Let’s talk about price objection

Price objection is one of the easiest objections to get around. This is because the customer has already admitted two things.

1. They have agreed the work needs to be done
2. They want you to do it if there was not a price concern

Most shops think a price objection means the customer wants a better price. That is a huge mistake! The only reason price is a factor is the absence of value. You need to figure out what that value is the customer is looking for.

Here is an example of how people want more value over a better price. Many people who would rather spend 5X as much on Starbucks’s coffee over a McDonald’s coffee. Others will spend 3-4X on a Mac vs PC. People will pay more if they see value in their preferred brand.

The same applies to automotive repair. You need to find out the value the customer is looking for that makes them overcome the price objection.

When someone says it’s too much, ask them why they think it’s too much. You need to ask what it is about the price that is the issue. The point is to pull out an answer that will help you counter the objection.

Can’t afford it

Let’s say they don’t have enough funds to pay for the work. In that case, mention that you offer to finance. Objection overcome.

Comparing with past experience

Perhaps they’re comparing it to a similar service that on their other vehicle and it costed less. You can explain that the vehicle is designed and engineered differently. On this vehicle, the parts are more, or it takes more time to do the job, which is why it costs more. Walk the customer through the source of the higher cost.

Cheaper competitor

The customer says other shops are cheaper. Make sure they’re comparing apples to apples. Do the other shops offer a two-year, twenty-five thousand-mile warranty as you do? Do they offer a courtesy shuttle so that you’re not inconvenienced by the repairs? These things are important to consider. What added value service do you offer that makes the price make sense?

Doesn’t understand why repairs are so expensive

Some customers just don’t understand why repairs cost so much these days. If this is the case, explain your process in great detail. Step 1, 2, 3, etc. Tell them about what it is in the process that adds to the cost.

Those are just a few of the price objections that you might get. We will later address other types of objections and how to get around those. Create a cheat-sheet of objections/responses for yourself that you can memorize. This way you can counter those objections on the spot.

Customer says they can’t commit to the price until they talk to someone else

You ‘ll get this objection from time to time. The best way to deal with this is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

When talking with a new customer, there’s a key question you need to ask. “Are you authorized to approve work to be done for this vehicle?” People will be able to tell you yes they are, or no, my spouse or my business partner needs to approve this work.

If third party approval is needed, tell your customer that you’re going to put this quote together. When you call back, or when they’re going to come back to the shop, that you’d prefer all decision-makers to be there. Explain the reason for this is that you don’t want them to miss important information between their conversations.

Let’s say you gave the quote, the decision-maker isn’t there, and the customer needs to get back to you on approval. You need to then end the conversation with some urgency. Some examples of urgency can be a limited-time price or limited availability.

You may have a special on the parts today or had a cancellation. Without outright lying, explain a good reason why it’s a better price now vs tomorrow or next week.

Customer says they’ll decide later.

They might say “I will wait until I can get money for this” or “I will wait until so-and-so comes back.” Whatever the case might be.

What you want to do is paint the fear of what might happen if they wait. Maybe in your quote that there’s something that could be a safety risk. Point out that it’s a safety risk and you’re worried about their safety, and the safety of other drivers on the road. By giving this as a reason to do the work now, you’re going to help overcome that objection.

I need the work done sooner.

You’ve given the quote and you’ve said that you can get the vehicle done by a specific time or a specific day. The customer responds with “I really need to get this done sooner.”

This is an easy objection to overcome. You need to find out why they need it sooner. Ask the following:

“What’s going on that you need the vehicle sooner?”

This is when you’ll get the answer you need. They’ll say they have an appointment they need to go to, or they have a road trip planned. Something along those lines. This is when you find a way to manage your time to make it happen.

Try rearranging in your head what your technicians are doing. Maybe you have a customer who isn’t in a hurry. You can slot this customer in before them. Maybe if they need a ride you can give them a loaner vehicle, or give them a ride to help them out.

The point is to understand the reason why they need that work done sooner. That way you can work with the answer they give. The vehicle may not need to be done sooner if you come up with an alternative solution that suits their needs.

I’ll get back to you.

The only reason this objection comes up is when the customer wants to keep their cards close to their chest. They don’t want to reveal the reason why they don’t want to go ahead with the work. It might be because they don’t have enough money for it or something else. What you want to do is convince them to reveal the reason why they aren’t deciding to do the work now.

Here’s what I start with.

