Dr. John BDC, RMC & Phone Success

A customer walks into your dealership and looks around. You slowly approach him or her, mentally preparing for your professional sales pitch. You know your products and how they compare to others on the market. You feel confident in representing your dealership’s offerings. You understand the importance of satisfying the customer. But there’s a wild card in this scenario-an element you have no control over. That wild card is the customer. So much depends on his or her mind-set, desires, communication preferences and style of doing business.

Wouldn’t you like to take the guessing out of the personal interaction and provide your customers with the car buying experience they desire? Further, if you consider your employees as customers of management, then these same personality and communication principles apply to all of you employees as well. Therefore, to end up focusing on your buying customers, a good place to start is with your employee customers.

Focus on Internal Team First
Understanding the importance of focusing on the employee-customer right from the get-go is the first step dealers take to improve their businesses. Often, this initiates a dramatic change for employees across the organization and results in a true business advantage through the buying customer.

At PCS-Global, we have developed a success template that adheres to a sequential V-Track* dealership-improvement model, which sets in place strategic and tactical process solutions for the future. Track I focuses on cultural evaluation and transformation. In today’s changing automotive retailing environment, it is fundamental to future success that dealerships go through this transformation. Here’s where dealers evaluate their company’s culture, value systems and learning styles to help align the philosophies and work ethics of the company, while developing leadership and building teams.

According to a national survey of high-involvement organizations, managers reported that teams lead to higher customer satisfaction (see Exhibit 1). Your best customers will outspend the others by a factor of 16 to 1. In the transportation industry, we believe it is as high as 20 to 1. On the other hand, 69% of lost customers are due to dissatisfaction with their contact with the company employees. Your team is critical to developing lifelong customer relationships. The more accomplished the team’s communication skills and ability to ascertain the customers styles, the higher the likelihood of sales success.

By using simple communication skills, you will be able to:

• Assess a customer within the first few minutes of walking into you dealership and know what motivates that person.
• Determine what kind of approach would be most comfortable for the customer and best facilitate their decision-making.
• Understand how they view you based on your approach to them.

Build Winning Relationships
Understanding the need for a communication driven team oriented company can help to develop winning relationships with virtually and customer-and provide a more satisfying work experience for your employees.

We encourage you to begin thinking about vary your communication process with the next customer who walks into your showroom and/or employees who enters your office. Use this opportunity to focus on their personality and adjust your approach to them. You will quickly create a more appealing sales and/or employee environment that will result in increased loyalty and higher profit margins for your dealership.

Technorati Tags: customer experience, customer relations, internal team

The future belongs to those dealerships who know and understand that in order to retain their customers, they must learn how to retain their employees. Although one of the most expensive, your employees can become one of your most valuable assets. By building your organization around your employees you will have a greater chance of building your customer base and resulting profit stream. Because no matter how innovative your processes and technologies are, without the commitment and skill of your employees, the innovations you have put in place are less likely to be effective and sustainable over the long run. Efficiencies and standardized processes are driven not only by technology but also by those individuals who deliver your entire value proposition to your customers on a daily basis - your employees. They are the human equation that truly drives your organization’s results.

How important is the role your employees play in retaining customers?

Based upon these statistics, it becomes clear that your dealerships success is directly tied to the success of your employees. By attracting the right individuals, developing their skill sets and behaviors, teaching them to self-manage and by providing personalized rewards, you insure that the necessary building blocks for employee retention are in place.

All those ingredients center around a team-aligned culture made up of integrated directed daily work efforts of each employee. However, it is important to note that the righ culture must precede all other meaningful changes. This culture will provide the cement to the foundation on which all your customer relationships are built. As this culture is developed and/or improved through a concentrated effort to improve employee satisfaction (ESi) - good things happen. Your employees will exhibit a greater internal commitment to the company, rather than simply tacit or surface commitment. This internal commitment will come in the form of a heightened awareness for the needs of their customer, and will truly move the organization toward a customer-centric approach. You are modeling to them what you expect them to model to your customers. In a recent Harvard Business Review, a study was sited that for every 5% increase in employee satisfaction, theres a resultant 2% increase in customer satisfaction, returning up to a 1.8% increase in net profit.

