When Dimmitt Automotive Group opened its Audi store last year, in suburban Tampa, Fla., the group's owners saw the dealership as more than an opportunity to expand their business.
It was a chance to design a better way to sell vehicles, especially luxury ones.
Though Audi Wesley Chapel has been open for less than a year, the group already is seeking ways to spread the conflict-avoiding, trust-based selling approach to its other four rooftops.
"It was pretty serendipitous," said CEO Scott Larguier. The group's fourth-generation ownership, Richard Dimmitt Jr. and Peter Dimmitt, were willing to try new, promising things.
No desks, offices
The sales experience at Audi Wesley Chapel differs from those at traditional dealerships. In many ways, it's a compilation of best practices tried by other brands and dealerships.
There are no sales desks or offices, only round tables and chairs. There isn't much paper, either. Most everything — from checking the inventory to desking the deal — is done via tablet computer and, when needed, a larger screen displaying the same image as the tablet. And the tablet computer, for the most part, is operated by the customer, with help as necessary from the sales representative, called an Audi brand specialist.
"From the moment you walk into the dealership, there's no phones, there's no computers, there's no desk. It's just a different look when a customer walks in through the door," said Joe Petrillo, who started May 1 as Audi Wesley Chapel's general manager.
The tablet computer — in this case, an Apple iPad — is the key. Petrillo said the brand specialist uses it to help customers figure out which vehicle they're interested in, check inventory and even track their whereabouts during a test drive. And when it comes time to talk numbers, the store's market-based pricing and any trade-in offers are delivered to the customer via the tablet in a format that is defensible and justifiable, building trust.
Judo vs. karate
Because use of tablet computers is widespread, Petrillo said, customers trust what it tells them. The tablet "validates all of the accuracy of the information."
"When it comes through the iPad, it validates that everything we communicate is accurate and truthful," Petrillo said.
Said Larguier: "I don't think that what we're doing at this stage is fundamentally changing the way people are buying an automobile as much as we are involving them in the process.
"Customers are very knowledgeable now when they walk into your showroom, but the industry has always tried to hang onto that information."
Larguier said Audi Wesley Chapel's sales process is akin to judo, whereas a traditional dealership's is more like karate.
Audi Wesley Chapel, he says, uses the customer's own momentum to help close a sale instead of fighting each step of the process by having a salesperson running off to a sales manager for approvals or hiding behind a computer screen and keeping information private.
"It's really just involving the guest more with what you're both trying to get accomplished," he said.
The results, though early, are promising enough that Larguier says Dimmitt will adopt the sales process when it adds a Jaguar-Land Rover store.
Audi is pleased enough that it will encourage another dealership group to use the sales process at an open point in Jacksonville, Fla., that will get a store this year.
Kirk Preiser, area director for Audi of America's Gulf Coast region, said the new store is doing two to three times the new and used sales that the factory expected from its first store in the Wesley Chapel market. In July, Larguier says, the store expects to sell about 55 new Audis and another 40 used vehicles.
Preiser, who lives only a couple of miles from the new store, said Audi "had been looking for dealers to pilot these new technologies," and the new store in Wesley Chapel was an opportunity to test some things in the field.
"Anytime you're a pioneer in something, there's really no paved road for you," Preiser said. He said the atmosphere inside the dealership is noticeably different. It's quieter, for example, and not nearly as confrontational as more traditional dealerships. And he said the customer satisfaction feedback "has been fantastic."