“It’s rather unusual that customers don’t go ahead with the repair at this point. Is there something about the shop, me, or the price that has thrown you off and made you not want to make a decision now?”

By saying that there are a few things I want to point out.

“It’s rather unusual that customers don’t go ahead with the repair at this point.”

This is an age-old sales trick. When you shop on Amazon and buy something, they pair it with other items. And they say “most people also buy…” whatever those items are. What Amazon is trying to do is show you what other people do and make you want to be like other people. If you don’t also buy these things, you’re abnormal. People want to be normal. That’s what you’re telling them when you say that what they’re doing is unusual or not normal.

“Is there something about the shop, me, or the price…”

After that are suggestions of what we could have done wrong. Was there something wrong with the environment they are in that threw them off? Was there something wrong with me that affected them? Or was the price the concern. So we’re giving them the suggestions if they’re unwilling.

When they come back with their answers, you can deal with the objections as they are dealt with in other lessons.

The car is not worth it.

So your customer is looking at the value of the car and the cost of the repair. They’re adding it up and saying it’s not worth it putting that much money into the car.

You deal with this objection by saying that 99% of the time it’s financially smarter to fix the car than to buy a new one.

Remember that most of us buy for emotional reasons and our finances are very emotional. If you can show it’s a better decision to repair the car for financial reasons, you tap into those emotions.

You want your customer to make the final decision. Don’t push them or force them into this. Give them the options of what it looks like repairing their car versus buying a new one. You do that by showing the cost breakdown over the next three years for owning an old car, and for buying a new car.

Before you get into the breakdown, you want to lead with the question,

“Mrs. Smith, do you like your car? Do you still enjoy the car you have now?”

You’ll get a yes or a no. If you get a yes, lead straight into the breakdown. If they say no say the following:

“Nevermind, I was going into how it makes more financial sense repairing this car instead of buying a new one. But if you really just want a new car, that’s exciting news.”

Encourage them to do this if that’s the choice they want to make.

We get them interested in repairing the vehicle because it makes financial sense. By getting into the emotional territory of money, we’re trying to get them to backtrack and ask about what you were going to say.

I’m going to give you a template you can use. Use it to compare buying a new car to repairing an old one. See whether it makes sense to repair instead of buying new. Obviously, you’re going to be honest about this. If you’re looking at that car and the repair bill is $5,000, and it still won’t bring it up to snuff, don’t sell the work! If it will last three more years and it’s reliable, then move ahead with this technique.

In that template, you’ll have the current cost breakdown.

• Current Repair bill, Is it $3,000, $4,000, $5,000? Put it in the template.
• Estimate the next two years after and what work it will need. This is the vehicle’s oil changes, tire rotations and other predictable maintenance. Let’s say it’s $2,000.
• Then factor in the depreciation. It’s a bit of an older car so it’s not as fast, so let’s say the depreciation is on average $1000 over the next three years.
• Add the car payment. In this case, it’s zero since they’re not buying a new car.
• So you add that up. Let’s say it’s $7,000. You divide that by 36 months, which is three years. This gives you the monthly cost of owning this vehicle for the next three years. That’s a little less than $200/month.

In the next chart, you want to find out what it’ll cost to buy a new or slightly used vehicle, like their own.

• The estimated current repair bill will be $0.
• Repairs and maintenance over the next three years will probably be a bit less since new cars won’t need as much maintenance. You could mark it down to $500 per year.
• Put in depreciation by looking at the price difference between the new car and the old car.
• Then you have the car payment, which we’re going to say is $7,000 a year.
• Add all this up, divide it by 36, and you could have a total of $500 to $700 a month to own a new vehicle.

You could prepare by doing this math before they come in and put the info on two charts. You’ll be able to show to them on paper on what the difference in cost will be in repairing compared to buying a new one of the same model and size. Hopefully, they’ll look at it and say “yeah, it makes more sense, let’s repair the car.”

————————————————————————————————-

Current Car

• Current repair bill: $______
• Estimated repairs and maintenance for the following two years: $______
• Depreciation: $______
• Car payment: $______
• Down Payment: $______
• Total added up: $_______
• Divide by 36 months: $______

New Car

• Current repair bill: $______
• Estimated repairs and maintenance for the following two years: $______
• Depreciation: $______
• Car payment: $______
• Down Payment: $______
• Total added up: $_______
• Divide by 36 months: $______