For a long time, we have seen the department names “BDC” and “Internet Department” used almost interchangeably.

Tomato tomato, right?

Not so much. In fact, not at all.

I’m, able to tell a lot about a dealership that is using an “Internet Department” just by seeing they use that term.  From a job posting for a BDC Manager or internet Director, I can tell if the responsibilities being asked of this person tie into the skill set that is needed for a top flight Business Development Director. More often than not, when I read these ads, I see a confusion of mangled responsibilities that range from porter duties to sales manager tasks. It’s rare that I read a BDC Manager/Director help wanted ad that actually spells out the responsibilities that are most important to that person’s impact on the organization. Here’s why it’s so important we nail down what we want this person to do. The most important management position in the modern automotive dealership is the BDC Manager/Director. If we can’t outline the responsibilities for the position correctly, how will a BDC ever function to develop business?

As a trainer, I install, train and re-build broken and non performing BDC teams, and while I’m an advocate for outside training, every dealership should have someone baked into their organization organically that is capable of training and development. This is something I teach, and is fairly easy to master after some growing pains. The ability to coach and train a team should be the number one trait you are looking for in this person.

The confusion between the titles of a BDC and an Internet Department and the responsibilities associated with them are the biggest leaks in your dealerships pockets. I can’t help but laugh a little when a dealership complains about a vendors lead quality or lead count when their BDC is operating like an internet team from 2004. It’s literally the equivalent of tripping over tens of thousands of dollars a day to pick up a fraction of a penny. If all of your leads are filtered through an ineffective outdated center, stop complaining to your vendors; get comfortable with being outdated and ineffective or change.

If your department responds to internet leads and says: “when can you come in”?, Call the department what it is; an Internet Department, and call it a day. Departments that have this type of conversations (and use those words for that matter) with customers are BDC/Internet teams staffed with reps and managers that have been permanently corrupted to thinking their job function is only to react to phone and internet leads using whatever happens to come out of their mouth at that time. I can tell a lot about the health of a BDC or Internet team by literally being in the room for 5-10 minutes. There is generally no formal training, accountability by hour/day week/month, no scripts/word tracks, or any real process whatsoever in these environments. It’s simply an extension of your sales floor with an hourly comp plan.  If your staff is waiting for the next e-lead or phone up and you are looking to turn your reactive Internet Department into a true BDC that (that develops business), you have a ride ahead of you and I strongly suggest you bring a strong process consultant into the picture for this journey.

If your Business Development Center new hires are thrown on the phones on day one, or even on day two, you are not setting your dealership up for success and you will continue to burn through new hires at 1-3 months, on average. I see this happen all the time and it still makes me shake my head when the most influential department in the dealership to overall success is not given the tools or training so that they can succeed, thus contributing to our already notorious reputation for inability to retain staff.

If you don’t have talk tracks that your reps are trained on and required to use, how will they know what to say when your customers voice an objection? They won’t, and they will quickly become burnt out if you force them to adlib. More importantly, they will burn through your leads and you’ll soon be telling your vendors your leads are bad.

If your reps don’t consistently ask for manager or supervisor help on LIVE phone calls (and by consistently I mean a new rep should be asking for {and have a senior rep/Manager/supervisor available to take} a T/O on live phone calls MULTIPLE times a day) you don’t have a process to save the leads your less experienced reps can’t overcome. If a newer rep is not asking for a LIVE T/O on any phone contact as a result of a phone up or e-lead, you are leaving a ridiculous amount of money on the table by allowing one new rep to determine if that $200-400 to generate the lead will translate into a showroom visit. If a newer rep is handling even 2 new phone ups a day and 2 e-leads, there’s a very good possibility he or she is costing you 1 or two showroom visits a day if there’s no system in place to turn difficult calls over. In larger volume stores and centers I see reps often burning through 10 or more fresh opportunities a day. When a T/O process is put in place it’s not uncommon to save 50% of opportunities and set appointments that a newer rep wasn’t able to. This literally can mean the difference between selling an extra 1-3 units per day per less experienced BDC representative. It’s fair to say that in advertising alone, one newer less experienced rep can easily burn through $500 of your advertising dollars up to well over double that, and that obviously doesn’t take into account the deals you’ve lost from those advertising dollars.

If, however, your department is consistently making phone calls saying “Hi Rob, we noticed that your lease is about to expire in three months, did you have interest in discussing your options?”; you might have a Business Development Center on your hands.  (There are far more effective word tracks for these types of campaigns but you get the idea)

Knowing the difference between the two titles is ultimately important to determine what responsibilities your employees must be expected to perform. 

