We are having a tent sale that we started over Labor Day weekend and runs through the next couple of weeks. The purpose of the tent event is to stir things up a little bit around here and get the sales guys excited about something. We have kind of felt like things had been really dead and boring around here lately, so we decided to put together this used tent event.

     Here's what we have done to liven the place up so far: We put a huge tent on our used car lot with banners and balloons, we bought tons of food and drinks for both customers and our sales guys, we created a "wheel of love" that every customer that purchases a used car gets to spin, and we put together a pretty aggressive spiff program for the sales guys. The wheel pays out tons of prizes that are paid for against the gross of the deal so there is technically no cost attached to each prize. Our goal is to do this whole thing for a relatively cheap cost but still make it fun at the same time.

     The only issue is that I still feel like things aren't near as exciting around here as I was hoping. Does anyone have any ideas above and beyond the ones that I mentioned that would help liven this place up over the next 2 weeks? Keep in mind that I don't have tons of money to throw at this promotion): Let me know what you guys think...

     I did a post last week on "not missing customers" and we are still deliberating what is going to work best for our store. I have always worked at this dealership the entire time I have been in the car business and we have always had an open floor policy. It has always seemed to work in the past, but now we are having some serious coverage issues as I talked about last week.

     I would like everyone's opinion on a closed floor vs. an open floor. I have only been exposed to an open floor and have formed my own opinions as a result. The problem I am facing is I feel like I need to make some changes but I am not convinced that a closed floor is our best bet. I'm sure their are pros and cons to both approaches. I would love some feedback from anyone out there that has worked under both systems so I can make a more informed decision

     We have had an ongoing battle with our sales guys to make sure the lot and the phone station (where they get sales calls and internet leads) are being watched at all times. The obvious reason for that is to make sure that we aren't missing any customers that drive through the lot. We switched to a new facility about 4 years ago and our lot/phone station coverage has been a constant issue. The old facility was set up to where you could easily see the entire lot from the showroom, so there was never an issue with customers going unnoticed.

     We have tried to institute a schedule for both the phone station and the "spotter station" to make sure we have a guy in both places at all times. Needless to say, it has been like pulling teeth to manage that schedule. We currently don't adhere to the schedule at all and rely on our guys actually doing there jobs and rely on us babysitting them.

     I'm thinking there has to be a better way to approach this issue, but can't really think of anything else outside of the worthless schedule that we have. I'm too busy to be babysitting everyone so any suggestions would be more than welcome. Maybe we need to build another facility that has a better view of the lot!!!

I wanted to do a follow-up post about the 'funding deals' post that I did last week. I really appreciate all the comments that were made. It didn't take long to figure out that our store is ridiculous when it comes to how many days we allow to fund our deals. I have been thinking a lot about the comments that were made and about ways to tighten up our process. There was a few issues that I wanted to bring up about the topic.

1- Do your finance guys do all the work when it comes to funding? Are they in charge of capping the deals, getting the deals upstairs to be sent out, checking any funding delays with both banks and credit unions, and fixing any problems in order to get the deal funded? I want to make sure our guys have the same amount of responsibility. All that stuff that I just mentioned is pretty time consuming when it is added to doing deals full time. About that.... How many deals a month are your finance managers doing? I think part of the reason we take so long to fund a deal is because they are busy to the point where funding gets put on the back burner sometimes.

2- What is your policy on "one-pays"? Our definition of a one-pay is when a customer buys a car and we do the minimal amount of paperwork. The finance guy then sets an apt for the customer to come back in to the store to finish paperwork. The reasons we do one-pays are the following: We need to work the banks or get an approval, we need to get a payoff, we need to get a trade-in here and finish an appraisal, we need to collect stips for the bank, or the customer is short on time and would prefer to come back later. Anyway, we do a lot of one-pays and I feel like it slows our guys up considerably. Do you guys do one-pays at all? What are ways to avoid having to do a one-pay?

3- I'm interested in this save-a-deal meeting that you guys recommended and wanted more information on it. Who generally conducts the meeting and who attends the meeting? Also, what are the topics covered during the meeting?

    We have been putting a huge emphasis on funding lately. We have had some changes in our F&I department recently and it has led to some big time funding issues. I think we have always done a good job getting our deals funded quickly, but I have nothing to compare it to. I actually think that we don't give ourselves enough time to get our deals funded compared to most dealerships.

    Our rule is that every deal needs to be funded in 14 days or less, otherwise the finance managers get penalized. The 14 days start at the actual date of purchase, not when the customer comes back in to finish up all the paperwork. There are tons of reasons as to why deals go past 14 days. The most common ones for us are: It takes a week to get the customer back to finish paperwork, the finance manager takes several days to cap the deal and get it upstairs, the accounting department takes too long to send the deal to the bank, and the bank issues a funding delay that takes a while to get resolved.

