Role of a salesperson
It is important to dealership for salesperson to represent the company well so this means that the salespeople have to dress well and they have to be polite. it is important for the sales personnel carry out a lot of administration relating to sales but some tasks carried out more efficiently and in a more cost effective by support staff.
The role of sales person is important because the sales person is communicating with the customers and if the sales person is rude to the customers than the customer will think that company is poor and this will damage public relations so that mean your customers will leave you and go to your competitor so the image is important and the sales person must not be too pushy and must be persuasive and they have to listen what the customers have to say because they will know what the customer’s needs and want are and they can direct them in the place and they should dress smartly and most be polite all the time. If the customers don’t like the car that the salesperson has shown them different car.
It is important for deal ship that salesperson can sell new and used cars. They may also sell other types of vehicles
It is also important for the company that the salesperson can often work longs hours including some evening and weekend.
The skills and interest that a salesperson needs to have are:
- be self confident and have an outgoing personality
- be of smart appearance, with a polite, pleasant personality and professional
- be persuasive and enthusiastic without being overbearing
- have genuine interest in and knowledge of cars
- be able to work out costs
- have good business sense
- be able to work without supervision
If a person has all this quality I believe that this person can become a successful salesperson and they can move up the careers ladders and maybe he/she can one day be sales manager.
The influence on customers
The sale person exerts one of three important forces to influence the customer these are:
- The sale force
- Advertising
- Experience of the customer
The sale force
The sale force, by it skill in display and presentation, will effectively introduce the product to would be customers and will also create new customer by marketing new sales
Advertising
Advertising is very important because it will inform the customer of the existence of the company and its product and service and then motivate them to want them.
Experience of the customer
Experience of the customer will stem from the satisfactory service; enabling satisfied customer to influence other would be purchasers.
There are other factors that effect consumer when purchasing a car, such as what the press or experts say about the car. This has a great effect on the buyer’s decision.
Sales force and sales support/administration
The Sales force are the people who are selling the cars and they include sales promote and sales people. Sales forces are very important because they are the ones who are communicating with customer and dealing with them face-to-face. If the sales forces are not smartly dress and they are not polite then this will give the company bad image to the customers and the customers will not buy anything from them. The Sales forces also communicate from the customer to the deal ship to find out what the customer’s needs are. It is important for the company to choose the sales force with different specialist in different area.
An effective sales person first seeks to understand the needs, then concern and the situation of the customer. There are several important factors of the sales person’s job relating to satisfying the customers:
- To ultimately discover the customer needs
- To interpret them into clear needs for his or her company’s products
- To ensure that good delivered provide continuing satisfaction
The sale force has an important role in the identifying product/market opportunities. If the product is sold correctly and is specifically intended for the consumer’s problem. Dissatisfaction could still arise if the sale person neglects to make sure that the customer uses it correctly.
What is customer service?
Customer service give 100% total customer satisfaction and excellence in providing the consumers needs and wants. It deals with customer complaints and on how they respond to problems quickly.
Making sure that the needs of customers are met by the product or service offered.
Customers have needs when buying BMW products
Customer needs vary from disabilities or with children so they give easy access inside their cart for disabilities. This includes disabled equipment so it is easy for them to access the car
Providing information
BMW use advertisements and other promotional activities in order to enhance their image and entice their target market.
BMW’S spend highly on time and money (which they have) in their advertisements (e.g. television, radio) in order to promote their products and inform the consumers to make them more aware.
Giving advice
Car deal ship gives the right advice; in order to make the customer is satisfied.
They give their customers time to ensure that they have been given advice by having a customer service centre that provides customers with specific information.
Taking and relaying messages
The car deal ship’s customer services are to be alert and to listen very carefully to what the customer needs in order to give complete customer satisfaction. They make sure that they get the entire message right.
Keeping records
The car deal ship use Data Protection Legislation.
Data protection is concerned with protecting the collection, storage, processing and distribution of personal information, which relates to their customers and their staff.
A database is used to protect personal details. The other main method is Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS).
In this system documents are scanned into a computer and stored via a special computer program onto optical disks.
Providing assistance
The car deal ship may need to provide assistance for their disable customers
Dealing with problems
The car deal ship’s customer services focus on problems as a whole and give immediate solutions to each problem encountered.
They also listen carefully and empathize with customer complaints, and then give immediate solutions to the problem.
Staffs are trained to deal with problems and control the situation if there is a problem.
Handling complaints
The car deal ship listens to their customers describing their problem and the car deal ship then apologises to the customer for being inconvenienced. They always give a sensible explanation for the problem.
They record all the complaints in the complaints log and that information is used to monitor complaints in an effort to continually improve their services and supplies and reduce further complaints. However, they record the customer complaints to monitor and reduce complaints. They respond to the complaints quickly
Sale support/administration
Sale people are help by everyone because the goal for everyone is to sale the car to the customers and it is necessary for everyone helps each other and an example of this is that the customer service department deal with the customer after sale service.
