Robert Levesque, President and Owner of Levesque Academy.
Dealerships will often slash their training budget when budgets need tightening — but it’s the thing that should not go, according to Robert Levesque, President and Owner of Levesque Academy.
Levesque, who is based in Quebec, has been working in the automotive industry since 1984 — first in the car dealership world, and then in the consultancy world. He now offers training, management and coaching to companies across the country.
He says that, as consumers become more informed about the auto industry, so too does the ability to effectively train employees on an ongoing basis become increasingly important. “There’s a big gap between customer expectations and what is being delivered in dealerships now,” said Levesque, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. “There needs to be (a training program) that is accessible to sales people, but that is also relatively affordable.”
According to a 2018 Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study: 57 per cent of consumers rate customer experience as either somewhat important or very important when choosing which dealership to buy their vehicle from. And 82 per cent of consumers surveyed still consider a conversation with a salesperson to be most useful when gathering information at a dealership. (Although Gen Y/Z consumers, such as millennials, consider these conversations slightly less useful.)
Furthermore, ensuring all their questions are answered at the dealership is considered among the top most enjoyable aspect of the dealer experience. Getting a good deal/price and the friendliness/relationship with the sales associate are also top of mind for consumers.
Levesque Academy plans to launch a bilingual, online sales training program in February to help dealers across Canada grow their business “at a very reasonable and affordable cost.”
