Compact Tractor Dealers Ignore Two-thirds of Their Potential Website Customers, Industry Survey Shows

[51allis]

If a dealer doesn't respond to my emails, I find another one who will. My LS came from a dealer who emailed me about it as I was in the market for a new tractor, but the one I got had 12 hours plus 1 year old, however, it was much bigger than the one I was looking at, so for 2.5k less than the new price of a 32 hp tractor, I got one that was 46hp and took over the original buyers payments and the dealer honored the warranty change over (5yr warranty was 4 yr for me but no problems at all with it)...what a great deal, all by email and my financial institution even took care of the paperwork via email and electronic signature. I only went in person to the dealer to test both the 32hp and the 46hp and the sale negotiating and closing was all electronic.

 

[Rdrcr]

TBN and the internet is now replacing the sales person. There is no more need for them. Most of them these days don't have a clue anyway and the combined experience and knowledge of this community is unassailable. You will never find a sales person that could give you this much unbiased perspective. So you have to ask yourself what are you getting of value from the dealer that you can't easily obtain here on the internet and this community?

Man, I hope not.

While the online community is EXTREMELY helpful, buying from a knowledgeable dealer and salesperson with experience operating machinery in the local environment and knows the area well, is paramount in finding and purchasing the correct equipment.

I had a great salesman, extremely knowledgeable and really helped me out in choosing the right size of equipment and explaining my past mistakes. He always responded promptly to emails and phone calls and always worked hard to get me the best price as I crossed shopped competitors.

He quit. In this booming market. Why? Pay. They just weren’t paying him enough and he was their top salesman.
His replacement, knows nothing about machinery and is not very helpful, but much nicer to look at.

Perhaps, in this market, the tractors are selling themselves and knowledgeable staff isn’t needed?

Mike

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

He quit. In this booming market. Why? Pay. They just weren’t paying him enough and he was their top salesman.
His replacement, knows nothing about machinery and is not very helpful, but much nicer to look at.

I think you just proved my point

 

[ddbackhoe]

When I started shopping for my tractor I admit I was thinking green or orange……in that order. I was paying cash.

Since I already knew something about the green one (4066r brother has it), I went to the Orange dealer first to look real close at the Grand L.

There wasn’t a single customer in the lot and my wife and I walked around “window shopping” for 15 minutes before a salesperson came out to greet us. He strolled out with a cup of coffee, smoking a cig, looking like he just rolled out of bed and introduced himself to my wife…not me.

I told him what I was looking for and I admittedly asked a pretty ignorant opening question about whether the Grand L had a turbo on it? (I DID NOT mention green).

Well he went off on a 5 minute pissy anti-green rant about how orange tractors are engineered and built better and don’t need a turbo. How Orange is #1 in the world and I’d be losing money by buying green…..etc, etc.

We left there and drove 5 miles to the green dealer. A salesman came out to meet us in 30 seconds flat. We spent over and hour talkin tractors, he answered questions and gave some great advice after asking us about what we’ll use it for. He even gave my wife a tractor driving lesson!

3 days later we wrote him a check for 65k for a 4066r with many additional options. The very one my wife drove.

IMO, if you have employees like the orange dealer I visited, your best bet is internet sales. If you have people like my green dealer, do it in person.

FWIW……today, I wouldn’t walk through the front door of that orange dealer if they had a 75% off everything sale.

No matter the color, some people already know exactly what they want. Whether it be by phone, email or in person, some of us just dont want to hear the sales staff opinion.
From your description, you didnt care for the orange guy from the moment you spotted him.

 

[artf]

Interesting, the survey that started this thread was conducted in July 2021 - Dec 2021, a period when Dealers had little to no on-hand inventory.

Industry best practice is a same day return contact via email. 2nd best practice is within 24 hours.

I don't know the average cycle time for a SUBCUT or CUT unit sale, but Drive Time, geographic proximity to the potential buyer, still applies.

I know subscribers here don't want to hear this, but since the Dealer needs to fill his Machine Population in his territory, within acceptable Drive-Times, to drive part sales and remain in business, then maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to sell you a discounted unit that you never come back and buy parts & services for because you operate it 4 counties or more away?

The Parts & Service business is way more profitable then Sales on a new unit. How do you think independent machine repair services exist?

Based on first hand knowledge & data collected on previous studies, I know the response time is based on the Sales Rep, not the dealer.