Foundational to any initiative to change your culture is the premise that, you must change the culture with your people, not to them. Be a coach and lead them through the change. Allowing them to participate in the process design, implementation and resulting cultural creation provides your employees the opportunity to own the success of the new culture, thereby facilitating buy-in to the overall change effort.

Bill Marsh Automotive Group, in Traverse City, Mich., is a good example. The Executive Leadership Team began to initiate the changes that would shape its corporate culture, beginning with the development of core values that filtered throughout the organization. In-dealership consulting services were brought in to strategically plan, facilitate and monitor the formal change management processes.

Bill Marsh credits the new environment with a dramatic improvement in both employee and customer retention. Our values are reflected in everything we do — how we treat one another, as well as how we treat our customers. Im a great believer in the development of our people and in giving them the tools and training they need to be self-managers, leaders or developmental coaches. We want to know what our employees and customers think about the dealership and actively solicit their ideas. We reward our associates for longevity and ingenuity - they know their value and are “fully employed in our customer relationship management transformation.

An important part of the development of employees is training so they can develop their skill sets and operate the new processes and systems set in place. Dealers ask, why should we give employees expensive training, when turnover in the automotive retail business is so high? But the real question is, what is worse than training your people and they leave? The profound answer is: not training them and they stay.

If employee retention is truly the gateway to customer retention, then by allowing employees to get the initial and on-going training and support they need to develop, they are much more likely to have a long-term career with you. If we can attract and retain our employees for the long term by shifting their customer focus from transactional to a relationship based approach, we’ll inevitably increase the probability that our customers will be more likely to have a longer-term relationship with us as well.

A study conducted by The Gallup organization (Training Magazine) involving more than 1,000,000 interviews over the past 25 years ranked the top core elements to keeping good employees. The number one factor was, “Do I know whats expected of me?” Within the top five factors were elements such as, In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? and Does my supervisor or someone at work care about me as a person? How simple and literally without cost. Notably missing in the top 12 core elements- there was not one mention of compensation rather, the top12 focused on personal growth, communication and recognition.

The right kind of training teaches people the concept of self-management, proven to be the definitive link between customer satisfaction and profitability. A very satisfied customer is up to six times more willing to buy from you than a customer who is merely satisfied and an added bonus is their willingness to pay higher margins to receive the appropriate amount of service. By empowering your people to do what it takes to make a customer happy, you drive more value to the customer and your organization, with greater returns to your bottom line.

Success isnt easy, as you probably know. However, keep in mind what will guarantee your future: your employees. By providing a culture of empowerment and excellence, you will pave the way toward increased employee satisfaction and retention. Remember, training and developing your people is an investment in your most valuable asset - and the real payoff happens every day and every time a customer works with someone who is proud to be a part of your company.

Technorati Tags: employee retainment, employee turnover, retaining customers

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
Have you ever wondered why, after utilizing innovative sales techniques and investing a large amount of money on various promotional schemes, that your business volume has maintained status quo, or declined? You already know the technical end of you business well, and believe strongly in your products and services. However, new referrals and sales are dwindling, and you’re having difficulty retaining former customer. What am I doing wrong? you query.

We have been working with many dealerships large and small, which have posed the same question. We have found that there is one key element missing. It is so simple as to be obvious, but many overlook this most significant ingredient to establishing and maintaining a successful business.

THE MISSING ELEMENT
Automotive dealers, like other business people, must look closely at their expertise in communications. And while specific sales techniques may work for some, it is certainly not going to remedy all that ails a struggling business enterprise. One can no longer assume that because they are competent and fill a need they will survive, much less thrive, in the car business. The highly competitive business of car sales is currently facing with unparalleled challenges.

