Rental Sales

I know we haven’t talked about this in class, but hopefully we do touch on it in some aspect. As a salesman how do you handle rental sales. Do you take the same approach as a normal sale or do you treat it differently since they customer is only using it for a certain period of time? My family has rented different equipment over the years and it seems to me that the salespersons approach is a little bit different. There is a set price and they have that “take it or leave it” mentality. I would think every industry is different in ways but the bottom line for rental equipment is to pay for that item and make enough to replace it when it needs to be. As that salesperson would still start by asking open ended questions to figure out if the customer really needs to rent this item or not. Or would you stick to saying these are the available options and the different prices. To me I think approaching a rental sale should be viewed similar to a normal sale. Customer service might be the most important aspect to a rental sale over a normal sale since there may be the need for the customer to rent the item again. If the customer feels like they can rent the item for a fraction of the buying price and feel like they are being treated the same as if they would have bought why wouldn’t they rent. The rental customer market will be different than the customers in the market to buy, but to me I feel that as a salesman the approach should be the same for both. Hopefully we talk about this in class and it is the same approach but if it isn’t it would be nice to know.