I've seen an increasing number of new BDC reps and managers alike, ask: “how do I generate more activity in the dealership”. Do we increase ad spend? Switch vendors? Fire the guy that's generating the least number of e-leads? The answer is NO! We need to end the madness and it starts now.

Look, there's no shortage of vendors looking to sell you the latest up and coming "household name" to solve your problems, many of which promise results and disappear just as fast as they surface. We've all bought into gimmicks, the trends, switched vendors and experienced the highs and lows of the buyers’ market. The key for 2016 and the foreseeable future is a trained, successful, sustainable and accountable BDC; and that doesn't happen overnight, by accident or by plugging people into seats on day one. Why is it that we hold sales meetings for the floor every Saturday and never do this for our BDC? If we don't invest in the BDC it will simply become a cost center and an extension of the sales staff with an hourly pay attached.

I do mystery shops almost every day and am always amazed at how few and far between the dealers are that actually put a formal training process in place for their BDC. There is so much more to BDC than making follow up calls and logging phone ups.

If you are hearing and/or seeing the following, you may want to consider BDC training. Unfortunately, I hear these things every day on the majority of mystery shops I do. These items below can be poison and indicate that there is no formal process in place to capture the leads we spend so much to generate.

1. Would you like to come in?
2. What time are you available?
3. When can you come in?
4. Do you want to come test drive at 6:15?
5. Would it be ok if I scheduled you for an appointment?
6. If you want, I can schedule an appointment for you…
7. Let’s schedule a tentative appointment
8. If our appointment coordinators aren’t able to set an appointment are we TO’ing that call?
9. Is someone always available and trained to run to a BD rep that needs a TO on a live call?
10. If you’re a few hours or late, don’t worry, it’s ok
11. What color are you looking for
12. Would you like to talk to a salesperson?
13. Would you like to talk to my manager?
14. BDC Manager/Lead BDR cues - You see a rep that has been on a phone call for more than 5 Minutes and is not already in the process of setting an appointment
15. Does your BDC immediately go to your website when a phone up asks if the vehicle is available? This is poison! Don’t do it!
16. You see a rep using your website to locate a new vehicle and/or you see a BD rep clearly not in control of a call. In most instances I teach complete ability to appointment set without a web site click from the rep.
17. Not asking for the appointment, the only way, the right way, every time
18. Not asking for help (Live TO) on difficult calls
19. I’m not sure
20. I can check and call you back
21. In case we get disconnected, What’s your number
22. I didn’t catch your name
23. Who am I speaking to/what’s your name?
24. Not asking for permission for a customer’s time on outgoing calls
25. Attempting to negotiate a price over the phone 
26. Are your reps checking their own call times on their phones frequently while on calls and aware of their average call time? There’s a magic time as a BD Rep that you ask for a TO at…
27. Are your reps allowed to schedule appointments past 48 hours out from today? If a customer is insistent on not being able to show prior to then, do you have a TO process to increase the immediacy since we know that appointed customers over 48 will likely never show?
28. Is there a high level of excitement in the room to make the next appointment? Are people generally eager to make 60k or take their next smoke break?

It's funny, sometimes I feel like I speak a different language when I talk to people in the same industry. 

The other day I was talking to a manager at a dealership about a "T/O" a rep gave him to call back. 

Notice I said: gave him. Past tense.

A T/O in a BDC is LIVE. PERIOD. 

Call backs at a later time, even just minutes later by a manager simply don't work. At best, they are considerably less effective, at worst, we play into the consumers perception that we are a sales person chasing his or her business. Take the order, the first time. 

We have to get the commitment NOW, or someone else will. That's about the only certainty in this business. Ask for the business now. Consumers only visit only one or two stores, I think its 1.2-1.6 and by the time they have called you, they've done their research, set the appointment. Your customers, your managers/owners and your family want you to.

So the question is, are your BD agents T/O'ing the calls they can't overcome? If they aren't, they should be. Like, yesterday. The same way we wouldn't let a floor up walk out of the showroom without a Manager T/O, we can't afford to leave these opportunities on the line. This is the first and only opportunity to turn a phone up into a floor visit. If you never see a rep running like a crazy person to T/O a call from another agent in your BDC, your reps don't have the concept of the T/O. This may sound silly, but I promise you, if installed an executed properly, it's a well oiled machine after a little bit of growing pain. No pain no gain, right? 

Many times a consumer simply needs a female voice instead of a male, vice versa, or sometimes, just another voice. T/O's don't necessarily have to be done by managers but should only be done by reps approved to T/O by demonstrating their own ability to create value in setting and keeping an appointment as opposed to telling the customer everything he or she asks about the vehicle. Remember, they've done their research, they just need us to ask for a date, not the marriage.

