How often do your sales consultants or sales managers have to respond like this to customers to whom they’ve just presented or demonstrated a used vehicle?

“Don’t worry about that clunking noise we heard. I’ll have a technician get it fixed in a jiffy.”

“That smell will go away as soon as the carpets are thoroughly dried out.”

“After we do a front end alignment, it won’t pull to the right anymore.”

“No problem, we can get that stain out of the rear seat cushion.”

“All SUVs have some road noise. I’ll have our Service Manager drive it and tell me if he thinks this is abnormal.”

Every time I’ve asked a GM, Sales Manager or Used Vehicle Manager how many times they closed the sale when faced with these types of customer concerns, the managers answered  with, “Almost never," so why do these things happen? In some cases these vehicle conditions are the result of inadequate inventory maintenance or over-age “lot rot”; however, most often the conditions result from a critically-missed quality control step in the reconditioning process.

The NCM® training and consulting professionals recommend that a Pre-Display Checklist Process be implemented and flawlessly executed on 100% of your used vehicles as the final step before any vehicle is put on display. The process should include the following:

1. The used vehicle reconditioning foreman (or a representative from the detail department) delivers the completed vehicle to the used vehicle manager (or his designee). These two parties perform a joint inspection of the vehicle, including a road test. A two-part Pre-Owned Vehicle Department Pre-Display Checklist is used to facilitate and document this inspection. (A sample checklist is available for review at http://www.ncm20.com/NCM-Institute/pdf/Pre-Display-CheckList.pdf.) 

2. If the representative of the vehicle sales department accepts the car or truck as meeting the quality standards of the dealership, he/she completes and signs the checklist. The reconditioning department representative also signs the checklist. The used vehicle department has now officially accepted ownership of the pre-owned car/truck.

3. If there are any unacceptable items indicated in the “Re-Do” column, the vehicle is immediately returned to the appropriate department to be made right. Vehicles should never reach the display lot until any Re-Do items have been effectively addressed.

4. Once the checklist has been approved and executed by both parties, the original is filed in the vehicle’s value folder, and the copy is maintained by the reconditioning department in the service history file. This step ensures accountability for process adherence.

The Pre-Display Checklist process will not increase reconditioning cycle time. Rather, it will result in a more thorough reconditioning job, prevent customer objections to the physical condition of vehicle, and increase pre-owned vehicle sales…all without additional cost to the departments involved.  

The Used Vehicle Pre-Display Checklist Process is one of the topics discussed in the NCM Institute courses in Used Vehicle Management. If you would like further information on how to implement and execute this process, please contact a member of the NCMi® faculty. To review the background of these NCM professionals, click here.