- Whitney Yates-Woods became dealer principal at her family dealership two years ago.
- As a woman in the industry, Yates-Woods wants to change what buyers think of car dealers.
Whitney Yates-Woods is dealer principal and president of Yates Buick GMC in Goodyear, Arizona. The 37-year-old grew up with the family-owned business and became head of the store two years ago.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up in a family dealership and did everything from marketing to customer service to a little bit of sales. My dad passed away in March of '21 and I took over as the dealer principal.
We always say nothing ever stays the same in the car business. We've been through COVID issues, a chip crisis, and then inventory issues are obviously still lingering.
From a customer service perspective, it became very difficult during COVID and it's still difficult now with parts.
I've noticed that customer service scores have gone down, but it's not necessarily because they're giving bad customer service, it's because of parts — we don't have an ETA on that part, or it's going to be here, but we don't know when. Customers don't like to hear that, especially if they can't drive their car and then rental cars are hard to come by.
My most challenging thing right now would be that customer service piece
Those parts taking a long time to get in is still really very prevalent. Trying to get the customer into a comparable make and model while they're waiting is hard because the inventory crisis is still here, so we don't have a ton of it and the rental car companies don't.
With sales, the toughest part right now has been overcoming interest rates.
You go through the manufacturer, you get a better rate. There are lenders that are offering different rebates and things like that. It's just getting customers educated. They might look online and think they can't afford a car right now, but when they come in we have so many options.
One huge misconception that I hear all the time is if buyers pay cash, they're going to get a better deal
To the dealer, it's really the same. In reality, all of its cash. So if you finance, it's cash to us, too. And then if you get some of these lender rebates, through GM Financial or whatever manufacturer's arm, you can actually get a better deal financing depending on what kind of rebates they have.
A lot of people think, 'I'm going to buy a car at the end of the month.'
They think "I'm going to get the best deal when I walk in." Obviously, our buying cycle is all the time. You really don't have to wait until the end of the month. Used cars don't get better with age, so we like to sell them quickly, and there are deals to be had all month long on those types of cars. We have an idea of how many days we want them to sit and so it has nothing to do with the time of the month. With new cars, incentives, and rebates they run for the entire month.
I expect inventory to keep increasing
We're selling things now for under MSRP. The majority of dealers are now offering things under MSRP for the first time since the pandemic. So pricing is shifting more in favor of the buyer. It's a good time to buy a car — yes, rates are higher but prices are lower, so it kind of levels out.
I really feel that, for a long time, car dealers had that stigma
Now it's changing. It's more transparent. There's all these bloggers out there that are reviewing and teaching people how to buy cars and things like that. I think that we start online a lot and then we just need to do a better job with being transparent when the customer's not even in the dealership. You can give prices when they're at home — that's okay. And then they come in and that's the same price.
I think sometimes people think that that 1950's car salesperson persona still exists
It's evolving from the stereotypical car sales guy. I especially want women coming in by themselves to not feel like they're going to get taken advantage of.