By Dean Devore – posted on January 14, 2025 – Dealership Marketing – Rural Lifestyle Dealer
I like to win. Even if it is just a game of checkers, I hate to lose. What I hate most is losing a sale. It’s not just my ego on the line, now my pocketbook and the business take the hit. When a customer leaves the parts counter without making a purchase, you may shrug it off or it may bother you for a while. There is no time to lick your wounds. You need to take action right away.
The first thing you must do is identify the reason for the lost sale. It is almost always due to availability or the price of the part. Now you need to record the lost sale. Don’t count on your memory for this. You have too many transactions in a day to remember what happened. Ideally, you can record it in your system. Most systems have a feature to capture this. Look for “Lost Sale” in your system. Usually, you will be able to indicate in the system if the sale was lost due to availability or pricing.
If you don’t have a “Lost Sale” feature in your software, you still need to record it. You could keep a handwritten log or an Excel file handy where you can record what happened and why. Now that it is recorded, what are you going to do about it? That depends on the reason.