This is hierarchy showing the organisational structure of BMW
The sales representatives pass the information onto the sales managers, which is then passed onto the sale department. Instructions in the organisation are passed along line in the hierarchy.
BMW offer after sales service for all them customers because the product the customers are buying from BMW are expensive and the customer want to make sure that there is not problems with the product. Always put customer’s requirement first, before other operation, so those customers buyer BMW product in the future. Knowing that they will get good after sale services.
Planning to sell
BMW operate in very competitive market therefore it is important for the sale force to offer more features on the car than its competitors so that buyers feel like they are getting value for their money.
Successful selling must depend on the Knowledge of the product. A first step in all selling processes is to get into face-to-face relationship with the customers.
Effective selling requires planning and preparation. The sales representative needs to identify the need of their potential customers. The sale person need to have a good knowledge of the products, they should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages. They should know what competitors are offering even if it is better than their products in the same way. The important thing is to be informed about competitions.
A customer who is clearly don’t want to buy BMW’s product should not be pressure into buying a product that they don’t want to buy it without any embarrassment, at least this person may come back to the company in the future when they are feeling comfortable about buying BMW’s products if the shop has being polite and friendly toward this person.
Selling is helping the customer see what BMW has to offer and it meet their needs, in order to be in control of their success, it’s necessary to ask questions. However the sale person has to be polite and sales person have to listen careful to the answer of the customer to find out, the customer need and direct them for the right product.
BMW can never satisfy every concern a customer has.
There will always be competitors who are offering better product which has more feature than BMW. To overcome this BMW can look at their competitors and see what they are offering to their consumers.
The internal and external influence on the market and buyer
The major external influence on the market and buyer are:
- Boom economy
- Recession economy
- Competition
- Tax
- Government
- Congestion charge
The boom economy period will influence the market and buyers because there is low unemployment and everyone has secured Job and people are willing are buying expensive product such as car this period despite the very high interest from the bank of England.
The recession economy period will influence the market and buyer because there is very high unemployment and people are scared of losing their job so they are not willing to buy very expensive such as cars.
The competition will influence the market and the buyers because they are competing for potential customers so you will do anything to do get these potential customers from your competitor even if this means that you have to reduce the price of the car and be down on profit and way that a competitor can attach potential customers from you is by advertising to give extra factor on the car e.g. word globe system and the world globe system will tell you where you are and the direction of where you need to go to if you type the name of the place and it will show you a map and you will not get lost if you have the world globe system installed on your car.
Another factor that they may offer you will be CD players with 10 CD change
Tax will influence both the market and the buyer because if the government increase the tax on the cars then this means that the amount of people of buying new car will be reduce because buying new cars will be expensive to buying so this mean that only people up the social class ladder can afford e.g. doctor, managers and lawyer
Government will have influence on the market and buyers because the government can increase tax on the petrol and this will reduce the demand for cars which mean all the cars that use petrol so I believe that the government has the strongest influence on the market and buyer. The government also put tax on the import cars so that mean if a car is made outside of the EU then that car will be more expensive than a car made in the EU.
Congestion charge will influence the buyer and market because it means more money for the government and it will be expensive to maintain a car around central London
If interest rate and inflation rises, then price will rise and fewer will buy a 7 series car, as it a luxury car. So BMW may need to redundant staff will decrease in the company.
The market can be represented by a demand and supply curve, which maps out the market plan or intended market behaviours of companies.
The strength and weakness of the organisation of sales force/administration of meeting customer’s need
The hierarchy in a business is the order or level of management in a firm, from the lowest to the highest ranks. It shows the Chain of command within the organisation, the way authority is organised. Orders pass down the levels and information passes up. Business must consider the number of links or levels in the chain of command.
Looking BMW’s hierarchy. It shows that the director managing is in control of the business.
There strengths of BMW’s sales force are:
- Everyone knows his or her role and position. Make makes it clear who is responsible for what
- Every staff has individual tasks and duties, which reduce conflicts
- Decision making can be easier
Weaknesses of BMW’s sales force are:
- Their managing director is supervising too many people
- Message from the director managing to the staff takes long and it going different filter which don’t come the exact message from the managing director to the member of staff
- Incorrect information may be passed on; this can affect the company objectives
A first step in all selling processes is to get into a face-to-face relationship with the customer. Every sales person need to have good selling skills in order to complete a sales transaction efficiently. A sale is not complete until the goods are in the hand of the user and are giving satisfactory service.
An effective sales first seeks to understand the needs, the concern and the situation of the customer. There are several important factors of the sale’s person job relating to satisfying the customer:
- To ultimately discover the customer needs.
- To interpret them into clear needs for his or her company’s products.
- To ensure that goods delivered provide continuing satisfaction.
The sales force has an important role in the identifying product/market opportunities. If the product is sold correctly and is specifically intended for the consumer’s problems, dissatisfaction could still arise if the sales person neglects t makes sure that the customer uses it correctly.
