Toyota's goal: create a stress-free store
After sprinkling a box of Toyota magic dust at an event with vehicle importers, Jim Lentz made a confession: Toyota is going through a tough time, too.
“When good Toyota dealers tell me their traffic is down, around 60%, I know things are going badly,” said Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.
Toyota's sales fell 2.3% in January. The company's solution will be a campaign to improve service operations and make sales a less stressful experience, Lentz told dealers at the annual luncheon of the American International Automobile Dealers Association.
Among the goals: shorten finance and insurance processes; identify ways to move vehicles quickly through service areas and reduce the amount of time customers spend at a dealership.
Lentz started with a joke: he had a little red box, supposedly full of magic dust, which he offered to sprinkle over the crowd to share Toyota's success. But he quickly made clear that the only magic is hard work, because even Toyota is facing a difficult market and exhausted buyers.
Consumers have become “oversaturated” with activities and distractions – too overloaded, too many media alternatives, he said. They dread a visit to the dealership. Making visits shorter will improve consumer attitudes, he explained.
He admitted that Toyota is as guilty as the other automakers of stressing consumers. “We create different names for the same thing,” he said. One example: a leather sport package is known as “QC Package Option” in sales materials, but as “B Package Option” on Toyota's website.
Lentz cited research indicating that a positive visit to a dealership's service department increased by one third the likelihood of a consumer buying a vehicle at that store. After five visits, he said, the chances of making a purchase double.
Source: Automotive News, February 18, 2008.
