Motoring
Females Are Still Walking Out Of Showrooms - Unless They Visit Motorpoint. In the 'Car Showroom Shake-up’ report from female-friendly insurer, Sheilas’ Wheels, one in five women questioned confessed to pulling out of buying a new car because of offensive comments made by a salesperson or the off-putting showroom environment - potentially resulting in a loss of sales totalling a massive £907 million this year. In fact, more than two in five women admitted to walking out of a showroom due to the intimidating atmosphere. Nearly three fifths of female drivers describe showrooms as a ‘very male dominated’ environment, with around half saying they had experienced ‘patronising and rude’ male sales executives. 72% of the women drivers questioned said they now take a male partner, friend or family member with them for support and to help them get the best deal – being afraid to ‘go it alone’.
With figures showing that 41% of women in relationships have total control of the household purse-strings, these guilty salesmen had better start wising up to the fact that women will not tolerate unwelcoming surroundings not patronising or intimidating behaviour.
However help is at hand as the knights in shining armour come to the rescue of these damsels in distress thanks to the innovative new sales techniques employed by the UK’s largest car supermarket, Motorpoint.
Founded in 1998, Motorpoint set out to revolutionise the way to buy cars at significantly better prices than before, by sourcing new cars from various manufacturers across Europe, as well as nearly new vehicles within the UK. How? Well quite simply cars are cheaper in Europe than the UK thanks to our somewhat greedy government who insist on heavy taxes, something Motorpoint highlighted in the ‘rip off Britain’ campaign back in 2000. The cars they import are totally legitimate with complete paper work in tact – oh, and in case you are wondering, are in fact right hand drive.
Needless to say with customers saving around £5,000 per new car, business is booming in the Motorpoint camp and they now have massive showrooms in Peterborough, Derby, Burnley, Glasgow and Newport with further plans to conquer the South.
Yet, Motorpoint have gone one step further, realising the problem women face in the ‘normal’ showrooms and actively encourage hence employ females into the sales positions, not just in the showrooms but in the vast telesales department that is fed by the website (www.motorpoint.co.uk) where customers can find the exact make, model and colour car of their choice then confirm the sale via the telesales department. The car is then delivered to their nearest showroom to which it is thoroughly checked over and if there are any discrepancies, Motorpoint simply rectify. With more and more customers using the web as a buying source, this side of the business is simply a gush with successful sales and happy customers.
But what about customers visiting the showrooms? Do oiky arrogant salesmen meet them? Absolutely not, whether it is a male or female sales person, the atmosphere is a very pleasurable experience as I discovered on my trip to the Peterborough showroom. The reception is bright and cheerful; a TV was set up for the children and not one ounce of arrogance in the air. Customers are greeted in a pleasant professional manner and given an A5 card plus pen so they can go around the cars neatly segregated into size etc and make a note on the back of the card of any potential vehicles they may be interested in.
Each car has all the information pertaining to that vehicle on the front windscreen including the savings to be made as well as the CO2 rating for the greener conscious buyer.
If they find the ideal car, which should not be too hard given the huge choice on display, they simply go back to the salesperson ask for the key to which they have made a note of and get inside the car for a more in-depth evaluation.
There are simply no pushy salespeople around and with cars being the second biggest purchase we make after our homes, this is how it should be.
The male and female sales staff are genuinely very helpful and have the added benefit of a vast computer network that houses a comprehensive specification on every car so the customer can see, first hand, that the information being relayed to them by the salesperson is totally100% accurate.
This is the key to the success, as once you gain the trust of a potential buyer they will inevitably buy. If the car they want is not there, they can again access the vast computer network and bring one over from another showroom.
Proving that females are indeed the main buying power, the girls I spoke to at Peterborough assure me that females are certainly not dismissed as potential buyers. In fact, they are made more of a fuss over, as they know females will ultimately make the final decisions. Men have walked into the showrooms, and the salespeople know they will not buy unless they come back with a female companion to reassure them that their purchase is genuine. Ah bless them.
You know, it’s not really rocket science to sell cars; a pleasant professional manner is really what it takes along with total honesty. Well Motorpoint have all these ingredients and proved their recipe for sales is a huge success with recent figures just released showing that in the month of September 2007, 2,500 cars were sold with customers saving a total of 12.5 million pounds working on an a average of £5000 each. If that is not proof of the pudding, I will eat my hat so to the old school of salesmen - you lot had better start changing your ways with the ladies, unless you want to end up at the job centre.
For more information on Motorpoint visit www.motorpoint.co.uk
Jackie Violet
Females Are Still Walking Out Of Showrooms - Unless They Visit Motorpoint. In the 'Car Showroom Shake-up’ report from female-friendly insurer, Sheilas’ Wheels, one in five women questioned confessed to pulling out of buying a new car because of offensive comments made by a salesperson or the off-putting showroom environment - potentially resulting in a loss of sales totalling a massive £907 million this year. In fact, more than two in five women admitted to walking out of a showroom due to the intimidating atmosphere. Nearly three fifths of female drivers describe showrooms as a ‘very male dominated’ environment, with around half saying they had experienced ‘patronising and rude’ male sales executives. 72% of the women drivers questioned said they now take a male partner, friend or family member with them for support and to help them get the best deal – being afraid to ‘go it alone’.
With figures showing that 41% of women in relationships have total control of the household purse-strings, these guilty salesmen had better start wising up to the fact that women will not tolerate unwelcoming surroundings not patronising or intimidating behaviour.
However help is at hand as the knights in shining armour come to the rescue of these damsels in distress thanks to the innovative new sales techniques employed by the UK’s largest car supermarket, Motorpoint.
Founded in 1998, Motorpoint set out to revolutionise the way to buy cars at significantly better prices than before, by sourcing new cars from various manufacturers across Europe, as well as nearly new vehicles within the UK. How? Well quite simply cars are cheaper in Europe than the UK thanks to our somewhat greedy government who insist on heavy taxes, something Motorpoint highlighted in the ‘rip off Britain’ campaign back in 2000. The cars they import are totally legitimate with complete paper work in tact – oh, and in case you are wondering, are in fact right hand drive.
Needless to say with customers saving around £5,000 per new car, business is booming in the Motorpoint camp and they now have massive showrooms in Peterborough, Derby, Burnley, Glasgow and Newport with further plans to conquer the South.
Yet, Motorpoint have gone one step further, realising the problem women face in the ‘normal’ showrooms and actively encourage hence employ females into the sales positions, not just in the showrooms but in the vast telesales department that is fed by the website (www.motorpoint.co.uk) where customers can find the exact make, model and colour car of their choice then confirm the sale via the telesales department. The car is then delivered to their nearest showroom to which it is thoroughly checked over and if there are any discrepancies, Motorpoint simply rectify. With more and more customers using the web as a buying source, this side of the business is simply a gush with successful sales and happy customers.
But what about customers visiting the showrooms? Do oiky arrogant salesmen meet them? Absolutely not, whether it is a male or female sales person, the atmosphere is a very pleasurable experience as I discovered on my trip to the Peterborough showroom. The reception is bright and cheerful; a TV was set up for the children and not one ounce of arrogance in the air. Customers are greeted in a pleasant professional manner and given an A5 card plus pen so they can go around the cars neatly segregated into size etc and make a note on the back of the card of any potential vehicles they may be interested in.
Each car has all the information pertaining to that vehicle on the front windscreen including the savings to be made as well as the CO2 rating for the greener conscious buyer.