Suggestive Selling With SiteWatch Will Increase Your Dollars Per Vehicle

More Information About Customers, Plus More Opportunities To Talk Results In More Sales of "Extras"

"Would you like fries with that?" Most of us probably heard this refrain the last time we visited a quick serve restaurant. It's such a familiar question, it's hard to believe that it was once considered "novel."

More than 20 years ago, someone at McDonald's came up with the idea of asking customers if they wanted fries with their orders. Marketing experts have been marveling ever since. Recent articles that we've come across in trade publications claim that this single query increased sales at the chain by 15 to 40 percent. One thing is fairly certain, no six words in history have ever generated as much extra revenue for any company.

As McDonald's so clearly demonstrated with its "more fries?" strategy, informing customers about your extra options and services doesn't have to involve an elaborate or complicated marketing effort. Even a simple question, if repeated with enough regularity, will increase the size of your average transaction and beef up your bottom line. According to author and consultant Jacques Werth, president of High Probability Selling in Dresher, Pennsylvania, a successful "upselling program" will ultimately boost sales at the average business by almost one third.

If you're looking for new ways to put the McDonald's marketing concept to work at your car wash, SiteWatch can help. Our computer system will make your salespeople more effective at cross selling extra service packages by providing them with two of the most important things they need to communicate with customers: information and time.

An Information Tool

The powerful Customer Tracking feature in SiteWatch gives your salespeople instant access to updated customer histories, so they can make more informed selling suggestions. With SiteWatch in their corner, your salespeople will have vital information about the customer and his or her buying habits at their fingertips.

For example, SiteWatch will show your salesperson if a customer who normally buys a deluxe package purchased a lesser option the last time he visited your car wash. Armed with this information, your salesperson can then say to the customer, "You haven't gotten your usual underbody wash in four weeks, would you like to purchase a deluxe wash so you can have this done to your car today?" Since this question is targeted at the customer's buying habits, he or she is more likely to say "yes."

Bubbles Hand Car Wash in Houston showed the value of targeted selling in 2001. This busy chain enjoyed an impressive $2.50 per vehicle increase in revenue after it implemented a program that used our Customer Tracking information to tailor sales presentations to different customers based on their purchase histories.

Timing Matters

Timing is critically important in the suggestive selling process. After all, it wouldn't have done McDonald's much good if the "do you want fries?" question was asked after customers placed their orders.

SiteWatch helps in this regard too by providing your salespeople with the customer's history before they approach a vehicle. The handheld SiteWatch Portable Touchscreen Terminal (PTT) makes this information readily available to employees even if they work out on the lot. Using the PTT, your employees can call up customer histories from anywhere on your site without having to return to a fixed register position.

You can also use SiteWatch to provide your salespeople with on screen sales prompts. These selling tips can be created by you to meet the specific needs of your business. For example, if a customer purchased your second best deluxe package on his last visit, SiteWatch can remind your salesperson to ask him if he would like to try your best package this time around.

A Time Saving Tool

By introducing new efficiencies to the sales transaction process, SiteWatch saves your employees time. A case in point is the SiteWatch Instant Credit Card Clearing feature, which allows credit cards to be processed in three seconds or less, about four or five times faster than standard card clearing systems.

In addition to increasing productivity, this added efficiency will give your employees more time to spend talking to customers about extra services. As the McDonald's experience has proven, talking to customers about an "extra," be it French fries or a polish wax, results in more sales.

Closer to home, this point was demonstrated at Drive & Shine, a northwest Indiana chain. After owner Haji Tehranni installed our Instant Card Clearing he expected the time needed to clear his credit card transactions to drop dramatically. That's exactly what happened. A somewhat more unexpected benefit was the sharp spike in dollars per vehicle.

As Haji observed in one of our previous newsletter articles, "The most significant benefit of Instant Card Clearing has been the impact on upsell opportunities. Our employees now use the extra time to advise our customers on additional services, which is definitely making a difference in our bottom line."

Upselling, cross selling, suggestive selling -- call it what you will, it makes a great deal of sense in today's market when rising advertising rates and the daunting task of cutting through "ad clutter" have made it more expensive than ever to attract new customers. The great benefit of suggestive selling is that it helps you recoup the cost of attracting a new customer in less time, since it encourages that customer to spend more each visit. When done properly, this sales technique will not alienate your customers either. A survey of 1,624 worldwide consumers by Forum Corp. found that 88% of them "valued" the suggestive selling ideas presented to them during the sales process. After all, have you ever seen anyone get upset at a fast food counter when asked, "would you like fries with that?"

For more information on how SiteWatch can help you increase your dollars per vehicle, contact your DRB Systems representative.