Chevrolet is facing a serious problem in California: it is under-performing on the sales front in the country’s largest car market. To add insult to injury, it lags behind not only established rivals such as Toyota, Ford and Honda, but also the (relatively) new kid on the block, Hyundai.
Understandably, parent company General Motors is not happy. “We are really going to have a go at California”, said president of GM’s North American operations Mark Reuss. “This is not some half-baked plan. We will be putting a serious amount of money into this.”
And believe it or not, some of GM’s cash will be spent on tickets to Disneyland…Yes, Chevy’s salesmen will head for the world-famous Anaheim theme park in order to learn better manners and improve their sales skills.
The reasoning behind such a curious move is simple: the company hopes that its staff will learn basic rules, such as that it’s not proper to smoke in public or that it’s better to be Dopey-like and not talk too much allowing the customer savior the dealership experience.
“Disney has created a culture where they talk about how they are always on stage with their customer”, says Alan Batey, Chevrolet’s VP of sales and service. “Sometimes we take the customer for granted.”
GM, which Reuss admits has become a mostly “truck-funded, Midwestern and Southern” company, is not relying solely on Peter Pan and Tinkerbell to increase its share in West Coast. First of all, it will launch smaller, more efficient cars such as the new Sonic and Malibu that will attract more buyers.
The automaker also plans to spend $60-100 million over the next year on more than 100 dealers, refurbishing and upgrading their facilities provided that they sign 10-year exclusive contracts.
Story References: LA Times
