If you are an owner or general manager and aren’t seeing top-tier results from your Internet department, look at this list and see how many of these points are ‘in play’ at your dealership.
Internet departments fail because:

Leads are not handled in a timely and consistent manner. 

 

There is a lack of a consistent and known process throughout your dealership that all staff follow on each and every lead.

 

Internet customers are treated differently than your retail customers.

 

Internet sales staff offer discounts before customer ever asks about price. 

 

Sales staff try to sell cars through emails. .

 

There is a lack of essential sales training and constant evaluation of each employee.

 

An Internet Director leaves your dealership, taking his customers, staff, and process with him/her.

 

Internet sales reports do not show accurate E-Commerc...

What does the dealership management team need to focus on to get better Internet sales results?

By: William Phillips of Automotive Internet Management Inc.






Anyone who has spent time working in a retail automotive environment knows that what we focus on is what produces results. The most common gaffe I observe in almost every dealership I visit is upper management's lack of oversight of their Internet departments. While these managers know how many ups came into their store and how those shoppers were handled on the floor, few, if any, are equally in tune with their online prospects. Let's look at how taking a top-down view of your Internet department will increase both your understanding of day-to-day operations and the succes...

 
Is your Bank getting robbed??
 
By William Phillips, Automotive Internet Management Inc.
  
Why is it dealers allow their Internet sales department to disregard valuable leads?   
 
Ask yourself: Do you know what the process is in your Internet department for each lead that comes in?  Is each and every lead being handled in a proper and timely manner?
 
Internet departments benefit when Internet leads are treated by employees like a mini-dealership lot itself and manage this aspect of the business as if the lead where an actual customer walking onto the lot.  Think about this: Eighty percent of all consumers refer to the Internet before coming onto an actual dealer’s lot.  Therefore, it is crucial that dealers are able to handle these leads with efficiency.  Internet customers are simply customers coming to you electronically.
 
The fact is that many dealerships are unaware of the disorganization and in...

If You Want to Change the Job Your People Do, Change the Job You Hire Them to Perform
By William Phillips, Automotive Internet Management Inc.
It’s early October, and I’m just leaving the J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Internet Roundtable in Las Vegas, where a wealth of great information was presented. The best thing I learned from this conference was that the work environment within a dealership is changing faster than anyone realizes. Technology is changing the face of who now works in this environment, and the industry is unprepared for or unaware of the change at hand.   
In the opening session, the folks from J.D. Power brought together several manufacturer representatives to discuss the results of a recently completed mystery-shopping study. This survey showed without a doubt why dealers are struggling: response times to customer inquiries that exceed 12 hours and next to no follow up of any kind. J.D. Power then brought out a panel of dealer ...

I have worked for over 15 years in the automotive sales industry – my formal education includes a Bachelor’s in engineering and a Masters in marketing. That stated, I in no way intend to demean the intelligence or ability of any of the hard-working people in this business by the title or contents of this article.  I consider this business to be challenging, exciting and extremely dynamic given all of the market forces driving change in the traditional business model.  Personally, I am privileged to have been able to build a career doing something I love for so long. 
The lead management tool, used by most Internet sales organizations, is a necessary and extremely important element to selling cars. The tool manages the prospect data, schedules salesperson actions and reports on key information like response time and closing ratios. It aggregates multiple lead sources into a single database. This tool and the invaluable data about potential...

Anyone who has spent time working in a retail automotive environment knows that what we focus on is what produces results. The most common gaffe I observe in almost every dealership I visit is upper management’s lack of oversight of their internet departments. While these managers know how many ups came into their store and how those shoppers were handled on the floor, few, if any, are equally in tune with their online prospects. Let’s look at how taking a top-down view of your internet department will increase both your understanding of day-to-day operations and the success your team achieves.
Focus on the Right Things
For dealers who want to improve the performance and accountability of their internet departments, a solution has been proved in store after store by dealers with successful e-commerce operations. Simply put, your upper management staff, midlevel management staff and anyone getting paid on internet sales must be involved, on a daily basis, with the business...