So, when should a rep turn a call over, proactively, you ask?

-When a phone up wont set an appointment. Period. My general rule is if a BD agent is approved to take phone ups (yes, you should only have approved agents taking these as well as fresh e-leads) and does not set an appointment or T/O and /or attempt to T/O a call, that BD agent gets taken off phone ups for a day.

-When an appointment is created for more than 72 hours out, period, no exceptions. It’s amazing (sarcasm) when someone experienced in building up the immediacy of an appointment gets involved in a LIVE T/O and gets the customer to somehow magically alter their vacation plans; being able to fit a showroom visit in to ensure they don’t lose out on the vehicle because ..."we’ve had a lot of interest in that Audi…”

-When a price, product or feature objection prevents an appointment creation

-I've seen as high as a 50% rate in setting appointments that normally have gone curbside and roughly the same show rate when this is utilized and a proficient rep T/O's the call building value on setting and keeping an appointment. This is also a HUGE training opportunity for the rep requesting the T/O... the rep, MUST remain and listen to as much of the conversation as possible, which is why a 2 way setup is well worth the investment. This allows for a "ride along" experience as well for a brief period of time during training allowing the training rep to listen to both ends of a call but not speak via a mute switch.

-If there are specific rep related appointment creation concerns, (validity, etc.) individual reps may need to have all appointments T/O'd at managements advice.

If you have concerns about your current BDC’s phone handling processes, contact me and I’ll be happy to offer any assistance I can.

It's funny, sometimes I feel like I speak a different language when I talk to people in the same industry. 

The other day I was talking to a manager at a dealership about a "T/O" a rep gave him to call back. 

Notice I said: gave him. Past tense.

A T/O in a BDC is LIVE. PERIOD. 

Call backs at a later time, even just minutes later by a manager simply don't work. At best, they are considerably less effective, at worst, we play into the consumers perception that we are a sales person chasing his or her business. Take the order, the first time. 

We have to get the commitment NOW, or someone else will. That's about the only certainty in this business. Ask for the business now. Consumers only visit only one or two stores, I think its 1.2-1.6 and by the time they have called you, they've done their research, set the appointment. Your customers, your managers/owners and your family want you to.

So the question is, are your BD agents T/O'ing the calls they can't overcome? If they aren't, they should be. Like, yesterday. The same way we wouldn't let a floor up walk out of the showroom without a Manager T/O, we can't afford to leave these opportunities on the line. This is the first and only opportunity to turn a phone up into a floor visit. If you never see a rep running like a crazy person to T/O a call from another agent in your BDC, your reps don't have the concept of the T/O. This may sound silly, but I promise you, if installed an executed properly, it's a well oiled machine after a little bit of growing pain. No pain no gain, right? 

Many times a consumer simply needs a female voice instead of a male, vice versa, or sometimes, just another voice. T/O's don't necessarily have to be done by managers but should only be done by reps approved to T/O by demonstrating their own ability to create value in setting and keeping an appointment as opposed to telling the customer everything he or she asks about the vehicle. Remember, they've done their research, they just need us to ask for a date, not the marriage.

So, when should a rep turn a call over, proactively, you ask?

-When a phone up wont set an appointment. Period. My general rule is if a BD agent is approved to take phone ups (yes, you should only have approved agents taking these as well as fresh e-leads) and does not set an appointment or T/O and /or attempt to T/O a call, that BD agent gets taken off phone ups for a day.

-When an appointment is created for more than 72 hours out, period, no exceptions. It’s amazing (sarcasm) when someone experienced in building up the immediacy of an appointment gets involved in a LIVE T/O and gets the customer to somehow magically alter their vacation plans; being able to fit a showroom visit in to ensure they don’t lose out on the vehicle because ..."we’ve had a lot of interest in that Audi…”

-When a price, product or feature objection prevents an appointment creation

-I've seen as high as a 50% rate in setting appointments that normally have gone curbside and roughly the same show rate when this is utilized and a proficient rep T/O's the call building value on setting and keeping an appointment. This is also a HUGE training opportunity for the rep requesting the T/O... the rep, MUST remain and listen to as much of the conversation as possible, which is why a 2 way setup is well worth the investment. This allows for a "ride along" experience as well for a brief period of time during training allowing the training rep to listen to both ends of a call but not speak via a mute switch.

-If there are specific rep related appointment creation concerns, (validity, etc.) individual reps may need to have all appointments T/O'd at managements advice.

If you have concerns about your current BDC’s phone handling processes, contact me and I’ll be happy to offer any assistance I can.