Improve Your Customer's Experience

Phone skills – something we all can improve upon, hence a huge opportunity. As with any opportunity, there are many issues to be considered that differ from dealer to dealer based on their circumstances and skills. First, let’s take a look at why outsourcing call-related duties might revolutionize the way dealerships operate.

1. In a dealership environment, it is tough to set aside the time to gain the commitment, then to implement, train, manage and continuously change the process of handling calls consistently and effectively. This is due to several factors:
a. Dealerships tend to focus on the month. You probably won’t see significant results this month, but will in future months and years.
b. Car dealers have an historical mentality of being reactive versus being proactive.
c. In the dealership, everyone is under a lot of pressure to “hit the numbers.” The reality is, it’s tough enough to set aside five minutes, let alone the hours that will be required to get the process in place, as well as set up the training and coaching needed to have a consistent and meaningful way of handling calls.
2. Dealerships are more proficient as incoming sales organizations than outgoing sales organizations. Sales personnel are in their element when someone is sitting in front of them and generally have not been good at (or do not enjoy) getting people into the store. Historically, this is how they have operated. Most salespeople are either great in person or great on the phone, but not both. Most car salespeople are great face-to-face. Since most sales managers, general managers and dealers started out as salespeople, they are also better at handling customers in the store and enjoy it more than working the phones
3. Every dealer I talk to would like to have a consistent process that produces great results. However, most are not willing to spend the amount of time and resources that it will take to get the job done. It is costly, it does take time, and in the short term, it will take your managers and salespeople away from selling cars. This is what investment is all about.
4. The outsourced call center can focus on one thing: handling the dealer’s calls and getting customers in for an appointment. When people focus on what they are best at and love what they do, they will be successful.
5. The outsourcing of call functions within the dealership brings the scale of professionalism that every dealership would love to have. Ultimately, it could be cheaper than if they do it themselves.
6. It gives you the ability to invite all customers into the dealership without prequalification.
7. There are many dealers who have told me they would love to have their customers’ just show up for their appointment. They don’t enjoy (and believe they aren’t good at) the phone work that it takes to get customers into the store. In other words, they want to become a delivery machine.
8. The outside call center can easily make dual-purpose calls to existing customers for service and referrals, in addition to getting them into a new vehicle.
9. Lastly, dealers will be able to control and have confidence in what is being said over the phone and be able to ensure a consistent message.

While managing inside and outside sales organizations for various companies,  many organizations approached me in an effort to convince me to outsource my sales function. I tried it once (I used agents to help sell our products) and it worked for awhile, then eventually the process died off as the agents obtained new priorities. Luckily, I was still building my own sales force. If I were to consider it today I would ask myself the following questions:
 
1. Do I really want someone else talking with my customers?
2. Is someone else going to treat and handle customers the way I want them to be treated?
3. Will someone outside of my organization have a vested interest in this customer aside from that customer showing up for an appointment?
4. Will the call center be asking about others in the household or other family members who might be in the market for a car? Will they be asking for referrals from every customer they talk to? If they do create referral business, will they direct it to my store?
5. Will the call center representative be able to handle non-scripted objections or questions?
6. What is the caliber of people who are working for the outsource company?
7. Do they know anything about me, my dealership or how I want the customer handled? Do they know anything about our sales process?
8. Will they have a good communication system with us?
9. There are many disconnects where things can go wrong. I have a hard enough time getting my employees to handle objections, control conversations and answer questions. How will someone else do it?
10. Will I really have control of my customers and their information?
11. How will the call center work my database, and will they keep it confidential?
12. It is still going to take work on the dealership’s part to get the project off the ground. How much more would it take for me to do it all myself?

Now that we have looked at both sides of this issue, where do we go from here? It depends on you. The first thing you have to do is acknowledge that there is opportunity in improving how all of your phone calls are handled; we all should be able to do that. How much opportunity do you think exists? How much do you need to increase your appointment set and show percentages to warrant the investment in either an outsourced call center or a better way to handle calls within your dealership?

The second thing that needs to be done is to look at all of your options, both internal and external. Outsourcing will work for some, but not all, dealers. Get the outsource companies to give you a presentation. See what they have to offer. In addition to researching outsourced solutions, talk to the BDC-training companies to see what they have to offer. Talk to their references. This is the easy stuff; the hard things start when you actually commit yourself.

The best subprime stores in the country that I know of handle their own calls, some through a call center or business development center (BDC) and others through their salespeople. One thing they have in common is the commitment to a process that includes continuous training, management, change and innovation. They watch their metrics on an hourly basis and pounce when they see a problem.

Sales management must be a part of the equation. “Do as I Do” is crucial. Your managers have to be able to make and take calls so they can train their salespeople or phone specialists. Anytime an appointment is made, whether in an outsource situation or when calls are handled at the dealership, it should be assigned to the manager on duty. The manager must meet and greet every customer. How would you feel, as a customer, if the manager came out from behind his desk and to say hello? The key to selling appointments is to make sure that a manager “touches” every customer that visits the dealership. When the sales manager “touches” every customer who calls in for the first time or every be-back who visits the showroom, you will have more appointments that show and you will sell more cars.

The internal BDC concept has worked well for us. In one of our businesses, our employees run subprime departments throughout the Midwest. For that business, we utilize a central BDC located in our office to set and perform follow-up for all the appointments we handle for each of the dealers we work with.

Our closing percentage on Internet leads has increased dramatically. How did we do it? We committed ourselves, hired a great manager, set up an awesome process, and then trained and coached our people. We now continuously manage the process and look at the numbers hourly; we change and improve the process based on what we learn from those numbers. It’s not rocket science; it just takes time and commitment.

So with all that, what are you to do? There isn’t a dealership across the country that would suffer from improving how they handle calls. The real question is, how much opportunity do you have? If you are in the top 10 percent of the dealers who are outstanding at handling the calls, you already do what we discussed and more. However, if you are in the lower 90 percent, you need to do something more. There is a huge opportunity in handling your calls better.

Don’t try and take it on all at once. Look at the whole process and break it down into bite-sized chunks. Surely you’ve heard, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Your appointment set ratio, appointment show ratio and sales will do nothing but go up with a concentrated effort on improving your phone process, whether through a virtual BDC or improving it yourself. Get it off your to-do list and take action. Feel free to give me a call and I can walk you through some of the things we have gone through in setting up our “Virtual BDC.” Good Luck.

Vol. 2, Issue 2