LAX SALESMANSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 150, 29 June 1929, Page 26

LAX SALESMANSHIP

THE HOME SHOWROOM

A SEVERE CRITIC

The following letter to a British journal is worth republishing, if only to impress on salesmen that people visiting their employers' places of business, •especially if prospective buyers, are entitled to expert attention. The complaint herein stressed is by no means confined to England. There are salesmen even in New Zealand who display an amazing lack of knowledgo when questioned on. points of detail about the cars they are supposed to be handling. Generally, it might be said that laziness ia the^root trouble with such salesmen herej they are ready enough with glib talk on generalities about cars, and ever,ready, too often, to crack up their own cars at the expense of other makes without solid foundation in fact to go upon. A. salesman may entice ignorant people into purchasing a car which does not really meet their needs, as people can be enticed in auy other shop to buying unsuitable goods; in that sense it may be very good business, but there is the longer view that people dissatisfied with a purchase are rarely able to hold their tongues about it. This is one of the reasons why some makes of car will get a good run for a year or two and then begin to disappear from the market. Very few people are in a

position to-judge for themselves about a car, and cars sell, as it were, by fashion, one buyer following the example of another, though actually price is the main deciding factor. Nowadays paint and upholstery play a very big part, and first cost is as important as ever, but a salesman should be of a type and have the knowledge to really satisfy a customer and not disappoint him. There are very few, if any, bad cars on the market to-day; salesmen should recognise this. But there is a wide variety of cars, and one particular type is best suited to the buyer's need, and, generally, the right car is not hard to.define. A lost sale is not necessarily a loss; it.may easily prove the making of other sales, as a purchaser put on the right track will readily disclose the source of his purchase, and! give his reasons for turning down a good car in favour of the one he has chosen. In any case, as already pointed out, it is not good business to dissatisfy a customer; purchase should bo made with full knowledge of the facts, and it is the salesman's proper province to supply these facts. However, to the letter: "To my constant regret I am obliged to live abroad on account of my health, which I lost permanently during the war (wounds), but I buy everything British, including cars. I journeyed to England last in March, 1928, sold my for a good price, and then looked about for a suitable new car. In passing, I should say that the was a model of reliability and all that a car should be, and my only reason for changing it was my desire for another make, as motoring is the only interest I can now take in life. "Being by no means a rich man, but also no novice,. I had no intention of choosing, my new car rashly, and my search involved visits to fourteen London retailers of medium-sized British six-cylinders cars. I can assure you I do not exaggerate when I say that during my tour of investigation I did not discover a single efficient salesman. The first thing I noticed in all cases was that directly I asked any question about any make of car the salesman concerned at once produced from his pocket a small book which he proceeded to consult - feverishly before attempting to answer my question. This gave me at once a poor opinion of the salesman. Surely any salesman, haying, say, a dozen different makes in his charge, should be able, to answer exactly any and every question which could possibly be asked in connection with any "of those makes. "If a salesman has a dpzen (or 100) different makes to sell, it is his job, and his absolute and undoubted duty to iif emjiloye*, to act aside as much of

his spare tin>o as is uoeessary for liini to lsarn by hiart every single detail of every one of those cars. If he has not the sense of duty to do this, or if he has not the intelligence necessary for committing these details to memory by study, he is not fit to be a salesman. I suggest that manufacturers) in their own interests, should visit the showrooms of their retailers personally, frequently, unexpectedly, and incognito, and that inefficient salesmen should be reported to their employers and dealt with summarily. "I studied the details of all the cars in which I was interested before going to London (from the catalogues of the manufacturers), and, although I made no attempt seriously to commit details to memory, I found that in every case I knew more about any particular car than the salesman whose job it was to sell me one. In addition to displaying hopeless inefficiency, some, of the salesmen struck me as being slack to a degree. One young gentleman told me on my arrival that his showroom would bo closing in half an hour (I arrived at 5.30 p.m., I think, and the shop was due to close at 6 o'clock), and punctuated his uneasy generalities and sketchy scraps of inaccurate information by repeated glances at his wrist watch. Another broke off our conversation in order to converse upon the telephone with a lady on the subject of a dance to which he had apparently been invited that evening. Some of them were well educated but amateurish, too well dressed and with absolutely no real technical knowledge. Others had considerable technical knowledge, but were ill-mannered, boorish, and oft-hand, with a sort of 'take-it-or-leave-it' attitude —an attitude in a salesman which has never sold, and never will sell, anything whatever, whether the article in question is a motor-car or a card of brace buttons.

"One 'salesman/ the only one present in a well-known'showroom dealing with only one make of car, was unable to tell me the cubic capacity of the engine any nearer than to say 'it is about

3 litres, you know,' and was 6in out in his quotation of the length of the wheel base. His only good point was that he did not produce that insufferable little book from his pocket. "I bought my ear on the fourth day after trying it in the morning, paid for |it in cash, and drove it away in the late afternoon to Dover en route for Switzerland, but my having bought a car was in spite of, and not because of, the London salesman, liy purchase was really solely because of the sound reputation of the firm who made it, and I have never once regretted my choice."