[Update: Toyota suspends sales of Lexus model following report]
Like the movie Jaws, just when you think it has calmed down for Toyota, a new problems jumps up and bites them on the butt. This time?
Consumer Reports says their Lexus brand SUV is unsafe. You can read about it in this article. Again Toyota says they are perplexed but that they will take it “seriously.”
Forget the bumbling way they look at corporate. Forget the damage to the brand. What about the salesmen and women working there trying to feed their families? Here are my five tips:
1) Read everything you can on the subject from every source. Better yet, set up a Google alert with the words Toyota, Lexus. I’d also add in quotes like “Lexus Consumer Reports” so it will show you any article that specifically mentions those three words.
2) Be proactive, call your customers who just purchased that model. Ask how it is driving, anything they particularly like or dislike. Just reaching out will help alot if gosh forbid there is a recall.
3) Since this is a $50k+ car realize they probably will be more educated, ask more questions, be more wary. Embrace that, don’t run from it.
4) Instead of waiting by the driveway for your next “up,” brainstorm the top 10 questions you think customers will ask about the vehicle and the damning report that testers wouldn’t allow their own family to own one.
5) Role-play the correct answers. Your GM should help spearhead this but if not, if you don’t get ahead of this, you don’t eat. Don’t let it tarnish your own attitude of whether it will sell.
Once you’ve done these five tips, you can move the possible recall or at least collateral damage off the table and do your job – sell cars!
And if that doesn’t work, you can always get a great deal on one for your mother-in-law.
