When Chevrolet shocked the world by announcing the Chevrolet Volt EREV back in 2008, many dealerships responded by launching a determined campaign to keep the company from forcing the environmentally friendly hatchback on them anticipating only tepid sales due to its high price and unique power plant. While this may be the case at many showrooms, one establishment in Quebec has defied this trend and claims that the Volt (new and used) represents about 35% of its annual year to date business. So how has one dealership in Chevy’s vast dealer network managed to turn the Volt from a mere curiosity  into a sales superstar?
While many folks will assume that our friends to the north achieved this impressive feat with leases, fire sales, and perhaps a bit of trickery. In reality, Bourgeois Chevrolet co-owner Samuel Jeansen chose to hone and heavily train his sales people on the Volt while focusing on the key skill of helping customers connect the car as a viable and helpful tool in their daily lives according to a report by the folks at Green Car Reports.
This focused training is especially important since it allows customers (with guidance from the salesman) the opportunity to see for themselves just what the Volt exactly offers, and how its balanced blend of efficiency and versatility helps it stand out from the rest of the segment. In addition to the specialized in-house training regimen, Jeansen also put in a considerable amount of effort in securing enough inventory to provide customers with a wide array of option, price, and color choices to appease various buying budgets and tastes. A major hurdle in Jeansen’s plans was that GM would not allocate enough new Volt inventory to make his process work effectively, his novel and out of the box solution to this challenge was to actually import used Volts from the United States to his lot. This unique approach is a win-win situation for each side of the coin with U.S. dealers being able to sell the Volts to clear space off their lots for other products, while allowing Jeansen’s dealership to have at least 50 Volts on its lot at any given time each in various configurations.
Jeansen’s ambitious efforts and his dealership’s overall commitment to plug-in hybrid vehicles have not gone unnoticed either. Recently the Canadian Electric Vehicle Conference chose to honor the dealership by awarding the Leading Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Dealership Award which is a fitting way to kick-start the dealership’s 50th anniversary celebrations while also recognizing the dedication and effort undertaken by Bourgeois to redefine the sales experience for plug-in hybrid buyers. Now, let’s wait and see what they can do for the 2016 Chevrolet Volt sales.
Comments
Why don’t GM and Chevy take notes from this guy and require or suggest all of their dealers take this same approach with every vehicle they sell. I am betting if they did they could increase sales across the board. They have great or good products now but poor salesmanship and service.
Dealers seldom, if ever, listen to the manufacturer, much less the consumer.
This is an issue that has challenged sales in many industries. Even many marketing programs are run by people with no passion or knowledge of the products they are selling.
Look at what Ford did to the Mercury Merkur. Here was a car that would have been a better fit at Ford vs. a Mercury, Lincoln dealer. It would have fit the SVO line just fine. So that was marketing error #1
Next we had sales people who had no clue on the car or how to sell it.
GM on the second gen here need to stop pushing all high end technology talk and start telling the customers directly what this car will do for them and how to use it. Keep the tech talk to what the average buyer understands or cares about. They don’t care if the battery is 23 pounds lighter but they do understand that if they use it this specific way they may only need to fill the tank once in 6 months.
GM marketed Gen 1 on the tech side and once the car was on the market the marketing vanished in the second year. I can see the marketing people really have a major disconnect between the consumers and the product.
Tesla on the other hand really explains little technology as it is not all that advanced more than anything else out there. But people think it is because so little is covered. On the other hand Musk has people thinking he invented the electric car and has turned the feelings for it into a near religion. Just watch I will get down votes from Tesla Zealot’s for my observations here.
To Musks credit with his many and sometimes odd claims he has attracted a following and use the internet very well.
Case in point today the story broke how that Tesla does not report monthly sales because they are afraid the media will twist them into other things. The fact is it is easier to hide the up and down sales of the brand in a quarterly reporting to retain stock prices but we won’t speak of this. So while everyone else measures by a monthly scale Tesla remains on their own scale that makes it difficult to really measure their true growth compared to others more than 4 times a year.
Well the bottom line is GM need to market this car to the people and they need to have the dealers on the line with well informed salesmen that know this car inside and out. I suspect many dealers would just rather not fool with them but the time is coming where they will have no choice as electric will always be a part of their lines in the future.
GM should place demands on the dealers and truly reward those who respond. Time to stop being nice and make your partners hold up their end of things.
Also the fact that GM has too many Chevy dealers and would love to find away to cut the number some how. So many of the smaller dealers could care less on a vehicle they may only sell one if any in small rural towns.
Gasoline needs to be $10/US gallon before I would consider a chevy volt.
Electrics are not for everyone and that is why they will be a part of the market not the entire market. I believe most people understand this.
Well one does not understand that.