In this episode, “Remote Work in Dealerships: Insights from Mike Donovan,” hosts Bart Wilson and J.D. Mixon are joined by Mike Donovan, CEO and co-founder of Search Engines MD. Mike shares his extensive experience managing a remote workforce and how it can benefit dealership operations.

Throughout the discussion, Mike highlights the importance of work-life balance, effective communication, and fostering a supportive team environment. He explains how remote work isn't just for tech companies but can also apply to dealerships with multiple locations. Learn how to implement successful remote work strategies, maintain team cohesion, and ensure productivity across your dealership's workforce.

Join us to gain valuable insights, practical tips, and expert advice on adapting to the evolving workplace landscape. Whether you're looking to enhance employee engagement, improve operational efficiency, or explore new management strategies, this episode is your go-to resource for dealership excellence.

We sit down with John Traver, CEO of Traver Companies. John brings over 30 years of experience in the automotive industry to share actionable strategies that can help your dealership improve sales effectiveness and customer retention. Whether you're a dealership owner, manager, or sales professional, this episode is packed with valuable insights to drive your success.

Key Insights from this Episode:

• Effective Sales Techniques for Dealerships: Learn proven methods to enhance your sales processes and close more deals.
• Boosting Showroom Traffic: Discover innovative strategies to attract more customers to your showroom and keep them engaged.
• Enhancing Customer Retention: Understand the best practices for retaining customers and building long-term relationships.
• Innovative Approaches to Automotive Business Development: Explore new ideas and techniques to stay ahead in the competitive automotive market.

John Traver's expertise provides a comprehensive guide to tackling the common challenges faced by car dealerships. By implementing his strategies, you can transform your dealership's performance and achieve greater success. Don't miss out on these invaluable tips and insights!

Welcome to another insightful episode of DrivingSales Defining Leadership, where Bart Wilson and J.D. Mixon explore how car dealer employee certifications can elevate your dealership’s performance. In this episode, they discuss the critical role of certifications in fostering employee engagement, retention, and overall dealership success. Employee certifications are not just a formality but a strategic tool that can transform your dealership operations, making them more efficient and aligned with your business goals

Chapters with Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Certifications

10:15 The Need for Customized Training

20:30 Building a Certification Program

30:45 Assessing Competency and Performance

40:00 Continuous Improvement and Scaling

50:15 Q&A and Listener Insights

Joined by Craig Wilson, Customer Success Manager at DrivingSales, the discussion centers on the metrics and best practices that make BDC managers pivotal to dealership success.

Episode Highlights:

1. Introduction to BDC Manager Scorecards: Bart, J.D., and Craig begin by emphasizing the importance of the BDC manager role, highlighting its dual focus on sales and service teams. The conversation sets the stage for understanding how scorecards can track performance and drive improvements.
2. Historical Context and Evolution of BDCs: The hosts discuss the evolution of BDCs, noting their inception when technology allowed for more precise tracking of sales and service activities. This historical perspective underscores the relevance of BDCs in today's data-driven dealership environment.
3. Metrics and Quotas for BDC Managers: The core of the episode delves into specific metrics that BDC managers should focus on. This includes effort-based and performance-based quotas, such as the number of appointments set, show percentages, and CRM task completion rates. The discussion highlights the importance of balancing various metrics to avoid overwhelming managers with too many targets.
4. The Role of AI in BDC Operations: A significant portion of the episode explores the impact of artificial intelligence on BDC workflows. The hosts agree that AI should enhance, not replace, the capabilities of BDC agents, particularly in managing repetitive tasks and improving customer interactions.
5. Effort vs. Performance-Based Quotas: The conversation navigates through the distinctions between effort-based quotas (like call volumes) and performance-based quotas (like sales outcomes). The hosts advocate for a balanced approach that recognizes both types of efforts in driving success.
6. Practical Tips for BDC Managers: Practical advice is offered on how to structure scorecards effectively. This includes tips on setting realistic quotas, conducting periodic reviews, and ensuring that the scorecards remain relevant and actionable for BDC managers.
7. The Importance of Customer Engagement: The episode underscores the critical role of customer engagement in the success of BDC operations. The hosts share strategies for BDC managers to foster positive customer relationships and improve overall dealership performance.
8. Case Studies and Real-World Examples: To illustrate the concepts discussed, real-world examples and case studies are presented. These anecdotes provide concrete evidence of how well-structured scorecards can lead to significant improvements in dealership performance.
9. Future Trends in BDC Management: Looking ahead, the hosts speculate on future trends in BDC management, including the increasing integration of advanced technologies and the continuous evolution of customer expectations in the automotive industry.
10. Conclusion and Call to Action: The episode wraps up with a call to action for listeners to implement the discussed strategies in their own dealerships. The hosts invite feedback and questions from the audience, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the ever-changing automotive landscape.

We sat down with Paul Budvitis, CEO and Founder of Insurian, and picked his brain on employee development. He talks about how he would approach people and gives some tips on recruiting and training.

Why is training so important today?

