ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer advises dealerships to give consumers the option to start the car buying process online and the importance of digital retailing in this week's edition of Witt's Wise Words.

ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer shares the 3 P's of success in this week's edition of Freebie Friday.

Successful people don't strive for average - they strive for exceptional! ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer shares his take on performance & why great producers need management attention.

Should you focus more on your top producers, or help build up your lower producers? ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer answers this question with some advice about managing your sales team in this week's edition of Witt's Wise Words.

The rules of email marketing have changed. ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer explains the importance of targeted, relevant email content in this edition of Freebie Fridays.

As an industry, we have pretty much perfected the process of following up on Internet leads, but we are far from perfect when it comes to handling inbound phone leads. According to CallSource and IHS/Polk research, 84 percent of consumers purchase vehicles from a different dealership than the one they originally called.

The good news is, there’s a huge opportunity to improve. Consumers are using cell phones more than ever for research during the car-buying process. In recent years, this has led to a significant increase in the volume of inbound calls to dealerships, compared with the number of email and Internet leads which have stayed the same or even declined.

When a customer calls your dealership, most times you’ve got one shot to get it right. Which is why converting inbound calls to sales opportunities should be your number one priority. To ensure you don’t drive customers away, follow these tips.

Answer the phone

This may sound obvious but don’t expect your sales team to answer all inbound sales calls. According to Marchex, nearly 20 percent of incoming calls fail to connect the caller with someone at the dealership.

Auto attendant options, call routing errors and voice mail compound this problem. It’s not enough to measure whether a call is answered; you need to measure how many callers are connected to a live person who can help them.

Designate a receptionist or BDC agents to answer calls. Or, you can have salespeople dedicated to this task during certain timeframes. Just be sure during that time they are focused on the phone and not drawn away by other tasks.

Also, try attaching a spiff to an existing bonus as a qualifier. I don’t recommend paying people extra to do the job they’re supposed to do. But pay plans need to be tied to a number of goals such as CRM logging consistency, number of survey completions, average call length, etc.

Collect and give information

Numerous studies have documented how poorly most customer inquiries are handled. Less than five percent of salespeople identify themselves by name and/or ask for an appointment, and dealers gather viable information on only 11 percent of callers.

Our BDC data shows that when asked, 97 percent of callers will give information about themselves or their experience over the phone. At a minimum get their name, email address and phone number—preferably two phone numbers. From making over 60 million calls a year, we know that it takes an average of four attempts to get a customer on the phone. With one phone number, there is a 67 percent contact ratio, and with two phone numbers that rises to an 80 percent contact ratio.

People like to feel important, so let your callers talk and remember what they say. Always enter notes about the type of car they’re looking for and what the follow-up action is because there should always be a follow-up action.

Meet customer expectations

Be sure that the branding messaging you’re portraying is consistent with what consumers experience when they call your dealership. Most callers have done their research, so by the time they place calls they’re in the process of elimination. Don’t give them a reason to eliminate you.

Answer their questions and give them the information they’re looking for, even pricing questions. The reality is you’re not going to close any deals on the phone. Your goal is to give the customer a pleasant and memorable experience on the phone so they will continue to engage with you when you follow up. Giving them the third degree and trying to force them into an appointment before they’re ready is not a winning strategy. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with asking for the appointment, but don’t do it before you establish rapport and don’t try to force it.

Scripts can be helpful. Not everyone is a natural on the phone. Develop and test strong scripts to guide salespeople and BDC agents until they learn how to engage, memorize the important questions to ask and learn how to overcome objections. Ideally you want every conversation to sound authentic, so it’s OK to add your own words and style to a script.

On a weekly basis track your phone metrics, listen to conversations and provide your staff with feedback. Coach them on areas that need improvement. Also, test your phone system and processes regularly by calling into your own store from every phone number that you are marketing.

Thanks to improved digital marketing strategies, more consumers than ever are calling dealerships directly. Phone leads are still your best and most valuable opportunities, so don’t let them slip through the cracks of a bad phone process. Technology, measurement, training and accountability are key factors in implementing any successful process, inbound calls included.

The benefits of having a mobile check-in and MPI process in the service department have been widely confirmed. You’ve probably heard all about the three “T’s;” specifically transparency, timing and trust.  

However, one of the biggest unsung benefits is the considerable increase in the usage of the “declined service” op codes. Customers declining service is nothing new. But, a mobile service process makes it easy for you to reach out to recent customers so you can recover that lost revenue. Dealerships that are effective at this process see anywhere from 10 percent of declined services brought back within seven days and up to 25 percent of declined services brought back within a month.