In order to meet needs of customers. BMW need to be organised effectively. The sales person for BMW needs to have good knowledge of the product that they are selling. This is important because:
- It makes the customer trust the sales staff because the sales staffs have good knowledge of the product.
- It allows the sales staff to advice customer on the suitable product for them.
The sales person for BMW has to be ready to respond to customer questions quickly and honestly. The BMW sales forces have to task of introducing the product to customers and ensuring completion of the cycle from knowledge to satisfaction. A sales person-customer relationship is very important to accomplish the sale. The impression the customer receives from sales Person will usually form opinion held of the company.
BMW has a company website, which enable people to book Test driving or even buy cars online, however due to advanced technology there have been a few job looses in the sale force.
Recommendations for improvement at BMW
I recommend that BMW should reduce the organisational structure layer because I feel like that information is taking longer to get from managing director to staff and when it member of staff then the message it is not exactly the same message that come from the managing director, so the advantaging of reduce the layer in organisational structure are:
- Information from the managing director to the members of staff is received quicker and it is received as the exacted message that sends by the managing director.
- The managers have less to cover themselves; they can focus on the most important jobs.
- People at lower down organisation are giving more responsible and they feel like that they are part of a big family.
- The BMW should give employees more responsibility so that they would feel more involved in the company which helps to keeps motivated.
- The Managers should have fewer tasks so that they have more time to correct any mistake made by the employees.
- The communication between the managers director and employees would be improve as there is less layers of the organisational structure which makes it easier for communication to flow easily.
I believe that if the sales team are motivate then this mean that they will sell more car and this mean that BMW will increase market share.
A way that BMW could improve their sales is that by having a theme day which will attract consumer to look around BMW’s new cars and even test drive the new range of BMW’s cars. This will give consumers a chance to drive a car of their chose without being pressure into buying this car. On this day they could have surveys being carried out for consumers to find out what customers think of the new range of BMW cars and services so that they can improve their cars and services in the future.
Offering various and incentives and reward schemes can motivate staff and increase their performance. If a salesperson works hard, managers should recognise this and reward them for their excellent performance be it sales or just other employees.
If all these are recommendation are carried out this could lead to sales levels increasing if staff are motivated, this will hopefully increase BMW’s market shares. If they do crease decentralised structure then improvement may be implemented after a couple of weeks. Level of performance should start to increase after a few months.
Penetration Evaluation
Appearance /Preparation- when a consumer is purchasing a product, in this case a car; they want to make sure that they are dress smartly and they are talking to who knows what they are talking bout.
I feel like that my appearance and preparation was preparation was good because I was dress smartly and looked confident. I think that my preparation was good because good knowledge and I knew what I was going to say but I didn’t had a very good knowledge about BMW’s 7 series cars because I had good knowledge about every car in the dealership and I was specialist in BMW 7 series cars.
Opening- I feel like that my opening few words was good because my few words make the customer comfortable and welcome and made sure that I didn’t put the customer under pressure to purchase something even though that was the intention
When I made the customer comfortable and welcome than I ask the customer open-end question, and I ask the customer if he want to look around the shop and come to me if he need any help
Establishing, Customer Needs:
Questioning, listening- when the customer approached, I ask he question to establishing the Customer and I direct customer in the right direction, which I though was the BMW 7 series car, from the information I got by asking question and listening to the customer carefully and mostly of the question I ask was open-ended; this allowed the customer to answer freely. I kept my questions to minimum because I felt it might drive the customer away.
Presenting Features and Benefits:
Professionalism, Knowledge and Image- to make sure the customer feels comfortable throughout the sales process, I had to stay Professional. This will make the consumer feel that they are getting value for money due to the mine confident and knowledge on the product. If a sales person is not confident and don’t have good knowledge of the product than I don’t think that a customer want to buy something from this sale person.
Handling Objections:
Answering questions and Remaining Positive-it is important that when a customer wants to know different things to do with a product they purchase, it is important that a sale person know what they are talking about and if theta don’t they should remain positive because I believe that remaining positive is vital in completing a sales because if the sale person is unsure or negative about the product then so will the customer. This is because they rely and trust the sales person and feel that they know the product better than anyone does.
When I was doing my presentation I think that was answering all questions the customer and I answered best to my knowledge and I remain positive during the presentation and there was any question that the customer asked me which didn’t give an answer to it
Closing the Sale
Confirming the Order and Future Arrangements- I believe that this is the last but most important part of the sale process because this is the part where all the hard work and the knowledge pays off.
I think that my closing sales was good due fact that I made an offer the customer liked the car I show to him and I also offered a lot of benefit as such GPS and CD player to the customer. This was good for the customer because they think that they getting value for money but this are very costly for the company and I also offer the customer after sales after which was a guaranty and I offered the customer a warranty which was for 5 year and the customer accept but it cost the customer more money.
As the future arrangements I delivered the car to the car which the customer really likes it because he felt more comfortable with me delivering the car to him and he said that he tell his family and friend about how good my services was
