10-11-2007 17:23
Females Are Still Walking Out Of Showrooms - Unless They Visit Motorpoint. In the 'Car Showroom Shake-up’ report from female-friendly insurer, Sheilas’ Wheels, one in five women questioned confessed to pulling out of buying a new car because of offensive comments made by a salesperson or the off-putting showroom environment - potentially resulting in a loss of sales totalling a massive £907 million this year. In fact, more than two in five women admitted to walking out of a showroom due to the intimidating atmosphere. Nearly three fifths of female drivers describe showrooms as a ‘very male dominated’ environment, with around half saying they had experienced ‘patronising and rude’ male sales executives. 72% of the women drivers questioned said they now take a male partner, friend or family member with them for support and to help them get the best deal – being afraid to ‘go it alone’.
With figures showing that 41% of women in relationships have total control of the household purse-strings, these guilty salesmen had better start wising up to the fact that women will not tolerate unwelcoming surroundings not patronising or intimidating behaviour.
However help is at hand as the knights in shining armour come to the rescue of these damsels in distress thanks to the innovative new sales techniques employed by the UK’s largest car supermarket, Motorpoint.
Founded in 1998, Motorpoint set out to revolutionise the way to buy cars at significantly better prices than before, by sourcing new cars from various manufacturers across Europe, as well as nearly new vehicles within the UK. How? Well quite simply cars are cheaper in Europe than the UK thanks to our somewhat greedy government who insist on heavy taxes, something Motorpoint highlighted in the ‘rip off Britain’ campaign back in 2000. The cars they import are totally legitimate with complete paper work in tact – oh, and in case you are wondering, are in fact right hand drive.
Needless to say with customers saving around £5,000 per new car, business is booming in the Motorpoint camp and they now have massive showrooms in Peterborough, Derby, Burnley, Glasgow and Newport with further plans to conquer the South.
Yet, Motorpoint have gone one step further, realising the problem women face in the ‘normal’ showrooms and actively encourage hence employ females into the sales positions, not just in the showrooms but in the vast telesales department that is fed by the website (www.motorpoint.co.uk) where customers can find the exact make, model and colour car of their choice then confirm the sale via the telesales department. The car is then delivered to their nearest showroom to which it is thoroughly checked over and if there are any discrepancies, Motorpoint simply rectify. With more and more customers using the web as a buying source, this side of the business is simply a gush with successful sales and happy customers.
But what about customers visiting the showrooms? Do oiky arrogant salesmen meet them? Absolutely not, whether it is a male or female sales person, the atmosphere is a very pleasurable experience as I discovered on my trip to the Peterborough showroom. The reception is bright and cheerful; a TV was set up for the children and not one ounce of arrogance in the air. Customers are greeted in a pleasant professional manner and given an A5 card plus pen so they can go around the cars neatly segregated into size etc and make a note on the back of the card of any potential vehicles they may be interested in.
Each car has all the information pertaining to that vehicle on the front windscreen including the savings to be made as well as the CO2 rating for the greener conscious buyer.
If they find the ideal car, which should not be too hard given the huge choice on display, they simply go back to the salesperson ask for the key to which they have made a note of and get inside the car for a more in-depth evaluation.
Your Comments:
Be the first to comment!