mats that are affordable and helpful for most vehicles, plus remote starts for older models.
These are low-pressure accessories that service writers can easily incorporate into their upsell to create happy, loyal customers and generate additional revenue in fixed ops.
Here are three reasons why your service writer is the man (or woman) for the job.
1. A pre-established relationship with the customer
The most difficult (and expensive) segment to sell to is a brand-new customer, whereas the easiest sell is the customer who already agreed to do business with you. A pre-established relationship translates into a soft sale that’s far removed from the initial battle of wits that is often the car sale. Still, most dealers continue to focus nearly all selling efforts on the front of the house. Often, your service writers have built relationships with their “regular” customers, and as a result, trust has developed between the two. This lowers a buyer’s natural resistance to being presented with items for sale.
2. They’re already in a position to upsell
Service writers are in a natural upselling position. When a customer brings their vehicle to the service lane, technicians will check its functions and systems and present any problems or potential problems to the customer. It’s expected. At the same time, service writers can suggest accessories that will protect the vehicle or enhance the driver’s experience without it coming off as a sales pitch. Providing good training and an easy way to present the accessories to their customers is a good start.
3. The program benefits them, so it’s easy to get on board
Most service writers are paid on gross, so there isn’t much reluctance to roll out an accessory-selling program. By implementing this program, you're not only increasing their earning potential but also making their job more fulfilling. This, in turn, increases retention rates and creates loyal customers. By offering this program, you're showing them that their role is crucial in the sales process, and they should be able to buy into the program enthusiastically.
When your customers can create the vehicle that they have dreamt of, your retention rate will increase. They will know that they can count on you to provide the right product and the right price, installed correctly. Customizing is fun, and fun is a good experience for your customers to have when they visit your dealership.
Insignia Group Can Help
For more than twenty years, Insignia Group has been the leading provider of digital accessory-selling systems in dealerships nationwide. Our sleek interface allows dealerships to create profitable accessory programs at the point of sale, in the service lane, and online! Dealers using the Insignia Group accessories selling system can easily present accessories anywhere in a user-friendly way. Our cutting-edge visualization connects your customer to their purchase and makes for a seamless order process.
Schedule a demo to see how our system can help you sell more accessories in the service lane!
Topics: service writers, Accessories sales, increase sales, service department
Does the thought of selling accessories get you bent out of shape? When it comes to presenting personalization at the point of sale, there’s a process you can follow to the letter to snap you back.
Even dealerships that throw accessories at the wall to see what sticks make money. While a haphazard approach isn’t sustainable and surely not the best way to do things, accessories just hold their own.
Your customers are hard-wired to personalize. That’s the facts—so if you opt not to offer accessories out of fear of losing the sale or confusion on how to do it, your customer will head to the aftermarket vendor down the street.
Keep your money in-house. Ensure your customer is getting OE accessories (under warranty) installed by factory-certified technicians. And then reap the benefits!
Topics: Increase Profits, Best Practice, Accessories sales, increase sales
Topics: Increase Profits, Best Practice, Accessories sales, increase sales
Utilizing A Lead-In Product For Accessory Sales
The art of accessory sales presents one golden opportunity. There are other opportunities along the way, yet only one is golden. While the accessory sale is a multi-step process, the actual presentation begins with a lead-in product.
You’ve started at the trade, gotten to know your customer’s lifestyle, mentally filed away the best personalization options to suggest and then closed the car deal. In this blissful moment, you tarry your customer with a Coke and a smile, knowing the dreaded F&I wait time has been subdued by Vehicle Personalization.
The golden opportunity has arrived, and we call it utilizing a lead-in product.
Topics: Accessories System, Sales Best Practices, sales team, sales, Best Practice, Accessories sales, increase sales, salesman
Back and Better: Retraining Car Sales People With Accessories
Salespeople are learning how to sell cars again after a long period of being order takers. Having empty lots and vehicles on backorder got us all out of practice. As inventory and prices stabilize, there’s inevitably going to be a relearning process.
Retraining car salespeople after the industry upheaval means addressing changes in customer behavior, understanding industry trends, and adopting more efficient ways to meet goals. Wise management should take advantage of the potential in training by integrating accessory sales into the process.
Here are some strategies to consider.
Topics: Accessories System, Sales Best Practices, sales team, sales, Best Practice, Accessories sales, increase sales, salesman
Customizing your car used to be reserved for true car enthusiasts. Today, Vehicle Personalization is a multi-billion dollar industry, consistently adding hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars to dealerships’ annual gross profit. It’s not just gearheads from the tuner scene in SoCal that want accessories. It’s Charles from the suburbs. It’s Molly from accounting. It’s the next person to walk into your store.
Although trends change rapidly, the desire to personalize does not. It’s not a matter of if consumers will personalize their vehicles; it’s a matter of when and where they’ll spend the money to do it.
Topics: Increase Profits, sales team, Accessories sales, increase sales, customer experience
Winning Over Online Customers at a Dealership
The pandemic rocketed the automotive industry forward one to three years in accepting digital retailing. Years before COVID, we knew Carvana and Vroom were changing the way consumers bought cars. The option to buy online affected dealerships some, however, we weren’t comparing apples to apples.
Consumers did, and still do like to sit in a car before they buy it. With the majority of customers buying cars traditionally, online retailing was a secondary focus. Just one year ago, merely having a web inventory and an active social media presence made your store competitive in the digital space.
Well, now, everything’s changed.
Why Does Automotive Digital Retailing Matter?
Google published some astonishing statistics about online buyers. Their data showed that 84% of Americans are shopping for something in any 48-hour period. Additionally, 63% of all shopping began online. The research went further, examining trends when people buy specific products. Those in the market for a car took to Google to gather information. Said consumers ranged from 20 to 68 years old. Over time, these shoppers researched the best dealership, brand, and trade-in online. We can infer the end result. The consumer likely bought a car they chose from their research. The vehicle was likely purchased from a highly-rated dealership, also found online.
Topics: Customer Retention, Dealership, eCommerce, success, increase sales, customer experience, Digital Retailing