What would that mean to your bottom line? In a larger-than-average dealership, you could discover that you have $400,000 in declined service work every month, and be able to bring back $100,000 of that revenue.

Four best practices to incorporate into your declined service follow-up process include:

1) Eliminate manual logging  

Do you know the top five declined service op codes in your store? Many service managers either don’t know the answer or would be guessing if they did answer. If you don’t know what to go after, you can’t create a strategy to go after it. This is the first and most critical step to recovering lost revenue.

With a mobile check-in and MPI process, when the service advisor makes recommendations, and the customer declines, the advisor must check either yes or no.

This simple automated prompt results in a massive increase in the logging of declined services. A store with manual logging sees an average of seven to eight percent of ROs logged with declined services. Stores with a mobile process see an average of 30 percent of ROs logged with declined services.

In addition to knowing where the lost revenue is, automated logging of op codes reveals which repairs your advisors are having trouble selling. This provides training opportunities so you can quickly improve performance and reduce the number of overall declined services.

2) Provide visual proof

Most mobile service department applications provide technicians and advisors with the ability to take photos or videos of worn parts. Make it a habit to text or email your photos and/or videos to your customers for their review. Seeing is believing, and people are far more likely to approve a recommended service when provided with visual proof. If they don’t approve the repair right away, send visual proof again a week later.

To accompany the videos and photos, provide additional information on why it’s so important to get the repair performed sooner rather than later—whether it’s a safety issue or another reason.

3) Address declined service and recalls at check-in

More and more tablet check-in tools integrated with a CRM list previously declined service recommendations at the beginning of the process. It’s a great time to revisit what the recommendation was and explain why it is needed.

As for recall information, lane applications with strong real-time recall data integration provide the opportunity to alert customers of safety issues, even before the lane and multi-point inspection occur. An estimated 25 percent of vehicles on the road today have an open recall. Dealers utilizing their recall data are seeing a 50 percent increase in customer pay overall.

4) Multi-channel follow up

Don’t place the burden of follow-up entirely on your service advisors’ shoulders. Today much of the declined service follow-up process can be automated. Service advisors can record a friendly service reminder that can be automatically dropped into the customer’s voice mail at pre-determined time intervals after the customer’s visit.

Meanwhile, have BDC agents reach out to connect in-person. One highly effective approach is to create a report with the top five safety op codes and prioritize those first. Incorporate a sense of urgency into your follow-up scripts.

In addition to phone calls, follow-up with personalized emails and texts. Send visual proof again. Send a coupon as an incentive. Eventually that customer will get the repair done, the only question is, will they bring their vehicle to your shop or take it somewhere else? Be persistent to keep your dealership top of mind when it’s time for service.

Every declined service is a missed opportunity for both revenue and relationship-building. Fortunately, mobile tablet technology has made it easy to log op codes, win customer trust and be persistent with follow-up. Perfecting this process will recover thousands of dollars in lost fixed ops revenue every month. 

Need more leads? Whenever sales are slow, one of the first reactions from salespeople, and sometimes their managers, is to proclaim they need more leads or better leads.

In response, they might run a lead generation campaign which results in a temporary lift in lead volume. The problem is, when the campaign ends, the lead volume drops back to less than optimal levels.  

A better, more consistent approach is to build a lead generation process into your culture. The process should also include lead follow up, so you’re maximizing the potential of every lead.

If sales is a numbers game, then your CRM is the PlayStation. Lead volume is an important number, but equally so are connection rates, set appointments, appointment shows and closing rates. The answer to more leads is to build a sales culture around the CRM and to focus on CRM usage.

I’m a big believer that usage and enforcement of processes must come from the top down. In the most successful stores, it’s typically a GM, GSM or Sales Director who is the CRM power user. We like to call this person the CRM Champion, and I always recommend appointing one person for this role—and please don’t appoint an IT person. How can you expect your sales team to use the CRM if senior sales management isn’t using it themselves, or enforcing its usage?

The best way to enforce CRM usage is to build an activity-based process. This starts with logging every person that walks into your dealership. I don’t care if they’re just stopping by to look or they say they’re not ready to buy. If they’re in your dealership, log them.

The same goes for logging phone ups. Whenever a person calls, for whatever reason, the call should be logged. Not logging phone ups is probably the largest area of missed opportunities for dealers.

Logging every lead is critical because it’s impossible to manage and follow up with leads unless they’ve been logged in the first place.

Salespeople should also be trained in the art of prospecting both in person and on social media. Get to know your customers, ask for referrals and learn how to master the phone.

