Cadillac revamps dealer program, meets with dealers in June

Cadillac revamps dealer program, meets with dealers in June

In an effort to improve the customer experience and stop its sales slide, Cadillac is rolling out a dealer program that will require more investment from dealers for them to get paid more.

Project Pinnacle, announced to dealers at the national dealer meeting in February, will assign each of Cadillacês 900 dealers to one of five tiers depending on sales volume, according to news reports. The lowest volume dealers, Tier 5, will not be required to keep inventory, though they can still sell new Cadillacs. They will largely be service centers. Small and midsized stores will have to add dedicated salespeople and impose a dress code, among other requirements.

Dealers can move to a higher grade and get paid more if they follow certain brand standards. These include selling a specified number of certified pre-owned vehicles (depending on tier) to help with the large number of cars coming off lease, training and certifying salespople, following a voluntary facility image program and reaching customer satisfaction targets.

One big change, reports Edmunds.com: Dealer holdback has been eliminated. But dealers are happy that Project Pinnacle is not a stair-step program, Dealer Council Chairman Will Churchill told Automotive News.

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen the keynote speaker at the Washington Auto Showês Industry/Media Day last year has scheduled several regional meetings with dealers this month to fill in the details of the plan. Dealers will also be given their assigned sales targets in June.