How important is response time when handling leads? Not very, if you check out this comedic video about automotive internet sales by Joe Webb of DealerKnows Consulting. Spend the time to respond with quality content if your goal is to elicit a reply from them.
Posts Tagged ‘car sales’
Stop the Clock (Joe Webb)
Thursday, April 29th, 2010Know Your Role
Sunday, April 25th, 2010For dealers, your store often tells the story of your life. This is especially true for those second and third generation dealers. Every day, your dealership puts on a show for the consumer. The customers are your audience and you are the director. When you open the doors, you are pulling back the curtain for all to see. You’ve brought in the cast and paid their wages. You’ve done your job. Now, are you sure everyone knows what they are supposed to do? While we hire talent to run our dealerships, we don’t always guide them with written job descriptions. We must.
“Places, everyone, places” the director shouts. You have put everyone in position, but can you ensure your cast understands what needs to be done? Do they know what is expected of them? Many of your sales managers and service writers have been given the title and responsibility because they’ve succeeded on the sales floor or as a service tech. They’ve filled in during the absences of other managers and excelled. When promoted, though, few are given quality, written job descriptions detailing what their position entails because we feel they already know what is asked of them. Or perhaps a job description wasn’t provided solely because many don’t know what all to include.
A job description simply states the roles and responsibilities required of the position along with a reporting structure and details involving hours and expectations. It should address future questions, employee’s potential for growth/earnings, functions of the job, skills needed, and how actions will be conducted.
Here are the basics for every job description:
Job Title
Confirm the title of their position. Representative, Associate, Consultant, Specialist, Coordinator, Manager, and Director all mean different things to different people. Having the job title spelled out will deter them from asking for a special designating word on their business cards (i.e. the ever-popular “sales specialist” being chosen over “sales representative”.
Salary Range
This serves as a reference guide to comparable salaries within the industry. Make sure that the starting salary is noted as well as well as mid-range (and high) expectations for the position. If applicable, specify commissions, performance bonuses, percentage of profit, and any potential raises for long-term employment.
Purpose of the Position
Specify the objectives of the position. This section allows you to place a little weight on their shoulders and makes them understand how important of a role they play in the overall success of the dealership and the team.
Job Description/List of Duties
Beginning with the most important tasks first, list every duty required of them to perform their position. As the list continues, detail what their role is in the completion of each task. Are they simply delegating the work and ensuring it is done or is it their personal responsibility to complete it?
Hierarchy and Team
Define who they will be reporting to and what individuals be reporting directly to them. Many new employees come in with the expectation that, due to their title of manager, everyone without the title of manager reports to them. This can be a sensitive situation in those dealerships where the Internet department team reports solely to their Director and that Director reports to the General Manager only. It is best to clarify this “structure” of the departments up front so there is no confusion and specify who is on their “team”. A new employee understanding their supervisory role is imperative to their success and the streamlined processes you’ve created within your dealership.
Ideal Candidate / Skills Needed
The new employee must be told the skills they are going to need to be successful in the position. If there are certain solutions, software, or programs that are imperative they know going in, it is best to detail it here. If they are to have completed certain tasks during their past experiences, describe how the ideal candidate for the position will encompass those abilities.
Hours
We’re in the auto industry and it is well known that we often work insane hours. That being said, it is necessary to assign specific work hours expected for the position and include the dealership’s operating hours as well.
“And Other Duties Assigned”
The beauty of the car business is that no two days are the same. Every customer is different and each day there is a new circumstance to handle or concern to assuage. Including “And Other Duties Assigned” tells the employee they are responsible for those random chores that essentially help “take care of business”. Hopefully, we are all hiring those candidates that are looking to take on more responsibility and willing to fill up that rare free-time during the day with goal-oriented objectives on their own.
This statement of duties should be provided to every new employee on day one to overcome any unforeseen conflicts of the future. After all, it is usually the bad performance from an employee that causes the store to lose a sale or valuable customer, but, in the end, it will be you who shoulders the blame. Preparing a written, detailed job description for each and every position in the dealership (no matter how big or how small) provides total accountability because they now “know their role”.
With their roles clearly defined for them, you are setting them up on a path for success. As the director, you’ve given them their lines, their blocking, and all of the notes necessary for them to perform for the public day in and day out. The rest is up to them to put on a good show.
Saving Deals
Thursday, January 28th, 2010I recently sat through a vendor’s webex presentation. It was another in a long line of sales pitches looking for some product endorsement and sales referrals. In this case, their product was designed to help dealerships “save a deal”. This technology, embedded into the CRM and desking modules of our lives, have been available for quite some time. The thought-process of looking back on yesterday’s opportunities to make a deal for today has been around forever, though. Nothing new here.
