Suzuki: Ready for the next step
Date:
09 December 2014
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Author:
The soft approach
Rather than pushing its dealers into the competitive long-burn world of SME sales in their locations, Suzuki is trying to head down the affinity sales route of introducing its dealers to the corporate sector.
"We're giving dealers the opportunity to deal with fleet in a non-threatening way," explains Wale. "Deal with a business customer that wants to take two and gain confidence through that to expand." By suggesting the idea of a Suzuki as a business vehicle to people the firm or its dealers already have relationships with, it can gain an easy in. Wyatt says that the firm started by looking at the captive audience of its car, motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle and marine contacts, before suppliers such as creative agencies and breakdown services.
"It's very difficult to set up a fleet team but easy to have a conversation with the guy who services the coffee machine or cleans the windows. That's an easy business-to-business conversation to have," he continues. "We have 120 dealers and want to encourage all of them, not just 15 or 20."
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