March Matters: Three Priorities to Prepare Sales Teams

March is often the largest registration month of the year. In 2025, it represented around 18% of total new car sales – highlighting the scale of opportunity for retailers when teams are fully prepared.

New plates arrive, customer traffic increases and the financial year closes – accelerating commercial momentum. At the same time, competition continues to intensify, with new brands gaining traction and customer habits evolving. The result is a trading environment shaped by both opportunity and increased competitive pressure.

In our recent RTS Group webinar, Preparing Sales Teams for March – Are you Ready?, we explored what “readiness” looks like beyond operational planning. The discussion centred on three commercial priorities shaping customer conversations:

• ICE to EV consultation
• Affordability and total cost of ownership
• Intelligent prospecting

Each plays a role in determining how effectively teams convert opportunity into performance.

Missed the webinar? Watch the full recording here.

1. Navigating ICE to EV: From Conversation to Consultation

Customers are arriving better informed than ever, but information is not always consistent or complete. Media headlines, evolving government policy and online commentary have created both awareness and uncertainty around electric vehicles.

The Sales Executive’s role is not to persuade, but to provide clarity.

That requires a structured consultation approach built around two areas: cost and usability and lifestyle fit.

Cost clarity

Sales teams should feel confident explaining:

• Purchase price
• Running costs
• Servicing and maintenance differences
• Charging tariffs
• Upcoming legislative changes

For example:

• An ICE vehicle typically costs between 10–16 pence per mile to run.
• An EV on an energy-efficient home tariff can cost around 5 pence per mile.
• From April 2027, Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (EVED) will introduce a 3p per mile equivalent cost for EVs (1.5p for hybrids). Even with this adjustment, EVs may remain competitive, particularly alongside planned fuel duty increases.

Providing balanced, evidence-based comparisons strengthens credibility. Sales teams do not need to rely on opinion – there are practical, customer-facing resources available to support informed conversations:

• Zap-Map – An independent website for comparing charging infrastructure and running costs across vehicle types.
• Octopus EV Hub – Practical guidance on EV ownership, home charging and salary sacrifice schemes.
• Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – Government-backed information and policy updates.
• Local Government Association EV guidance – Insight into local authority support and infrastructure development.
• RTS Group Essentials – The New Car Market – A concise overview aligned to the themes explored in the webinar.

Signposting credible sources helps reinforce clarity, accuracy and confidence in customer discussions.

Usability and lifestyle

Alongside cost, customers often want reassurance around how an EV will fit into everyday life. Questions about charging access, range and battery longevity remain common – and understandably so.

The broader picture, however, is more reassuring than many headlines suggest:

• Over 70,000 public charging points are now available across the UK
• Around 90% of EV charging takes place at home, typically overnight
• Most manufacturers offer 8–10 year battery warranties
• Four- to five-year-old EVs continue to demonstrate strong battery health retention

Rather than responding with general reassurance, the most effective approach is to make the discussion personal. Understanding where the customer parks overnight, their typical daily mileage and how they currently use their vehicle allows the conversation to move from generic concern to practical suitability. When usability is explored in context, uncertainty reduces and confidence increases.

2. Affordability and Total Cost of Ownership

Cost-of-living pressures continue to shape purchasing behaviour. Many conversations naturally begin with monthly affordability. However, with around 90% of March registrations financed over three to four years, a broader financial perspective becomes increasingly important.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes:

• Depreciation
• Fuel or energy costs
• Insurance
• Servicing and maintenance
• Vehicle taxation
• Planned and unplanned expenditure

While an EV may present a higher monthly instalment, lower running and servicing costs can materially influence the overall ownership equation.

Fleet teams have long adopted this wider financial lens. Increasingly, retail conversations benefit from the same discipline.

When Sales Executives confidently guide customers through total cost rather than focusing solely on instalments, the discussion shifts towards informed, commercial decision-making.

3. Intelligent Prospecting

March pressure often drives volume – more calls, more emails, more “deals”.

Yet many customers are experiencing call fatigue. Repeated contact centred solely on pricing can reduce engagement, and in some cases, a poorly handled call can be more damaging than no call at all.

Intelligent prospecting shifts the focus from quantity to quality. It rests on three foundations:

Preparation

Effective prospecting starts before the call is made. Reviewing customer history, service records, current finance agreements and original change plans allows the conversation to begin with relevance rather than assumption. Preparation signals professionalism, and a considered call will always outperform a reactive one.

Structure

Strong outbound conversations benefit from a bit of structure. These three qualification areas, for example, provide a simple but effective framework:

• Mileage – Has usage increased or reduced? Does that open a different product conversation?
• Suitability – Does the current vehicle still meet the customer’s needs? Have circumstances changed, such as older children with different needs?
• Change plan – When did the customer originally intend to change, and is that timeline still appropriate?

Exploring these themes keeps the conversation purposeful rather than purely transactional.

Clear next steps

Every interaction should close with clarity. Whether that is confirming an appointment, agreeing a follow-up time or committing to review specific options, defined next steps provide continuity. They also protect the long-term integrity of the customer relationship.

For Sales Managers, this period presents an opportunity to reinforce standards – listening to calls, coaching for quality and using service diary insight to identify warm conversations already within the dealership.

Final Thoughts: Preparation Drives Performance in March

As explored in the webinar, consistent results come from the quality of customer conversations – clarity around EV transition, confidence in total cost discussions and structured, relevant prospecting.

When sales teams are equipped in these areas, they are better positioned to convert increased activity into sustainable performance.

For more support on this, you can also explore our new Essentials Guide to The New Car Market.

And if your teams would benefit from strengthening capability in these areas, RTS Group can support you directly — get in touch to continue the conversation.