One of the issues management often struggles with is doing the right thing vs. doing the right thing based on the rules of what’s fair to the bottom line.
Most dealerships have written or unwritten rules primarily to protect the company and at the same time keep peace with the troops.
Though well intended it doesn’t always work out so well.
One issue that often comes up is a split deal. A split deal can create as much hate and discontent as almost anything that goes on in a dealership. Its short-term and long-term effect will often cost you money and additional sales, and can destroy morale.
Every split deal has to be determined on its own merits, but I’ve often paid the full commission to both sales people. I’m not suggesting you do it on every deal. You’d go broke doing that, but on those deals where it’s obvious that we would not have sold the car if not for the efforts of both sales people then it might just be the right thing to do. Especially if you know it’s going to create a burr in both saddles.
The alternative is to pay half deals and now you have two sales people sideways. When sales people get sideways they can’t perform. When sales people get sideways they stir the rest of the team up. When the team gets stirred up by a negative issue we all lose.
Doing the right thing can even be fun. I went to Office Depot the other day to return an item and to pay for an item that they forgot to charge me for on Monday.
When I got to the counter I said, “I have two issues to discuss with you. I’d like a refund on this item I purchased sometime back.”
The cashier said you can’t get a refund because too much time has passed. I said, “There’s a time limit?” He said, “It’s an electronic item and you have to bring it back in 3 weeks.” (It was a USB port extension, $10)
I said, “OK, I don’t think it’s a good rule, it’s still in the box, but no problem.”
He had a bit of an attitude and said, “Let me check on it” or something like that…very grumpy about the deal…he then agreed to give me my money back. I was very gracious and thanked him.
Then I said, “My second issue is I was in yesterday, purchased several items, you waited on me and you didn’t charge me for the printer cartridge I purchased. I want to pay you for it.”(It was a $70 item) His expression. PRICELESS!
It’s also PRICELESS when you do the right thing that in the end helps you sell another unit. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs