Spotlight on the LCV team

With Dmitry Pakhomov, our LCV Sales Manager

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Firstly, can you tell us a bit about your career in the motor industry?

I started my career as a sales executive in a Nissan dealership, when an opportunity came up to move into a hybrid LCV role. This was when I decided I wanted to specialise in Light Commercial Vehicles.?

After building my experience, I then moved to a Ford dealership where I spent 5 years working in their LCV department.? One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that car and LCV sales operate a slightly differently.? It’s often more of a relationship business.? In car sales you might get a customer coming back to the dealership every couple of years to exchange their car, however with LCVs, a customer can need vehicles more frequently and therefore they need someone who understands their specific needs.

Once I’d built a solid foundation in LCV sales, I had the opportunity to join DSG Finance group and do something a bit different. It’s actually quite a common theme for many of the team here at DSG, to have started their careers in dealerships and then moved over into motor finance. I think it really helps us to understand the needs and wants of the customers, as well as how we can help overcome the challenges dealers are facing.

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What does a typical day look like in the LCV team?

The LCV team is based in our head office in Manchester, so we usually get together each morning to ensure that we’re all up to date on the finance proposals that have come into our department.?

Whilst we have three people in our team who exclusively focus on LCV proposals, we are also in constant contact with our Regional Development Managers, who provide support to dealerships out in the field, as well as LCV specialists within DSG’s underwriting team to help get proposals paid out as quickly as possible by keeping everyone in sync.

Relationships with dealers are really important, so we often spend a lot of time on the phone with our dealer partners to assist them with queries or to provide updates. This communication is especially helpful when dealing with complex items such as vehicle specifications or VAT aspects.

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How does your team add value to LCV dealers?

Well, going back to my previous point, I think relationships are very important to LCV dealers.? Many like to have consistency in who they deal with and tend to appreciate working with people who can speak the ‘LCV’ language.

We created a dedicated LCV team to provide specialist expertise to dealers and having worked in a dealership myself, I think our team have a unique understanding of the customer and what they want.? We understand that time is extremely important, especially to their business customers, therefore by dealing with a specialist finance broker, we can help to get their customers out on the road as quickly as possible. We do this by being the driving force behind the finance proposal, our team are highly skilled and trained to deal with LCV finance, so if the dealer has a query, they don’t need to speak to multiple people in order to get the answer they need and ultimately get the proposal paid out.?

Also, having access to more lender options is extremely valuable for LCV dealers.? Whilst there are fewer lenders providing finance to the LCV market in comparison to cars, DSG have a wide panel that includes multiple LCV lenders.? Having more choice inevitably helps dealers to provide their customers with greater flexibility and the best possible outcomes when financing vehicles.?