Being in the business of selling cars is both a competitive and in-demand business to be in. As family’s grow, the small cars need to be traded for mini-vans and when the kids grow up, cars need to be bought when the driver’s licence is in hand. And with the availability of dealerships, or ways in which you can get your hands on a new or pre-owned vehicle, cars are extremely accessible to many.
But, at the end of the day, it’s more than just finding an outlet and choosing a car. It’s about the entire sales process and how comfortable the salesperson can make you feel about this large purchase you’re about to make and the ethical etiquette that should be followed by these dealers.
The different types of dealerships each have their own kind of salesperson you’d need to deal with. This is more of an unofficial and experiential-based list of the kinds of dealerships that you may come across during your car-browsing journey.
Now that we know about the dealerships, it's time to look at the people who represent them.
There are a few things you need to know about some of the sales people out there. They aren’t there to make friends, they’re there to make a sale and earn some commission. Yes, what they may be telling you about the car is based on its model specifications, but apart from that, they aren’t all car experts. And if the deal they’re offering you seems too good to be true, it most likely is and there’s something else between the lines that you’re not seeing or being shown.
Maybe we give salespeople a hard time because we’re a bit attached to our money (and rightly so). But they are just trying to do their jobs and make a living and we, as customers, need to respect that. We need to find the line between being aggressive with our disapproval of an offer and being oblivious to where added costs are creeping into the dealership contract. Ethics in an interaction is a two-way street. In this case, it’s your behaviour towards the car dealership and their behaviour towards you as a customer.
The stereotype of car dealerships, however, is the honesty factor. Too many times in the past customers have been ripped off or been sold a dud of a vehicle and signed a contract that they can’t get out of – all because of dishonesty on the side of the salesperson.
Honesty as an ethical quality is evident in every business or human moral system. Knowing when honesty is the best policy can be challenging at times. But, in the car retail business, where a large financial decision needs to be made that will affect the customer’s life thereafter, honesty should be a requirement.
Good ethical practice and car dealerships don’t have the greatest history. It’s reached such a point that there are codes of conduct out there to guide and protect both customers and car dealerships in this regard.
Believe it or not, but there are salespeople who really want to do more for you and give you the best possible deal for you and themselves, but are unable to because of managerial pressure.
It’s not that hard to have car salespeople practise good ethics. And if businesses want to focus on building a trusted reputation, it’s definitely the way to do so. There are also benefits that can come out of ethics for the dealership.
When it all comes down to it, there are decent dealerships out there and even online that can help buyers find the car and deal that they’re looking for. It’s about making connections, reading reviews and finding common ground between buyer and dealer.