The challenge of “saving deals” has not been the inability to commoditize those deals needing saving into a software, but it is changing the overall mindset of management. (Granted, having a tech solution to funnel this deal info and print it into reports is exceedingly helpful nowadays). First and foremost, the biggest challenge of saving deals is that management simply has never created the processes necessary to make it a standard way of life within the dealership.
Here are the two most effective ways to save deals that I’ve found while involves just a little effort and time from multiple departments.
1) You must institute daily meetings to ensure that no stone is unturned and no customer is lost without trying twice. Your management staff should collectively review the previous day’s in-store and online opportunities (preferably pulling a detailed report quickly from a CRM module that gathers the data automatically for you) and meet every morning. They should hold daily meetings with F&I to determine necessary actions to finish off any unclosed deals and hold a brief 5-minute one-on-one meeting with each individual sales representative to discuss what can be done to convert lost customers into be-back sales.
2) The second most important step to saving deals is having your Business Development Center be the backstop for your dealership. There are ways technologically to ensure your sales people are making their follow-up calls to past and recent customers, but you have no way of knowing if it was the salesperson that may have prevented the deal closing in the first place. Use your BDC staff to act as a Customer Care Center and let them be a second voice at the dealership for your customers. When you have someone else reaching out to your customers, you are ensuring that no customer is being discarded by a salesperson and you are opening another channel for that customer to discuss a potential deal.
So remember, a dedicated policy of saving deals requires effort from your management, F&I, Sales and BDC teams, but it will all be well-worth it come month’s end.
Joe Webb - Automotive Internet Sales Trainer - DealerKnows Consulting
The Importance of Being Earnest
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Joe Webb's Automotive Digest blog - The Importance of Being Earnest
Dealers — be truthful to your Internet customers. There is a dichotomy in the business development centers and Internet departments of our stores. Many are using their Internet departments to flood the floors and do whatever it takes to bring the prospect from lead to appointment by any means necessary. Others are thinking beyond the sale and creating an entirely new customer-centric experience – based in fact, truth, and value.
This is the Internet age
At this point in the evolution of our dealerships, everyone has an individual or team handling their Internet leads. However, some approach internet leads much the same way they’ve been taught to lure in a phone up. Ask questions, overcome objections and set appointments. We’ve all heard our managers say “Get ‘em in. Get ‘em in. Get ‘em in.”
Way back when…
In the digital age, however, we cannot simply stand by the policies of the past and get them into the dealership at any cost. Too many old pros relied on shadowing the truth to reach their end goal of selling a car and they’ve passed this belief onto our internet teams. With the over-researched shoppers of today, these overused practices of yesteryear are a detriment. Yet, mystery shop your competition and you will still see them mislead and misrepresent the truth to achieve their goal of setting an appointment online.
Do what’s right.
Follow in the footsteps of those dealers that are upfront about pricing and inventory. Unfortunately, I’ve seen dealers still doing the “destination bump” to their internet customers as recently as a few weeks ago. I knew a dealer didn’t have a vehicle in-stock yet still tell me they did. These poor practices continue to negatively affect the entire reputation of our industry. So for your sake, tell the truth to your internet shoppers. Not only are they far too researched to fall for the deceit, but your reputation and trust is destroyed when they catch you in a lie. It damages the way we are all viewed in the industry.
Be upfront in the information you provide your customers and you will see a growth in your sales and CSI. It pays to be earnest.
The Not Good Interview
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009A car sales manager interviews a potential employee using only closed ended questions – with hilarious results. Written by Joe Webb and Performed by Joe Webb and Dave Hudson of D Hudson Productions in Chicago, The Not Good Interview details the importance of knowing how auto dealers should interview and what questions (open ended and closed ended) to use to find the right candidate. Also known as the “Jez” video.
Gridiron Greats
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009It’s football season once again which means thousands of car
salespeople are thankful that their states have laws in place giving
them Sundays off from the store.
Many of us have a passion for football the same way we have a passion
for selling cars. We sit on our coaches in our living rooms
(showrooms) and play armchair quarterback. We call plays. We tell
the young folks how it used to be. What we would do different if we
were in charge…if we were throwing that pass….if that was OUR
customer.