Whether you believe it or not, the customer who was on your lot yesterday really does want to be followed up with. If they don’t answer your phone or text, keep trying. They’re not trying to insult you, maybe they’re just busy and you’re not a top priority. After all, most people don’t need a new car right away.

I also recommend that lead generation be addressed in daily save-a-deal meetings. When one deal is closed you have to know where the next deal is coming from. The lead is the beginning of the deal, and most salespeople need to learn how to prospect and generate their own leads. If you don’t coach them or hold them accountable, you’ll hear the inevitable, “these leads are terrible.”

Your CRM Champion should also be using the CRM on a regular basis for equity mining and to find past customers that can be turned into new leads.

For lead generation to be part of your culture, you also need to implement performance mandates. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

The best way for the CRM Champion to manage performance is by activities. When I was starting out in sales, I was unmanageable, like a speedboat in a no-wake zone. So, my manager managed me by activities. He assigned me tasks, and I completed them, or there were consequences – which usually affected my pay.

Identify the six or seven most important activities that salespeople must do in order to close the deal. Assign those tasks to every salesperson, then hold them accountable. The best way to enforce accountability is with a monetary consequence. Try scaling bonuses and commissions based on how well each stage of the deal was recorded in the CRM.

Finally, always demonstrate how the CRM can make an individual more successful. Most people are not inherently organized or detail oriented, but a CRM forces you to become that way.

The CRM is much more than a lead repository and communications system. When set up correctly, the CRM becomes the process that leads to success. So, if you ever hear someone on your sales team complain about leads, investigate the team’s usage of the CRM. When your sales culture is built around your CRM, lead generation never stops.

What’s the definition of multi-tasking? It's doing a lot of things at once, and most often, that means doing them poorly. In fact, research proves that multi-tasking is largely a myth; our brains are not wired to focus on multiple things at once. Studies show that multi-tasking ruins productivity, causes mistakes and dampens creative thought.

Yet, many people keep trying, simply because they have too much to do and too little time to do it in. The solution is simple: get your priorities straight and accept the fact that you won’t be able to do everything, because everything can’t be a priority.

Whether you’re in sales or service at a dealership, your CRM can help you manage activities and complete tasks. But it can also overwhelm you if you’re not prioritizing correctly. If you log in every morning and see 100 tasks marked as “high priority,” you know you’ve got a problem.

On the other hand, if your to-do list isn’t long enough you’ve got a problem as well. Most people have a longer list than they can get through. If you can breeze through your daily tasks with time to spare, you don’t have enough to do.

To help prioritize what’s really important, take a step backward and focus on the big picture.

The Pareto principle states that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your work. The hard part is determining which 20 percent produces the results you want.

Is your top priority to sell more cars, or is it to take care of customers’ needs? Taking care of your customers will always lead to more sales, but if you’re focusing on the sale you might not be taking care of the customer, giving them a poor experience with your business.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in; taking care of your customer is always your No. 1 priority, so they don’t give their business elsewhere.

Knowing this, create workflows and processes that focus on taking care of customers, and always flag these items in your CRM as your highest priority. When I have a list of phone calls to make, I always call customers back first.

It might be more difficult to prioritize one customer over another. Are unsold showroom customers a higher priority than sold? Are customer-pay service customers a higher priority than warranty? What may seem obvious on the surface isn’t always; this is where you can use your CRM to run revenue reports that will shed light on who your current and potential VIP customers are.

Yes, ideally you would take care of all customers equally. But it’s more crucial to take care of your loyal and repeat customers, ensuring that they get the red-carpet treatment every visit.

For most people, the second priority is going to be their team. Your co-workers need information, approvals or advice in order to accomplish what they need to do. Almost every workflow in your store involves more than one person, which is why, after customers, your co-workers should be next on your list of tasks or callbacks.

After your customers and co-workers are taken care of, then you can focus on priorities that will create new customers, such as filling your pipeline. If you’re in sales, this may seem counter-intuitive. Shouldn’t you always be prospecting? The reality is, if you prioritize and take care of your current and sold customers, you’ll get more referrals and sales than you would by chasing random leads. 

Many productivity experts recommend having your priorities and task list for the next day all set before you go home at night. That way, first thing in the morning you can get to work instead of wasting time figuring out what to do first.

I always recommend “eating the big frog first,” that is, tackling the most difficult and most important priorities first. Get that 20 percent of work that produces 80 percent of results out of the way. For this reason, try to avoid scheduling meetings and phone calls in the morning (unless they are part of the 20 percent).