If the Sales Rep is convinced as one sales rep put it " there's a white pony under that **** pile of emails weekly", then the rep will follow up promptly. If not, the task gets put off to the back burner for later and then pushed to the forget-about-it pile, ran out of time.

It's about sales rep training and dealership business rules.

Most small dealerships are NOT staffed or organized to handle the multi-channel world.

Remember, this survey was conducted when the dealers had no inventory, long lead times, and uncertain promised delivery dates from their OEM.

If you think it's easy working at the dealership, then have your JD parts counter guy show you the screen (exploded parts diagram) he's using to look up the part you need. It's a nightmare. It's the exact same screen JD shows you the consumer looking up the parts on the web.

 

[StickMonkey]

Lots of older peopl don’t accept changes, and never will.

They eventually age out of the system, as we all do, and change and new ideas and ways of doing business happen anyway.

Change is inevitable, and clinging to old ways won’t stop it.

Us "old guys" invented the internet!!

I never understood why "old people" don't quickly embrace the new technology stuff.

 

[artf]

Customers/Prospects choose the Channel they want to obtain information, negotiate & buy through, hence multi-channel.

There are no "wrong" channels.

 

[nknelsen]

I'm not surprised.

I can imagine so many tire kickers, out of market people just looking to see if prices a little different than local dealers, people who are not really serious just playing around, etc....

Would hope if someone was serious they would pick up the phone and call or better yet come down, take a look, kick the tires and if serious start talking price.

I have sold lots of stuff on Kijiji (a very common online market place here) and I would say 100% of all texts/e-mails never buy, many are scammers and extreme low ballers. The serious ones and least take the time to call and come on down to see are the ones that tend to buy.

new stuff maybe no inspection needed but at least a call for a big ticket item.

my 2 cents from a "aged" consumer.

I just recently purchased a new Kioti CX2510. I've left emails, kijiji messages and phone messages for Dealers that never returned my messages or called. I was on my 4th dealer before I found one 2 hours away and completed a purchase there. I do find that Customer service has taken a hit lately and just doesn't seem to be as it was before. I was a cash buyer and I paid him a deposit when I ordered and the balance in full when I picked it up. I was about the easiest Customer to have because I knew exactly what I wanted, I did not try to talk them down in price and I paid for my tractor in full before loading it on my trailer for its new forever home.

The first 3 could have made some easy money if they'd returned my calls, emails etc.

I like handshakes too. But the world just doesn't seem to have enough Honorable people left in it these days.

 

[Ninja Rooster]

Most of my communication with the dealer before my purchase was email. In fact; I used the dealers generic email on their website and it was the owner who reached out to me less than 24 hours later and answered every single one of my many questions. We exchanged at least 7 emails before finally speaking on the phone. He called me to let me know that he had the model I was looking for arrive. I drove up to look at it. We agreed on price, implements etc. Confirmed the sale with the owner a day later via phone.

My mentality was; I was letting the dealer use their time as they saw fit for their foot traffic and every day operation. I didn't want to keep them on the phone with all my questions. They could answer in between what they had going on during the day and not feel rushed.

To the dealers of other manufacturers who had not responded to any emails and still have not to this day and months later during my initial searching for a tractor; best start appreciating the internet sale. Thank God for YouTube and internet for information.

 

[BigBlue1]

In my view (and my dealers view), anything net related is tire kicking or shopping for a low ball price. I seel my depreciated out equipment on Tractor House all the time and I never have them list my email address on the ad, just a phone number (landline) and set my price firm and I've never had any tire kickers but I have had unhappy potential buyers because my philosophy is, the first one to lay down a substantial CASH deposit, gets the item. I operate on the 'Early Bird Gets The Worm' principle. Always have.

I view that as a pretty outdated mindset these days. More and more the world is a smaller place because of the ability to communicate and interact broadly with online capabilities. I bought my JD 2520 tractor from a dealer in Texas (I'm in MN) several years ago. Without having an online presence and without the dealer embracing online communication methods that sale would not have happened. As it was, he got what he wanted for the tractor, I got the tractor I wanted at a price I couldn't get locally and it was very little work for anyone. Win-win.

Certainly there are buyer who aren't serious. But there are tons that are. If a dealer wants to turn away from the serious ones and ignore that some of the non-serious ones do turn serious that's their path to follow. I see successful companies embracing it and looking for ways to make that type of sale experience better, which will lead to turning those 'tire kickers' into closed sales.