car-sales-qualifying-questions

Valuable tools for car salesmen are car sales qualifying questions. You can discover all kinds of information that can help you move through the car sales process and sell your customer a car. On the other hand you can even use these questions to chase them off the lot when you would rather be shooting the breeze with you coworkers and complaining about not making any money.

It’s no secret that it’s your job to sell people cars, but they rarely walk on the lot and say, “I will take that one”. Therefore you will need to interact with them and discover what it’s going to take to sell a car and that’s why we use the car sales steps. Throughout most of these steps to the sale you will need to use car sales qualifying questions. These questions must be used strategically or your customer will be asking for your business card and promising to be-back before you even get to the test drive.

What is a qualifying question? There are many different kinds of car sales qualifying questions you will need to ask your customer in order to sell them a new car, but firing one question after another at a prospective car buyer will not make you any friends. In fact this type of customer treatment could easily drive customers to your closest competitor. Below you will find several examples of car sales qualifying questions along with how and when to ask these questions. Plus how you can and should use these queries to discover what you need to do achieve your objective to sell a car or have plenty of time to complain about the showroom traffic.

Car Sales Qualifying Questions for Prospects

Some car buyers will be like an open book when it comes to getting information from them, but others will shut down if you start firing questions at them. In order learn more about car sales qualifying questions I will break them down into sections based on what you want to accomplish and the types of requests you will use to qualify customers to better understand their intentions. The best qualifying questions for sales are the ones that allow you get the information you need without offending to prospective buyer.

Terrible Customer Qualifying Questions:car salesman tips asking questions

If you want to go back to BS-ing with your co-workers or you want to get rid of a potential car buyer A.S.A.P. these interrogations will usually do the trick in record time. However you might be surprised how many salespeople use these on a regular basis when they meet a customer on the lot. They think they are getting to the point, but more often than not they are driving potential buyers away from the dealership. So if you really want to sell a car you should not be asking these car sales qualifying questions to qualify potential car buyers. There are times when customer qualifying questions should be used, but it won’t be when you are greeting customers on the lot or in the showroom.

  • Are you buying a car today?
  • Are you going to finance?
  • Do you have good credit?
  • How much can you afford to pay a month?
  • Do you have a co-signer?
  • Do you have any money down?

Car Salesman Questions for Meet And Greet:

The first few minutes when you meet a customer is very important to your success. Obviously the first of your car sales qualifying questions will be my name is Karl (your name) and you are? A good introduction will get your their names or names which you will be using throughout your presentation.

Car Sales Qualifying Inquiries to Determine Needs:

Moving forward through the car sales steps requires you to follow your dealership’s script, but they should include car sales qualifying questions to determine which vehicle to show your customer. Your questions should along the lines of these queries.

  • Were you considering a car, truck, van or SUV?
  • Were you interested in a coupe or sedan?
  • Are interested new or pre-owned?
  • How passengers will you be carrying?
  • Do you need to tow anything with your vehicle?
  • How many miles do you typically drive in a year?
  • Who is the primary driver?
  • Are you replacing a vehicle?
  • If you are replacing vehicle what vehicle?
  • If replacing a vehicle will you be trading it in?
  • Are they are any special options or features that you are looking for in your next vehicle?

These types or car qualifying questions serve two purposes. The first purpose is to get the answers, but the other and usually the most beneficial is to get your customer talking. These qualifying questions to ask customers will open up your customer and they will start telling about their likes and dislikes. Listen closely and then you can move forward in the sales process.

Test Driving and Qualifying Vehicle Selection:questions-for-selling-cars

Once your customer has decided on a particular vehicle you will need to do a walk-around to demonstrate the features. Then you will have your potential car buyer go for a test drive to make sure the vehicle fits their needs. The car sales qualifying questions you will be asking at this point will be used to make sure that they have selected the right vehicle so you can move forward and if it’s not the proper vehicle it will be time to step back and reselect a vehicle.

  • Are you comfortable in the drivers seat?
  • The car drives very nice, doesn’t it?
  • Very smooth ride, isn’t it?
  • I am sure safety is important to you, right?
  • This sure is a good-looking car, right?
  • This car is much nicer that your old car isn’t it?
  • Is there anything missing on this car that you wanted?
  • Is there anything you want to add to this car?
  • If we can come to terms, is this the car you would want to take home?

These car-qualifying questions can help you make sure that you have the right car because there is not much chance of selling it to your customer if it lacks the features and benefits that they wanted. Plus you won’t be able to close the sale if it has expensive options that the buyer doesn’t want or need. Ask the questions, listen closely to the answers and let your customer talk so you decide on your next move for selling them a vehicle.

Finance, Negotiation and Car Sales Qualifying Questions:

This is the section that most car salesmen think about when they talk about car sales qualifying questions. Most car salespeople want to make sure that they have a customer that can actually buy a car rather than spend an hour or more only to find out that the buyers credit is so bad that they couldn’t buy a car with 99% down. Often you can get your answers without actually getting to the point, as you will see with the following softening car sales qualifying questions.car-sales-questions

  • Did you know that there is a rebate if you are not financing?
  • Were you planning to use the low rate financing incentive?
  • Did you know that there is a sales tax incentive for trade-ins?
  • Did you want to put any money down on your purchase?
  • Do you owe any money on your trade-in?
  • Do you want to finance for 36, 48 or 60 months?
  • Do you have full coverage car insurance?
  • Have you set a budget figure for monthly payments?

As a car salesman when it comes to car sales qualifying questions you want to make sure you have someone that can buy a car in front of you instead of waiting for the negotiation step. Rather than ask direct possible insulting questions early in the process you can use statements and some of the above questions that will bring you answers that won’t offend potential buyers. A great example would be asking them if they are aware that there is a very low rate financing incentive. You can also say that with their good credit the monthly payments will be very reasonable. Both of these will very often cause the customer that has credit problems to ask you about credit. When the customer initiates the credit conversation and asks qualifying questions you no longer have to worry about offending them, but instead you can get right down to business.

Using the Answers to Your Car Sales Qualifying Questions to Close the Sale:

The information you ascertain with the answers to your qualifying questions is often what you may need to close the sale. When it comes down to shaking hands and closing the car sale the customer may hesitate at times before making such a big commitment, but if you are going to make the sale you can pull out the answers to the questions you asked them earlier. Tell them that they wanted, safety, gas mileage, low rate financing, comfort, navigation and anything else they wanted and then close the deal.

Being able to gather information the entire time that you spend with a prospective car buyer is critical to your success. If you shortcut the process and try to close the sale before you have all the answers you greatly reduce your chances of selling a car. When you use the proper car sales qualifying questions at the right time and in the right way you will learn all you need to know to sell your customer a car. Customers will tell you how to sell them a car if you listen closely to their answers.

Later, Fresh Up on the Lot

KB

 

1 Comment

10 Signals That They Are Lying to the Car Salesperson - Car Sales Professional · May 8 at 9:36 pm

[…] in their own mind. However, if they are looking up they may actually be thinking. But the type of questions asked by the car salesperson does not require deep thought unless they are lying to the car salesperson. […]