With the 4th of July coming up, I wanted to throw up a quick post about Holiday schedules.  At our dealership, we have always just had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years off for Holidays. I know of other dealerships that are closed on various holidays that we are open on. I know the car business is far different from banker hours/schedules but I think we should get more than 3 days off per year.

     I was just wondering what most dealerships out there give for days off on Holidays for their sales departments? I'm curious to see if we are in the same boat as most dealerships. Any feedback would be great.... 

     With the 4th of July coming up, I wanted to throw up a quick post about Holiday schedules.  At our dealership, we have always just had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years off for Holidays. I know of other dealerships that are closed on various holidays that we are open on. I know the car business is far different from banker hours/schedules but I think we should get more than 3 days off per year.

     I was just wondering what most dealerships out there give for days off on Holidays for their sales departments? I'm curious to see if we are in the same boat as most dealerships. Any feedback would be great.... 

Our dealership has always done really well with regard to Ford customer satisfaction surveys. We train our salespeople regularly on the importance of doing a proper delivery and explanation of the survey and expect them to do it on every single new car sold. In addition, we require them to make a 1 and 2 week follow up call to remind them of the importance of the survey and how it is graded. I know we can never have it done perfectly 100% of the time, but I feel pretty confident that our salesguys do a good job the majority of the time.

     With all that said, we still get customers that, no matter what we do or say, are never pleased and refuse to give us a completely satisfied comment. Which pisses me off! I swear they do it just to spite us. Anyway, I have heard about other dealerships bribing their customers in various ways to give them a perfect survey. Or, they bribe them to bring the unfilled survey into the dealership and then they will fill it out for the customer. We have never tried anything like that. I know we have some room for improvement, so I think it might be worth looking into some different ideas.

     What have you guys tried that has worked? I want to hear about ideas that are a bulletproof way to get a perfect survey. Let me know what you guys recommend....

Our dealership has always done really well with regard to Ford customer satisfaction surveys. We train our salespeople regularly on the importance of doing a proper delivery and explanation of the survey and expect them to do it on every single new car sold. In addition, we require them to make a 1 and 2 week follow up call to remind them of the importance of the survey and how it is graded. I know we can never have it done perfectly 100% of the time, but I feel pretty confident that our salesguys do a good job the majority of the time.

     With all that said, we still get customers that, no matter what we do or say, are never pleased and refuse to give us a completely satisfied comment. Which pisses me off! I swear they do it just to spite us. Anyway, I have heard about other dealerships bribing their customers in various ways to give them a perfect survey. Or, they bribe them to bring the unfilled survey into the dealership and then they will fill it out for the customer. We have never tried anything like that. I know we have some room for improvement, so I think it might be worth looking into some different ideas.

     What have you guys tried that has worked? I want to hear about ideas that are a bulletproof way to get a perfect survey. Let me know what you guys recommend....

      We have been with a company for many years that has offered a program to make our extended service contracts refundable in the event the customer doesn't make a claim against the warranty. It has been a great program for many years and has helped us to sell extended warranties at a pretty high level. Unfortunately, this company has now lost its backing and is closing up shop.

     The reason for my post is two-fold. 1- I want to know if there is any other company out there that offers a product to make service contracts refundable. They need to be a reputable, well-established company in order for us to consider them for the fact that we don't want to deal with this again.  We have done a little bit of research on our end and couldn't really find any company that seemed like a good candidate. 2- I want to know if the majority of the dealerships out there use such a product and offer refundable warranties. We have been selling our warranties that way the entire 9 years I have worked at this store. When I did finance, the main part of my warranty pitch was explaining how great the refundability was and I think it really helped me be successful as a finance manager. I couldn't imagine selling warranties and never being able to make them refundable at the end of the term.

     Let me know what you guys think. We would love to get signed up with a comparable company so we can sell warranties the way we know how. Otherwise, we may have to change our warranty pitch and re-train our finance department. Any input would be great.

      We have been with a company for many years that has offered a program to make our extended service contracts refundable in the event the customer doesn't make a claim against the warranty. It has been a great program for many years and has helped us to sell extended warranties at a pretty high level. Unfortunately, this company has now lost its backing and is closing up shop.

     The reason for my post is two-fold. 1- I want to know if there is any other company out there that offers a product to make service contracts refundable. They need to be a reputable, well-established company in order for us to consider them for the fact that we don't want to deal with this again.  We have done a little bit of research on our end and couldn't really find any company that seemed like a good candidate. 2- I want to know if the majority of the dealerships out there use such a product and offer refundable warranties. We have been selling our warranties that way the entire 9 years I have worked at this store. When I did finance, the main part of my warranty pitch was explaining how great the refundability was and I think it really helped me be successful as a finance manager. I couldn't imagine selling warranties and never being able to make them refundable at the end of the term.

