NO HARD SELL, SAY CAR BUYERS

Friendly, helpful advice - rather than being sold to - is overwhelmingly the most important experience car buyers seek from a dealer, according to exclusive new research. Two out of three motorists recently told a BuyaCar survey that friendly advice rather than sales was the key to buying a car with confidence.

More than 400 motorists were quizzed on their most recent car buying experiences and how they want to be treated when choosing or financing a car - and their emphatic verdict was 'help and advise us - don't sell to us'.

Asked to rank their preferred experience, ranging from being advised and helped to find the right deal to just receiving a sales pitch, a clear majority of 69.4% of buyers demand advice only. Just one in ten prefer to be persuaded to choose what the salesperson wants them to buy and 20.4% are happy with an equal mix of the two.

And the approachability and friendliness of staff turns out to be hugely important to boosting the confidence of car buyers too, according to the survey's findings. More than one in three buyers rank 'friendliness and approachability' as the most important quality in the people they buy from, with 70.2% rating it as important or very important. Just three of those interviewed said they were unconcerned with the friendliness of their car supplier, while the remaining 8.2% ranked friendliness and approachability as only 'somewhat important'.

Car-buyers also overwhelmingly want to feel that they are being helped to choose the best deal. Asked how important it is to feel helped, a massive 95% described it as significantly important to them. The research also revealed that the traditional motor industry has some way to go before its customers feel fully relaxed and confident in the car-buying experience, largely due to the typical traditional emphasis on selling rather than advising.

Asked how they typically feel when they buy a car, less than half of the 402 motorists questioned said they enjoyed the experience and one in four positively disliked buying cars. A further 31.1% had no feeling one way or the other.