It’s important to establish priorities up front and verbalize them to staff, so everyone is working on the same page. Trying to prioritize tasks “on the fly” is not a good idea as it’s too easy to be swayed by outside influences. For example, when your boss says he or she needs a report on his desk ASAP, you might be tempted to immediately drop everything to do it, leaving a VIP customer’s need unmet.

Also, revisit your priorities on a regular basis; at least annually if not quarterly. This is because your store’s priorities might change. If you’re trying to increase sales gross, you might decide to focus on CPO; if you want to increase customer-pay ROs, you might concentrate on fine-tuning digital marketing strategies.

There is only so much time in a day, and you will never have more time than you do right now. Everything can’t be a priority, so allocate your time carefully and focus on what gets results.

The decision to switch to a new CRM is not one to be taken lightly. On a daily basis, your sales team relies on your CRM for new leads and opportunities, to remind them what needs to be done, guide them through car deals and keep them on track to meet business goals.

Yet, just about every dealer has switched to a new CRM at one point, typically because of a change in management, but sometimes because they want to try the latest shiny new technology.

Whatever your reason for wanting to switch, here are a few tips to guide you through the vendor selection process and help you make a decision you won’t regret.

Don’t Chase Utopia

If your current CRM isn’t working for you, it’s important to figure out where the source of your problems lie. If your new sales manager is requesting the switch, ask for a list of reasons why. Then do a little investigating. For each reason, identify whether the issue is a product, vendor, process or people problem.

Make a list of features that are most important to your team. Write down your sales process and ask potential new vendors how their CRM can be customized to your processes.

Vendor Presentations

Do you remember what you ate for lunch two weeks ago? How about two days ago? If the answer is no, how do you expect to remember all the details from three different vendor presentations over the course of a few weeks?

Taking detailed notes during presentations is important. Have a written list of questions for each vendor, plus a checklist of your most important features with room for notes on how each feature works.

Without detailed notes, it’s common for dealers to confuse one vendor with another, forget which vendor had which feature, or the benefits that one vendor offers vs. another.

Then again, some dealers go overboard in the opposite way. They create a 28-page product RFI with endless questions, 90 percent of which don’t have anything to do with what they really need.

A happy medium between these two extremes is recommended.

Identify a CRM Champion

The relationship between a CRM vendor and dealership tends to work best when the dealer assigns a primary point of contact. Many years ago, we dubbed this person the CRM Champion.

The role of the CRM Champion has changed over the years. Originally, this person made sure all the ups were logged, opportunities were captured, and input information from daily work plans into the CRM because the salespeople wouldn’t do it.

Now, salespeople are responsible for entering details about their own ups, conversations and work plans. The role of the CRM Champion today is more about setting KPIs, tracking goals, and monitoring daily activities to hold the team accountable. Your CRM Champion should also know how to mine your database for new opportunities, in addition to your regular ups and leads.

The CRM Champion trains new team members and sometimes plays the role of coach. This is an important role, so be sure that whoever you assign, or steps forward, is passionate, dedicated and detail oriented.

Allocate Enough Time

When you move to a new house, it’s a great opportunity to get rid of all the junk that you don’t want to move with you. That’s why people have garage sales and haul bags of stuff to donation centers.

When you move to a new CRM, the same concept applies. Your current CRM probably has hundreds of templates that haven’t been updated in years. Do you still have your 2005 Thanksgiving email promoting free turkeys?

Prior to installation, audit and update all templates, and eliminate old ones. Review your processes to see if there’s room for improvement. Update workflow schedules to make them more efficient.

Be sure to allocate enough time to do all this before your installation. Better yet, make this a pre-requisite for your team to accomplish these tasks before you commit to switching.

Don’t Commit to Long-Term Contracts

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. When you make the switch, you may find yourself standing in a pasture with a septic tank, so why commit yourself to a long-term contract?

Fifteen years ago, contracts were the norm. Over the years, the industry evolved to where month-to-month commitments became the standard. Recently I’ve noticed the pendulum has swung back to long-term contracts. The reason for this is because implementing a new CRM has costs associated with it, and dealers don’t want to pay for everything up front. So, vendors accommodate them by incorporating the cost into a contract. Then the dealer is committed.

So, you save a few bucks up front but you’re stuck with a CRM you hate for a year or more. It’s actually cheaper to pay up front than to buy your way out of a long-term contract.

Also, be cautious of contracts that contain auto-renewals. What your vendor may not tell you is that the auto-renew kicks in 60 days before the actual date of renewal. Read the fine print and give yourself options, not obligations.

Following these tips should help you make the right decision for your dealership, and your sales team will thank you.