     Let me know what you guys think. We would love to get signed up with a comparable company so we can sell warranties the way we know how. Otherwise, we may have to change our warranty pitch and re-train our finance department. Any input would be great.

     I consider our accessories department a necessary evil at our dealership because I know we can’t do without it and I know we can’t get rid of it due to the fact they generate extra profit for the dealership.  With all that said, I would still love to get rid of it!

      As a sales manager, I get paid on the front and back end profit of each deal. I don’t get paid a dime on what the accessories department does. My main complaint is our accessories manager gets a chance to sell his crap before the customer gets into the finance office and sometimes the accessories that are included into the financing make it to where our finance managers can’t be as profitable as we need them to be. I find that I am purposely sabotaging the accessories manager’s opportunity to sell product by lying to him and telling him the deal is maxed out. I do that so our finance department has more than enough room to sell their back end products and still have a buyable deal with the banks.  My other complaint is he is constantly pissing off our customers and tanking my salesguys’ surveys.

      Anyway, the point of all this is that I think there has to be a better way to set this up to where I don’t hate dealing the accessories department.  I get the argument that he needs to talk to the customer before they go into the finance office so the accessories can be put into the financing but that is the part that bugs me the most.  Maybe the solution is to make it where salespeople and sales managers get paid extra on deals where accessories are sold. Or maybe there is an alternate way to get the accessories financed. Who knows! Any ideas you guys have would be great because I’m sure that they are better than the current process that we have!

     I consider our accessories department a necessary evil at our dealership because I know we can’t do without it and I know we can’t get rid of it due to the fact they generate extra profit for the dealership.  With all that said, I would still love to get rid of it!

      As a sales manager, I get paid on the front and back end profit of each deal. I don’t get paid a dime on what the accessories department does. My main complaint is our accessories manager gets a chance to sell his crap before the customer gets into the finance office and sometimes the accessories that are included into the financing make it to where our finance managers can’t be as profitable as we need them to be. I find that I am purposely sabotaging the accessories manager’s opportunity to sell product by lying to him and telling him the deal is maxed out. I do that so our finance department has more than enough room to sell their back end products and still have a buyable deal with the banks.  My other complaint is he is constantly pissing off our customers and tanking my salesguys’ surveys.

      Anyway, the point of all this is that I think there has to be a better way to set this up to where I don’t hate dealing the accessories department.  I get the argument that he needs to talk to the customer before they go into the finance office so the accessories can be put into the financing but that is the part that bugs me the most.  Maybe the solution is to make it where salespeople and sales managers get paid extra on deals where accessories are sold. Or maybe there is an alternate way to get the accessories financed. Who knows! Any ideas you guys have would be great because I’m sure that they are better than the current process that we have!

     We just recently increased our spend with Cars.com and Autotrader.com for both our new and used inventory. The increase gave us several features including chat leads. Both reps are pushing to get me to get set up for chat so we can get our sales guys working on it. I see the value in having my guys available for chat at all times but I have some reservations.

Here's my 2 issues:

1- My sales guys struggle with manning the phone desk at all times during the day. I worry it would be a constant battle to make sure someone is available at all times to respond to the chat leads. I push them hard enough to follow other processes so I worry they wouldn't be that committed to responding to the leads in a timely manner (which I'm sure would just piss off the customer and they would shop elsewhere).

2- We currently get chat leads and have a 3rd party company handle the leads and set up appointments. Even with a dedicated company working the leads, we get little to know activity and we don't close at a very high percentage. I'm guessing I would get the same or worse results if I choose to set up the other chat leads and get my guys to work on them.

     Just wondering if anybody out there has had a positive experience with chat leads from cars.com and autotrader.com? I down with trying anything so long as I feel like it will make a positive impact and be worth the battle I'm going to have. Let me know what you guys think...

     We just recently increased our spend with Cars.com and Autotrader.com for both our new and used inventory. The increase gave us several features including chat leads. Both reps are pushing to get me to get set up for chat so we can get our sales guys working on it. I see the value in having my guys available for chat at all times but I have some reservations.

Here's my 2 issues:

1- My sales guys struggle with manning the phone desk at all times during the day. I worry it would be a constant battle to make sure someone is available at all times to respond to the chat leads. I push them hard enough to follow other processes so I worry they wouldn't be that committed to responding to the leads in a timely manner (which I'm sure would just piss off the customer and they would shop elsewhere).

2- We currently get chat leads and have a 3rd party company handle the leads and set up appointments. Even with a dedicated company working the leads, we get little to know activity and we don't close at a very high percentage. I'm guessing I would get the same or worse results if I choose to set up the other chat leads and get my guys to work on them.

     Just wondering if anybody out there has had a positive experience with chat leads from cars.com and autotrader.com? I down with trying anything so long as I feel like it will make a positive impact and be worth the battle I'm going to have. Let me know what you guys think...