Playbook, car dealership
What your car is worth, and the appraisal that decides it
Every other quote in this set has the business pricing its own work. This one runs the other way: the customer is selling and the dealership is buying, so the number is an offer rather than a price, and offers behave differently. They depend on things you can only see by walking round a car, and they go out of date with the market rather than with a price list.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for quotes and estimates holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The direction of the transaction is reversed, so the figure is an offer the dealership is making, and an offer made without seeing the goods is not one anybody can stand behind.
- The inputs are condition, recorded mileage, service history, tyres and damage, plus what the trade market is doing that week, and only the last of those is not physical.
- Outstanding finance on the customer's own car is the complication nobody anticipates: the settlement figure comes from their lender, it is theirs to obtain, and it changes the whole arithmetic.
- Any figure has a shelf life, because the market it came from moves, which is why a valuation carries a validity period and a price list does not.
How it arrives
- what would you give me for my car
- how much is my car worth in part exchange
- i still owe money on it, can you take it
- how long does a valuation last
- do i have to buy a car from you to sell you mine
- will you match a price from an online buyer
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What the appraisal actually looks at | Bodywork, tyres, interior, recorded mileage, service history, previous damage, and what the market is doing. Listed, because the list is what makes the refusal credible. |
|---|---|
| How outstanding finance is handled | That the settlement figure comes from the customer's own lender, that they can request it, and how it is applied. Write this out fully. It is the part that catches people out and it is entirely explainable. |
| How long a valuation stands | The period, and what causes it to be redone. A valuation with no stated life gets quoted back to you a month later when the market has moved. |
| What to bring to an appraisal | The car, the registration document, the service record, both keys. Four items, and a customer who arrives without them turns a twenty minute appraisal into a second appointment. |
The reply
We cannot value a car without seeing it, because the figure comes from condition, recorded mileage, service history, tyres and any damage, and a description is none of those. An online estimate is an indication rather than an offer. If there is finance outstanding, ask your lender for a settlement figure and bring it, because it changes what you would actually be paying. Bring the car, the registration document, the service record and both keys, and the appraisal takes about twenty minutes.
It declines the number and hands over a checklist instead, which is more use to the customer than the number would have been. The settlement sentence is the one that prevents a wasted appointment, because people arrive without it and the conversation stops dead.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any request for a figure or a range, any question about a valuation already given, and anything about matching another buyer's offer.
A figure needs the car in front of somebody. Leave your name, a number, the registration and the mileage and the sales team will arrange an appraisal and call you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- A valuation, an estimate or a range for a car described in a message.
- That an online figure will be honoured.
- A settlement figure, or that finance can be cleared, since that sits between the customer and their lender.
- That a valuation will still stand at a later date.
Questions
- Online valuation tools give a number instantly. Why not match that?
- You can, provided the assistant calls it what it is. An indicative figure that arrives labelled as an indication is a lead. The same figure implied to be an offer is a customer who drives in expecting it and leaves annoyed when the appraisal lands lower.
- Should we explain outstanding finance in this much detail?
- Yes, because it is explainable, it is the commonest sticking point, and it needs the customer to do something before they arrive. That last part is the argument: the sentence has to reach them at the enquiry, not at the desk.
- Can it collect the registration and mileage?
- It should, in the handover message. Those two turn a callback into a real conversation, because the sales team can look at the car's own details before they dial rather than starting from what colour it is.
Keep reading
- Everything for a car dealershipStock moves daily and finance adverts are regulated, so this is mostly about what a dealership assistant must never claim to know.
- Handling quotes and estimates in generalWhat has to be known before a number is possible, how the scoping step works, and how to answer without stonewalling or inventing a figure.
- Four ways to sell a car, four different warranties behind itNew, approved used, standard used and trade sale carry four different levels of cover. The sale category decides the whole answer.
- The documents that decide whether the drive happensA licence, a minimum held period and an insurance arrangement decide whether a test drive happens at all. Say all three beforehand.
- The buyer who has chosen one, handed over before somebody else doesA reservation holds a vehicle and usually takes a payment. That belongs to a person, and the assistant's only job is speed.
Try it on your own material
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