subject: Air Conditioning Hire For Car Dealership [print this page] Across the UK, (new) car sales are fallingAcross the UK, (new) car sales are falling. In 2011, car sales fell to their lowest since 1994. Total new car registrations were 1.94m, down 4.4 per cent on the previous year, with the Ford Fiesta being the best selling vehicle, according to The Guardian.
The challenge (and perhaps the irony) for car dealerships is that, to help increase sales, they need to create a showroom environment that makes customers feel they are not being sold to at all.
Moving With The Times
The days of the hard sell are gone. The internets growth has created an abundance of choice: if a customer is not happy with the online store they are at, another (more helpful one) is usually only a couple of clicks away. This customer empowerment has undoubtedly extended to the high street, where, for salespersons, the emphasis now has to be on helping customers, not forcefully selling to them.
Salespersons must:
Leave the customers in their comfort zones
Let the customers see that they want to help and serve
Speak in a clear and understandable manner
Maintain a clean, presentable appearance
Not hurry or pressurise the customer
Have effective human relations communications skills
Have the sales environment maintained, dirt-free and uncluttered at all times
A car showroom is a typical example of where all these elements can be successfully combined to provide an enjoyable buying experience for customers. However, car dealerships face a problem that most other sellers do not...
Hot Showrooms Can Mean Lost Sales
At a car dealership the showroom has to be as comfortable and luxurious as the top quality cars on sale there. However, a showroom can be the last place customers want to visit on hot and humid summer days, because, due to the flat roof and huge floor-to-ceiling windows, an unbearable greenhouse effect has been generated there.
Types of Car Showrooms
No two showrooms are identical. They can range in size and scale from very small to mammoth. As the car industry continues to suffer due to the global economic crisis, it tends to be single brand franchised showrooms and small regional sites that struggle to survive. Many are simply unable to continue trading in the face of reduced sales, squeezed margins and low consume, according to automotive website Motortraders.
Larger showrooms are fairing better, particularly those who put time, effort and resources into creating a must-visit showroom environment. At some showrooms across Europe they even have classrooms, museums, restaurants and racetracks.
Maserati Leads The Way
Perhaps the most impressive car showroom worldwide is the Maserati flagship showroom in Modena, Italy (House of the Trident Maserati) where the contemporary interior is more akin to a modern art gallery than an archetypal industrial estate dealership a boxy, glass and aluminium structure that typifies the genre.
Few UK car dealerships can hope to emulate the Maserati showroom, of course, but the good news for showroom managers in this country is that air conditioning hire (and dehumidifier hire), utilised to create a pleasant environment for customers, is easy to arrange and surprisingly affordable.
By turning to an air con rental company with experience in supplying the right types of mobile air con units to car showrooms, showroom managers can go a long way towards creating a comfortable environment for customers and staff.
Mercedes Turns to Air Con Specialists
At a Mercedes showroom last summer, the aforementioned greenhouse effect there made it an insufferable environment for workers and customers. However, one call to a good air con leasing firm resulted in two Polar Wind units being quickly supplied and made operational.
So delighted were they with the service and equipment they received from the air con hire company, in fact, they chose to hire until the end of the summer.