Majority of sales people are the same. They prefer to sit on the
sidelines and talk about what went wrong rather than get on the field
and get their hands dirty. You need a strong sales manager (QB) to
lead the staff onto the field. The question for dealers is: Is it
best to employ a Game Manager or a Playmaker to your sales desk? NFL
teams live and die by the person (QB) leading their teams as does any
owner relying on a manager to bring the profit.
In my opinion, the “Playmaker” is the Sales Manager that can close
that
deal for the big hit. The huge profit. All of the coins. Mucho
gross. A “Playmaker” Sales Manager gets the biggest scores. At the
same time, they miss their targets quite often. Reaching for the big
deal often gets intercepted and they lose customers with their
arrogance. They can win huge games, but they can also throw away the
easy ones.
A “Game Manager” sales manager, on the other hand, still concerns
themselves with gross profit, but never makes the big hits. Their
front-end is a little lower and their back-end a little lighter.
However, their accuracy (read: closing ratio, if you are still with me
on this poor analogy) allows them to close more deals than the
“Playmaker” and the CSI is always higher.
It is the good old “gross vs. volume” debate. It is up to your Sales
Managers. The QBs of your showroom. Will they bring your players all
the way through a season/year with a winning record? Will they have
some amazing wins, but not make the playoffs? It is up to you when
hiring for Sales Manager to make that decision.
Categorize your Sales Management candidates and determine who you want
to play with. Who do you want to coach? Who will make the smart
decisions, not for their own interests, but for the store’s?
I may go against industry trends, but I’d call a timeout and bring in
a Game Manager for my staff.
Switch With Me
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009How to Retain Customers by Creating Your Own Social Network
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009Every person and their brother are standing atop their soapboxes and preaching the importance of dealership involvement in social marketing.The reason to be active within these sites is very much the same for being online – to be where your customers are.Since there are many ways to approach this medium in the wrong way, I thought I would share just one small tactic of using it correctly.Here is a quick, best-practices tutorial on how to create and utilize just one form of social networking to better the retention of your dealership’s customers.I believe there are limited ways to be successful when creating your own social site so here are a few simple tasks you must complete when diving into this platform.
1)Understand your primary goals for creating your own site – have an objective.
2)Put someone in charge that wants to be active in following up with customers and is willing to update and manage the network regularly.Consistency is imperative.
3)Create a site on www.ning.com and create a color theme that represents your dealership and brand.
4)Upload pics of staff, logos, and any and all videos and commercials you can gather from your own dealer, the OEM, or third-party sites.
5)Have every sales person and service writer create a profile on the site and share a few family photos.Encourage your staff to show their personalities on the site.
6)Train all sales associates to invite their sold customers to the network as they wait for the business office – and help them sign up.This keeps the customer busy while waiting and gets them as a community member immediately.
a) By signing up, tell the customers they will receive service updates and specials as well as the current financing incentives and new model rollout information.
b) If the customer contacts you through this site for information regarding the purchase of any future vehicle, a social discount will be given above and beyond internet pricing.Let them know of the specific benefits for signing up.It must do something for them.
c) Explain the wide demographic of your customer base and encourage them to promote themselves and their own businesses through your site as well.
7)As the customer is leaving, take their picture in front of their new vehicle (or film a customer testimonial), and immediately upload it to the site.Alert your customers that they will be prominently featured.(This will prompt a customer to go online and actually see themselves as stars.)
Continue to maintain the site and add as much sticky content (media, pictures) as possible and alert them of every special event, sale, or community activity you involve yourself with.
This will not change the culture of a dealership.It will not solve all of your problems.To do it right takes significant dedication and creativity when it comes to content deployment.You are creating your own mini ad agency, but reaching your own customers only. However, with this medium, the customers are one step removed from a dealership’s online presence where, opposed to your website (which is to appease everyone), you have the ability to target specific people with targeted messages.It will take time to catch on and will initially drive more service traffic than sales.It is, though, the only way to effectively create and utilize your own social networking site.You’ll only get out of it what you put into it.The best part?All it costs is time and effort.That’s right.Everything I mentioned is free.Since it is a format that your customers are likely used to anyway, showing them that you are a part of the same online community (and leading the way) will only help you endear yourself to your customers.Use this task list only if you are interested in keeping customers the old-fashioned way…by making them feel special and continuing the relationship after the sale.
Five Senses
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
There are several tricks of the trade to employ while test driving customers. Even with the simplest of instructions, without proper training, every salesperson can get it wrong from time to time. Who is the unfortunate victim of poor training? The customer. Especially in this instance. Another Joe Webb car guy creation.
Starring John Schrimpf and Anthony Pollina
Who is Selling Whom?