At PCS-Global, we have shown thousands of professionals how to improve their communication style to result in Win-Win situations for all. This innovative approach to employee hiring, training and staff development, as well as customer referral and retention, focuses on identifying set behavioral models and communication styles. This approach has garnered more than monetary rewards and increased customer referrals. It creates a climate conducive to maximum productivity, excellent employee morale, customer satisfaction, and company growth.

SELL YOUR STAFF FIRST
Each of us has a primary interpersonal behavior model with various percentages of other psychological needs mixed into our total personality. Therefore, to assume that what motivates you is what will motivate your staff or customers, is often inaccurate. The key is to identify your own personal needs in terms of job tasks, and then employ those individuals with compatible behavior models. We know certain communication styles have specific character strengths that are best suited for certain positions.

Take time to evaluate each persons role in terms of these necessary character strengths and awareness of the three predictable and easily recognizable response patterns to stress. When you have identified these key attributes that you desire in your staff, you can better select the most appropriate individual for a position. Additionally, you will then learn what specific psychological needs each person has and begin to work proactively toward meeting those needs. The end result can be nothing short of mystify; when employees are happy and appropriately positioned, they are better able to meet the needs of those they serve.

According to Steve Jenkins in Turnover: Correcting the Causes, “the company that does not provide the employee with an environment conductive to concentration (attention to psychological needs) will find that employees productivity suffers.” Research further suggests that an organization that helps them develop, is likely to win their loyalty, according to a recent report in Personnel.(1)

DEALING WITH DIVERSITY
Clinically, it has been shown that if you offer back to a person what they first present to you, you are better able to communicate appropriately. That equates with customer satisfaction as well as employee satisfaction. Reassuring and indecisive or insecure person in a manner that they deem acceptable equates with true professionalism and inspires confidence in the management and professional staff. Observing the offered perceptions of both your staff and customers, and mirroring those, can lead to a harmonious office environment and a productive and responsive business.

Customers need to be led to making appropriate decisions about their car purchases. What style of communication you choose to use with them may close the sale, or turn them away.

For someone who prefers definite and rigid leadership, a more laid-back individual may be viewed as weak. An autocratic style may be devastating to those who feel things. The individualistic manager or salesperson adapts quickly to his audience, providing leadership and direction which is most appropriate for the situation and person. The goal is maximum communication, but before we can communicate we must know the language each individual understands best.

PCS-Global encourages the matching of similar or complementary styles. Differences between managers and staff in natural joviality, patience, intensity, firmness, rigidity or curiosity interfere with communication so essential to a positive working relationship, according to Dorri Jacobs.(2) This fact alone has a tremendous significance in the initial hiring of employees, as well s matching your staff members with your customers. As indicated previously, no longer are professional training, competence and experience the only significant factors. Developing compatibility is crucial.

When others are spoken to in a language which they “hear” and respond to, each person is provides with and environment conducive to productivity and harmony. This translates into an operation wherein the staff then can be much more responsive to the clientele. This will bring in, satisfy, and retain customers.

MEETING THE NEED, RATHER THAN FORCING THE SALE
Prior to committing any time, energy or dollars to a massive advertising promotion, there are some significant factors you will need to consider. Establish clearly who you’re targeting and then reach out to them in a language they can hear, regardless of the media you choose.

Remember that we all are a blend of different behavior models. Tune in to the different styles that are most evident with your customers and employees. Then respond appropriately to what you see. Use this information to develop marketing strategies and establish an office environment, which is appropriate, and effectively match your staff with your customers.

IN CLOSING
There are countless books, manuals and seminars that promote various traditional sales techniques. Although a lot of the literature is relevant, a great many of the most often used methods of getting your foot in the door, overcoming objections and closing a sales are really not all that crucial or prudent. What is learned as a canned approach can have disastrous results if that language doesnt fit for the salesperson, or worse yet, is inappropriate for the potential customer. In an article in Training, Thomas Rollins relates that “one character went around in a cowboy hat, another in a three-piece suit. Both sold like crazy.(3)

What differentiates a super salesperson from a mediocre one is relatively simple if you take into account the behavior and preferred language of you customers. Canned speeches offend more often than not. We believe there is real merit in taking a close look at who your potential customers are. Evaluate carefully how your customers communicate to help pick up the essential clues as to their individual behavior styles. Perhaps, develop a mini-profile type of questionnaire which will help establish their unique behavior model. Be constantly aware of what motivates your own staff so that they will be most responsive to the needs of you customers. Speak to your customers in a language they understand. Provide an environment which is appropriate. Listen carefully, keep copious notes, follow up, be flexible and responsive, and make certain that you monitor your own needs as well.

