Dealing with the cash buyer the On Track way
The cash buyer can be a challenge to the business manager. Should the business manager try to persuade the customer to switch to financing the deal in the usual way? What if that alienates the customer? On the other hand, a cash sale means giving up the chance to sell warranties and other products. What’s a business manager to do?
On Track Financial Solutions says it has a suggestion: offer the customer On Track’s return-to-invoice product (RTI).
“Dealers are struggling with this,” says On Track CEO Clayton Leys. “We heard the cry from the dealers over the last three year to four years. ‘We need an economical product that we can sell to a line-of-credit customer’ and we’ve given them that.”
He says RTI pays the difference between what the insurance company pays if the vehicle is written-off or stolen and what the customer paid for it. Call it a gap product for the so-called cash customer.
Leys says selling the product isn’t difficult.
He advises against trying to switch over the cash customer and to forget trying to sell them extended warranties and other products with $2,000 plus price tags. The customer won’t buy them.
Offer RTI instead.
It’s easy to explain in a 30 to 45-second presentation, he says.
“Tell the customer ‘If you were financing this vehicle, we’d be talking about gap coverage,’ Now explain briefly what gap is. Then go on. ‘But you are paying cash. We want you to be protected and we have this product called RTI.’ Then go on and explain it.”
He says that since the sales person isn’t challenging the customer by saying they’re really not paying cash or trying to switch them over, they keep the customer’s confidence.
“Just say ‘It’s a product we offer to our cash customers.’ Then show them what the product does for them in the event of a loss and offer them a $500 or $600 payment, and they’ll find it easy to swallow.”
Leys says RTI is the only one of its kind on the Canadian market and is underwritten by Chartis Insurance.
Financial Solutions has been in business for 10 years and offers a wide range of gap insurance products for on-road and off-road vehicles. With the exception of Quebec, all products are available throughout Canada.
For more information, visit www.ontrackgap.com or call 877-853-8783.
