Question

You are a newly hired sales consultant working at a local car dealership for a major auto manufacturer. You are paid 100% commission. This means for each car you sell, you will receive 15% of the profit the dealership makes. Therefore, the more profit you manage to build into every car deal, the more you will be paid.

During your second week of training, your manager (Ray) begins to teach you some "tricks of the trade." These are methods the dealership uses to "seal the deal." Ray makes it clear that you are expected to adhere to these in order to ensure a sale is completed with maximum profit. Ray instructs you to do the following:

1) When a customer hands you the keys to their existing car (so that you can inspect and value it for trade-in purposes), don't immediately hand the keys back to them after you have looked at it. Instead, keep their keys in your pocket, but make sure the keys to the new car are on the table in front of them. This creates mental "distance" from their old car, and infers they have already committed to buying the new car.

2) When you are looking over their old car, be intentional about "finding faults" that will devalue it. Ray gives you several examples of how to do this. (a) Take it for a quick test drive with the customer and ask them "do you hear that strange noise?".....even if you hear nothing. (b) Switch on the a/c and say to the customer, "it's not blowing very cold, is it?".....even if it seems to be working normally.

3) If the customer is reluctant about buying the new car, be sure to tell them that if they go home and think about it, the chances of the car still being here the next day are very slim. Make them feel worried that they'll lose the car if they delay. Tell them you probably can't get them as good a deal on the price if they come back another day.

How would you respond?

Answer 1

Important Please note It is a question involving ethics and morals and there can’t be a perfect right or wrong answer. However I’m answering based on my understanding of right or wrong. It might differ from person to person.

Since you are a newly hired sales consultant with no prior experience of handling such dillenia I would try to assess the situation and respond rather than reacting instantly. I would listen to my manager (Ray) carefully during the second week of training. There is a chance that the manager might be just trying to gauge how new joinees react in such situations. Now if careful listening does not give any clue then it would be better to listen rather than interrupting.

Some quick answers about ethical solutions can be this but as I said it needs to be responded rather than reacting.

Situation 1

It's a psychological trick to make customers purchase the car rather than his/her own pure judgement. It’s a way to influence him/her to buy the car. Morally or ethically it’s not right practice to do for sure.

Situation 2

Intentionally “finding the fault, do you hear that strange noise? It’s not blowing very cold, is it?” seems like a quick way to lure customers into buying which is not right at all. If a customer understands all these tricks then he/she will never come back again for sure.  

Situation 3

Telling customers that you probably can't get them as good a deal on the price if they come back another day. Again not a good practice if customers sense this desperateness to sell them something they will definitely know something is wrong with this and decide not to buy again.

See every new joinee may not have the same opinion with this moral and ethical dilemma but if I were in this situation I would have listened carefully and tried to understand everything well. While working I would be using my own judgement. I might be selling less cars but I would not regret making someone by buying something which is absolutely not necessary.

However, since the company I’m working for needs to pay salaries and take care of its expenses so I would have made sure that customers understood the advantages, offers,discounts and everything after the sales benefits of buying a new car. Everything I would explain in a fair manner so that it’s win-win for both of us. I sell and customer buys when both feels it’s right. I would have made sure that the customer understands the need for an upgrade of his/her old car or If his/her car is causing frequent breakdown or components are outdated I would be explaining to them to buy a new one so that they save the cost associated with frequent breakdown. Many times breakdown and repair costs go so high that it’s better to buy a new one.