Friday, March 6th, 2009We have a serious problem in the automotive industry. No, the Internet is not destroying the car business as the old-timers like to say. The problem is simple. Internet customers, in many cases, are more knowledgeable on the models than the people selling the vehicles.
Sure, you can point fingers and say salespeople should take a vested interest in the brand they are selling. You can train and train and train. The repetition of a hundred test drives may not be enough. You can give up and believe clichés such as, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
It comes down to the fact that many salespeople are relying on their selling skills above their product knowledge to appease their customers. With the large majority of customers having done significant research on builds, options, pricing, invoices, and trade-in values, salespeople are at a significant disadvantage. How does a dealership overcome this epidemic?
An Internet sales professional (ISP) is the answer
If ISPs do their job correctly, they should be as researched and prepared as any customer (Internet or otherwise) that visits the dealership. Quality ISPs should be able to match wits with any customer that steps in front of them.
This is not always the case. With so much information available online, just a click away, customers are walking in with all of the information necessary to make the best deal for them. Internet sales professionals must be more familiar with these sites than the customers utilizing them. Ownership and management of every dealership should strongly encourage their ISPs and salespeople to take time out of their day to sit down and research all of their models through the Internet. My mentor, and marketing manager, John Photopulos, made it a point when I became Internet sales manager to send me to every best practices training, phone skills class, and product knowledge course available. I visited web site after web site to learn all they had to offer. By training yourself with all resources available, including the Internet, you know where the customer is coming from, you understand their expectations, and, best of all, you have the knowledge to dispute any of their errant beliefs.
How often do you run into a customer who believes he has a firm understanding of the vehicle’s base price and invoice, only to find he is not in the same ballpark? This is a common occurrence and one that is easily overcome providing the ISP has dedicated his time to understanding these sites. How many customers believe they can purchase a unicorn (a mythical vehicle that has never been seen, except as a part of someone’s imagination built on a wishful web site)? Hopefully, the ISP can utilize these sites to correct the customer for the benefit of the dealership. With a little practice, you will quickly learn how to navigate through the sites. This will give you the wherewithal to inform your customers without turning them into shoppers by overeducating them.
If any web site and its content are explained to a customer the right way, dealer profit will remain and customer service ratings will increase. No longer will the buyer feel their questions are being talked “around,” but instead, talked “through.” Knowing the intricacies of the web sites that your customers are requesting their information through will only put you one step closer to a closed deal with a happy customer and a reasonable margin of profit.
An example: When a client is in your store and wants Edmunds Excellent Value for his trade, take time with him. After a silent walk-around of the trade, build it out on Edmunds. Make sure the customer rates its condition with you. Read the detailed explanations of each value category. Once this is done, go one step further. Build out his new vehicle with him. Make sure to click on the tabs that mention the regional advertising fees being legitimate (though he never expected to have to pay that before). Click on the explanation of dealer holdback and view the TMV (true market value). I don’t know about your dealership, but most busy suburban Chicago dealerships would be content offering a good trade-in value provided the customer pays TMV. In a market like ours, flooded with over-aggressive dealerships, most would be happy to accept this deal. It is a daunting task for a customer to give a reasonable explanation to you, a professional, why the value of his trade is correct on a web site, yet the price that others are paying for a new vehicle is not a legitimate number.
If you are working Internet leads, or any customer for that matter, and you did not know the basic information above, this entire article is dedicated to you. I believe Internet sales professionals must take it upon themselves to learn and understand the sites their customers are surfing. Furthermore, I believe the ISP should train his sales staff how to use these sites to their benefit. My Internet sales coordinator (and right-hand man) Jason, only months into the business turned to me and said, “I can’t believe more salespeople don’t use the Internet to their advantage. Instead, they consider it more like a roadblock.”
As an ISP, you should change the perception of Internet sales, thereby changing the culture of your dealership for the better. In my last article, I mentioned how Internet sales professionals should differentiate themselves from normal salespeople on the floor. It is imperative for an ISP, above others, to function at a high level. We are all a team, though, and it is a good feeling when the sales staff around you is successful too. Share some of your knowledge, experience, and time with them. Do not let them walk into a situation where they are overmatched. Teach them the new selling tactics for today’s car shopper and make a progressive difference at your dealership. And, most importantly, know how to overcome customers’ objections using the very same source where they gathered the information.
In the simplest of terms, the Internet offers knowledge to the public. In our industry, knowledge is power. If a customer knows more than the salesperson, he has the ability to sell you on his beliefs, opposed to the correct way, where you are in control and you do the selling.
Just remember who is selling whom. There is only one answer.