    Every finance guy that has ever worked here has attempted to get the owner to change that policy and allow them more time to get the deal funded. Needless to say, the owner hasn't budged. I think it is an attainable goal, but everyone needs to be on their A game all the time. I was just wondering if other stores out there have similar policies or if we really don't allow enough time. Do you guys give your finance department 14 days? 21 days? What is par for the course inside of the business? Let me know your thoughts.

     We are currently with Dealer Specialties. They are the company we use that takes all the photos of our new and used cars. They also have an inventory management system to help us track which vehicles are advertised correctly with photos, trim, equipment and comments. We have been satisfied with the quality of our representative's work but have become increasingly unsatisfied with Dealer Specialties' management tool. There always seems to be problems with their website and they always have excuses as to why I have cars that have been on the lot for several weeks and still don't have any photos. Needless to say, we are getting very frustrated and are looking to make a change.

     I have been approached by Platinum Dealer Services and Dealer Net Solutions in the last few months and am starting to look into both of those companies as a potential replacement. Both seem like really good companies so far, but I don't know a ton about them. Platinum uses Alltech (or something like that) for the back end tool and Dealer Net uses Aeros. I'm betting both back end tools are better than what we are currently using, but I'm not sure which will be the best route. I have also heard that Vauto offers a back end tool to existing members. Again, I'm not sure how good that system will be.

     I just thought I would throw this post out there to see if any of you guys use any of the 3 companies that I am looking into. Let me know all pros & cons if at all possible. We need to make a change sooner rather than later and your input would help make me decision a lot easier. Thanks

We recently promoted one of our top guys off of the sales floor to be our next finance manager. He has been with the store for 5 years and has definitely put in his time and earned the promotion. We have considered him for the promotion for quite a while but have failed to offer him the position due to some issues he needed to work on. We just had one of our two finance guys quit and were put in a position where we needed to make a decision quickly to fill the empty spot. Despite his shortcomings, we offered him the position because it was definitely our best option.

We have never questioned his ability to be a finance manager and he is definitely capable with regard to everything that the job will demand. He has always had a consistent problem with punctuality and has taken off way too much time for vacations in the past. Those problems have never really been an issue due to the fact that he has always performed at such a high level in sales.  The only hesitation that the GM and I had when we considered him for the promotion was whether or not he would be able to kick those bad habits and be dependable as a manager.

I finally convinced the GM that promoting this guy was definitely the best move for the store at this point. My hope in promoting him was that he would automatically improve and fix those problems because of the added responsibility that he would have. I really think that when you show confidence in a guy and take the leap of faith to promote him, that he will naturally "step up his game" so to speak. The problem with that, is that I had to somewhat stick my neck out on the line to convince him to make the move. Meaning, if things don't work out with our new guy (which I know they will), I will be the one that he blames for making a bad decision.

 So... Did I make the right call? Based off your past experience, do you guys agree that people will automatically raise the bar when you throw them a bone? Or am I way too optimistic?

     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 are recently having some issues with our newer salespeople getting certified with Ford. We used to not care if our salespeople were certified, but lately we have put a lot more emphasis on it. Even though it has been more of a focus lately, we were one of only a few dealers in our region that missed out on a bonus from Ford because we didn't have 80% or more of our sales floor certified. It is a particularly sore subject because I would have got paid on a % of that money for Ford.

     As a result of missing out on that money from Ford, we have changed our policy on new hire certification to 90 days for base certification and 180 days to be master certified. There is a lot of tests involved to become master certified so I feel like 6 months is plenty of time to get them done. With that said, we are still having lots of our guys complain and request more time to get the tests accomplished. We are now making it mandatory that they meet those deadlines and they aren't that fond of the new policy.

     I'm sure most manufacturers have certification testing similar to what Ford offers. Do most dealers require their sales consultants to get master certified or are we an exception to the rule? Also, do you guys think that 6 months is enough time to get all the testing done? Let me know what you guys think so I can prove a point to our salespeople!

     We are a little bit behind the times with regard to chat leads at our dealership. We have known for a while that chat leads are a very viable source to get more deals, but for some reason we have dragged our feet a little on getting it set up. We are now in the process of getting everything set up.

     We have decided to make it to where our sales guys aren't doing the actual chatting with the customers. Instead, we hired a company that will handle the leads for us 24/7 and try to set appointments for the sales guys. We decided to go that route for 2 reasons. 1- Our sales guys aren't here during nights & weekends. 2- We were worried about some our guys' computer skills and their ability to chat effectively with our customers. The company sounds pretty legit and don't charge too much so we figured it would be a good route to go.

     The reason for my post is I was wondering if most dealers handle chat leads the same way we are going to. Or do most have their sales guys do it? Let me know what you guys recommend based off your past experience.