DEALER DILEMMA
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• Dealers, especially truck dealers, have changed in the past few years. The demise of Bedford Trucks, the birth of AWD, the amalgamation of Ford with Iveco and Leyland with DAF have resulted in the consolidation of dealers throughout the UK.
Today's dealers sell a total package — not just trucks. Finance, service workshops, mobile service vans, parts, 24-hour recovery service, extended warranties, accident repair, chassis modification, bodybuilding, used vehicles, vehicle management, short-term hire, contract hire and driver training are now all on offer, so how should you approach a dealer to get the best deal?
If a dealer is doing his job, he will already know local operators. Feedback from the truck manufacturer, or agency, will identify new registrations in the dealer's area and his salesforce should find out your requirements and will try to sell all the dealer's services. If you are a small operator, you should not be overlooked. All customers or potential customers, no matter what size, are essential to any dealer's operation.
The professional dealer plans to sell trucks to any buyer, but its efforts will be primarily directed at those customers who will be making use of all the facilities on offer. Some dealers will specialise in selling quantities of trucks to fleet operators who will not have them serviced by that dealer. These operators cannot expect to get the advantage of a replacement vehicle from the dealer servicing the vehicles or supplying parts when things go wrong. Although the dealer will say that he treats every customer with first-class service, he needs customers to use all his services to ensure a regular profit.
The biggest problem that truck dealers will admit to is deciding which specification to offer their customers. Operators and fleet engineers will want to talk to a specialist truck salesman, with whom they can discuss specifications intelligently, with advice on the various developments in bodywork, tail-lifts, tyres and other details.
SOLVE PROBLEMS
The salesman should be the first line of communication for the dealer. While he may not actively solve problems with the service department or accounts department, he should be able to feed these back to the general manager who can take action to ensure that you, as a potential purchaser, are not lost.