ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. (WCAX) - Salesmanship is often an intimate experience, building connections to sell you a product. And if your product is a car, it’s been a world of change due to the pandemic.
At Paya’s North, they specialize in rebuilt vehicles, so everything has been repaired from some sort of damage.
That means when people come to look for a car, they want to see the car and test it out.
“It has changed the way we do everything, which hasn’t been a bad thing. We have gotten some really positive feedback out of it,” said Carrie Paya Matthews, the business manager.
What started as a totally contactless experience, has been reshaped and changed as knowledge about COVID-19 progressed.
Appointment only, and different, but they say they are still functional.
“Our sales staff would do everything over the phone, through email. Basically go through everything with the car over the phone first,” said Paya Matthews.
She says dealers of all sorts of cars are operating under their own protocol, but offering options offers comfort.
But a big part of buying a car, is testing it out. Something Paya Matthews says is crucial for the buyer.
“Off they would go on their test drive and off they’d go on a test drive, and they would come back and we would talk with them over the phone while they were sitting outside our door,” said Paya Matthews.
She says because of the pre-checking process and encouraging people to only pursue cars they are really interested in, they were able to continue to make sales.
“Now more so than in the beginning of COVID, people are more out test driving and that is what we are trying to avoid. Like we are just trying to stress that if you see something on our lot that you are very interested in, we are going to go over it, we are taking pictures of any flaws the car has. Okay, here is a little dent, here is a little scratch, we want to make sure they see the car in its entirety before we make an appointment for them to come in because we really only want serious buyers here,” said Paya Matthews.
Protocol has since loosened a tad, allowing for more interaction, but ultimately it is still up the customer.
“Being open to adapting to what the customer needs and what they are comfortable with in terms of the pandemic,” said Tom Patterson, a sales and marketing associate with Paya’s.
He says he can go through everything about the cars in person, over the phone, and even walk people through the sanitizing process.
“The more thorough we were in explaining how much doing it the right way and doing it safe is important, really made them more comfortable and in turn made us more comfortable,” said Patterson.
Patterson says now that they have been working through it, ultimately, it will make salesmen more flexible.
“It’s working around the restrictions of COVID, but don’t give up, we can do it and we can do it right,” said Patterson.
Paya Matthews also says one of the other keys in making sure they are staying COVID safe is every time a car comes back from a test drive, they are able to park it around back, let it sit for 24-hours and then go through it with a thorough sanitation process.
A commitment, but it keeps their staff and customers safe.
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January 21, 2021 at 08:07PM
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What it's like buying a car during the pandemic - WCAX
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