By taking proactive approach, keeping communication skills a priority, and making a concerted effort to attend to the unique needs of co-workers and customers, you should be well equipped to move your business into the next evolution.

Offering your manager and frontline associates behavioral and personality profiles for long-term development, is the key to success. These quick, confidential, cost effective and easy-to-administer on-line instruments are available for candidate screening to in-depth management development metrics. Give this process a test-drive without long-term commitment, yet with guaranteed success.

REFERENCES

1. Steve Jenkins, Personnel, December 1988, Turnover: Correcting for the Causes, 43.
2. Dorri Jacobs, Management Solutions, December 1988, Exploring Causes of Problem Performance, 10-17.
3. Thomas Rollins, Training, November 1989, A Blueprint For People Who Really Sell, 50-55.
4. 4. Pamela Cole, PsychTech. 2007, DiSC and Indra. Inscape Publishing, Inc.

Technorati Tags: behavior models, communication styles, sales techniques

Learn best practices from on-going research including 6.000,000 recorded calls/mo.

• Many of you are spending upwards of $600 in advertising to make the phone ring
• Up to 76% of your customers are calling before they come into your company
• As many as 86% are buying something other than what they initially called on
• Nearly 80% of those calling buy within 3 to 5 days of calling
• Less than 4% of those calling are buying as a result of setting an appointment
• Your corporate image is often being established or compromised over the phone.
• Most of us are competing for the business through our phone skills
• We are rarely recognizing the value of the phone until our competitors do

Many companies use Call Tracking and Recording services to measure advertising response, capture caller information and monitor sales performance. While tracking technology provides useful business intelligence, in most enterprises, call tracking data is rarely analyzed and severely underutilized.

Corporations simply do not receive return on their tracking investment because they don’t consistently review their call reports and recordings, or dont fully leverage the information they’re paying to collect. If carefully interpreted, this intelligence will reveal ways for businesses to adjust their sales and marketing processes so they can attract more customers, set more appointments and sell more products.

If you are currently tracking and recording your calls, do you review your call data? More specifically, what changes have you made to your sales process, staffing or operations based on the call information you’vecollected over the past months or years?

• How frequently do you analyze your call reports and validate the ROI of your advertising campaigns? How many advertising dollars have you saved or redirected to more effective sources? How much has your call traffic increased as a result of adjusting your media buys?
• How consistently do you listen to your recorded calls? Do you review the calls with your sales consultants to reinforce coaching and training? If so, are your sales professionals now more successful at setting appointments and converting callers to buyers?
• Do you analyze your call volume and activity reports and adjust your staffing to reduce busy or unanswered calls? Have you considered using a professionally managed call center to handle overflow and after-hours call traffic?
• Does your sales staff promptly return missed calls? Do you review recordings for mishandled leads for “save a deal” opportunities? How much additional revenue does this generate for your company or department every month?

These opportunities may seem obvious, but most organizations just don’t have the time or staff to review and interpret call data, listen to inbound calls and continually train and retrain salespeople. In just one month, one company went from a market share of 11.4% to 18.8% utilizing the simple and inexpensive CallCoachsm phone handling process .

If your company could use some support, consider partnering with a consulting organization that offers experienced advisors and trainers to do the work for you — CallCoaching– consistently, objectively and economically. Those having recognized this opportunity have at least tripled their appointments set and kept over the phone, typically doubling phone related sales.

