Dealers as consultants help keep customers coming back

Commercial equipment and truck dealers should take a more advisory approach to financing to help drive sales and keep customers coming back.  

“The opportunity now that dealerships have of being more strategic, and more consultative is a big opportunity for them,” Kathryn Schifferle, founder of software services provider Work Truck Solutions, told Equipment Finance News at the 2024 American Truck Dealers conference in Las Vegas last week.

“Maybe as much as 80% of the financing is done outside of the dealership for commercial use,” Schifferle said. “If I was a dealer, I’d be studying this to figure out how I can take that business away from local banks.”  

Schifferle said dealers should seek to understand what the added value is for a customer regardless of their business, and make sure the customer knows their options.  

“An over-the-road business is going to be different than a construction company, but it is still a business and so they’re going to be in need of this consultative relationship,” she said.  

OEMs are offering dealers more products to sell, including fleet management services, mobile services, charging, gas cards and telematics, which provides an opportunity for dealers to get to know the business’s needs, Schifferle said.  

“I think the world is complicated today,” she said. “If I know I can trust a supplier of some sort in my life, that’s who I’m going to go to. I wouldn’t call it loyalty anymore… I call it ‘I want someone who is going to help me and I can trust that they’re not just working me.’”  

Lenders, too, want to collaborate more with dealers to ensure that both parties understand the customers and are maximizing the value of their financing packages. To minimize costs and friction, communication is key, according to global equipment financiers.  

Work Truck Solutions, which sells a marketing platform for dealerships to advertise their inventories online, has about 1,000 franchise dealerships doing commercial sales and some wrap both retail and commercial together, Schifferle told EFN.