Whether you can manage the resources to do it in-house or ultimately turn to outside experts, the secret to success lies in turning the wealth of call data you collect every day into actionable intelligence that will bring in more customers and generate more sales every month.

With this offer, you are entitled to receive a complimentary introduction to:

Dont Just Track Activity Drive Productivity & Profitability

Leveraging the Essential Elements of Phone Sales Performance Management

Learn the Seven Successful Sequential Steps (S4) of time-tested phone handling skills that dramatically increase customer satisfaction through appointment setting and keeping, purchasing and following-up. This is a no-obligation offer that introduces these steps and allows you to evaluate your current processes against world class success-driven ones.

We look forward to your contact and welcome your inquiries into this active-listening, controlled-process: info@pcs-global.com or (888) 481-8771.

Technorati Tags: advertising response, call recording, call tracking

Remember the old fashioned BDCs (Business Development Centers) or phone rooms . . . rather, Business Detention Centers or so dubbed by the sales consultants sentenced to that room!

Learn what todays savvy dealerships are doing to Find, Serve and Keep their customers by Finding, Serving & Keeping their employees. It takes a distinct set of skills & personality traits to handle in-bound & out-bound sales calls, internet leads and floor traffic therefore Relationship Management Centers (RMCs) are matching employee talents for successfully handling Floor, Internet and Telephone leads (what we call getting F.I.T.). The results are producing 300% to 400% improvement in sales volume plus long-term retention increases.

Highly successful Business Development Centers today are focusing more on Relationship Management and they have the tools and know how to drive it. The latest sophisticated, integrated technology allows for entering data once, leveraging it often across business units. Learn what it takes to operate a Relationship Management Center and compare your ROI with those who enjoy doing this RMC work vs. loathe it.

We know that true customer retention is determined by how you interact and communicate with customers after the initial point of contact, yet the primary responsibility in most dealerships has been laid at the feet of the salesperson. However, we have long realized that the same set of skills that make salespeople successful are clearly not the same set that drives the ultimate in customer care. It is becoming more evident that building long-term relationships will be the key to dealership success in the future. We used to think that the key to customer retention was based upon the customer handling experience during the initial sale - then the industry focus changed to the quality of the vehicle service experience. Now we know that more than ever, it depends not only on those interactions but also upon the quality of the contacts and human touch between repurchase experiences.

Some of the most successful dealers have learned how to bridge the gap between customer expectations and salesperson responsibilities using an integrated approach that combines people, processes, skills and technology to deliver superior customer service with consistency. The central feature of this approach is the integrated Relationship Management Center (RMC). The RMC is far more than simply a phone room or internet leads process. By integrating several key customer contact and retention processes into a single focused operation, dealers have been able to dramatically improve the quality of the customers experience and do so with accuracy, measurements and accountability for results.

Learn how the expectations of customers will require different skills and integrated processes from our employees and managers. Customer focused processes will continue to change automotive retailing, moving from selling to partnering with customers for long term productive relationships, which will provide your dealership an accelerated competitive advantage. Organized with a customer centric structure, synchronized with defined and documented processes, driven by integrated reward systems and propelled by integrated technology the RMC will allow for successful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) development to FIND, SERVE AND KEEP customers by better matching (FINDING), training (SERVING) and retaining (KEEPING) employees.

Goals and Objectives

1. How to implement the seven steps necessary in developing the Relationship Management Center concept

2. Determine the appropriate timing for implementation of this concept into your dealership

3. Identify where your dealership fits on a continuum of readiness for the innovative RMC

4. Establish guidelines for developing the appropriate position guides for key roles within the novel RMC.

5. Preview best of class reward systems to motivate and retain top performers within the RMC.

6. Explore the integration of process and technology to quickly expand your ROI

7. Learn from actual success stories ranging from mom & pop stores to mega dealer groups

As you move into the next phase of managing customer relationships, we invite you to explore the question: Are You Ready for the integrated processes of an RMC Relationship Management Center.

Technorati Tags: Business Development Centers, customer relations, Relationship Management