You know, I'd like to start by saying I've had the greatest mentor, my dad, from the time I've been in the car business since I was five years old, and I think that the car business, from my view, selfishly, is the greatest industry that there is.

People fall in love with cars, and in my opinion, the opportunities in the future are going to be amazing for people, especially those, getting started right now.

The changes that are happening are unbelievable, but I think that one of the things that we need to look back on is maybe turn back the hands of time a little bit, and really empower people more and truly train them on all aspects of a business.

I got to see when my dad started out in the late 60s, they did everything, and they were delivering cars at the kitchen table and things like that.

I think that now we need to empower people, and by that, I just don't mean front to back, whatever your sales process is, that's your sales process, or wherever you want to go, that's it. We really need people to come in, and we need to turbocharge their knowledge about all aspects of the business, not just let them sit in their own area.

We need to take ownership of people, and I think that when we do that, and as an industry if we can deliver that story about how the future is amazing, and that you're going to come in here, and you're going to become the best business person you can be, you're going to learn an industry and skills as you've never seen before.

When a salesperson steps foot in a dealership, or a service advisor, or a technician, or anybody for that matter, they're going into a dealership that has multiple businesses under one roof, multiple personalities under one roof, and there is undoubtedly massive opportunity.

The Growth Mindset Culture 

The training, from my view, and you're speaking my language, I was very, very blessed at a young age, and I'm going to give some accolades to a mentor of mine, Les Shapiro, who was the head of training for all of Aon Corporation under Pat Ryan, wrote a book called The Training Effectiveness Handbook.

We have an opportunity, when we're talking about changing people's lives, is take a look at not just the skills they can get inside a dealership, but the life skills, because there are amazing people in our dealerships who are running their lives in amazing ways. And when you're talking training, if a person can take a look at where they are right now in their life, in a particular skill level, and that dealership is willing to transfer knowledge on a daily, weekly basis, and really engulf these people with amazing knowledge, that's one skill.

These people are going to see the difference between where they're at and where they can be., and if we all got on the same page with training and a message and knowledge transfer, and how we can make people's lives better, that's a very powerful message, because we get to do it every day with very, very high touch.

How should a dealership approach training?

How often do we have a people meeting? How often do we have a people success meeting?

And how often are we making sure that we have the right training that's happening in place in our dealerships?

When you start breaking this down, and you say, the most important meeting that we can have is our people meeting, and you break it down from there and say, we're going to talk about our recruitment outreach, we're going to talk about the competency skill levels, of our current people, we're going to take a reflection as a management team and say, okay, great. What are the skills that we need to elevate? What do we need to train on, and training only takes place when there are role plays. When people are guiding that, and that leads to a very, very important thing.

One that's been very successful for me is, you have to train the people in your organization to be trainers. If you teach them a learning mindset, where you require them to have a mindset where they need to learn the skills of your store, how to treat customers, what we say to customers, how we interact with customers, as if they're going to train the next person, I think you can inspire learning a lot differently.

But you have to live that on a weekly basis. And you have to point out when it's happening, and when it happened. When people in your organization can identify that, you're going to be in for some really interesting changes.

But it's not easy. It takes 60-90 days, 120 days, maybe even six months to get that kind of feedback and communication going. But the moment it starts happening, you start raising the bar on the communication and the people in your organization.

Why is roleplay so important?

We have to teach people that growth comes from being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and when your people can give honest feedback at scale inside your organization and say, you know, you hit everything perfectly, but you know, these couple of things could have been improved, whether it was your tone or you're talking too fast.

It's not always what we say. It's maybe that we're not looking at people. If you have an organization that can deliver the type of feedback, okay, recognize high-level behavior and continue to raise the bar, you're 100% correct. You're going to move the needle and your people are going to perform better when new things come down the road, new technology and vehicles, which is going to be rapidly growing. We all know that.

How can dealers recruit talent today?

People are the most important asset, but why? I would tell you that if you're a dealer principal or a general manager, what's the most important sale that one of your leaders could make in any given day, any given week or any given month, that would be what if you brought in the next 20 plus car a month salesperson and he had an impact from the beginning.

Things that I've done in my life, I've been blessed to travel around the country and implement programs, turn dealerships around, and raise gross profits. I had a dealer who brought me in and wanted me to implement dealership-wide strategies, but he was losing $60,000, $70,000 a month in his used car department. And I said you don't need me to do us all. Let me, let me pay attention to your used car department. 

We evaluated the team as a whole, the personalities, skill levels, and everything. We went out and through some market research, we found who the best person in the brand was at selling used cars, and we went out and got them in a pretty short amount of time, shorter than what most of the time it takes, because it can take eight, nine, 10, a year, year and a half to recruit a real impact player.

That person ended up bringing two people. We took that dealership from 60 units a month to 160 units a month in less than 90 days.

So when you're looking at this, it's about mindset. It's about that people meeting and knowing that you are one person away in your department from raising the bar on where you're at. When you take a look at somebody who's a 20-car-a-month salesperson and the true impact that they have, that's the most invaluable thing and the most valuable activity.

So how many hours should a manager be in building relationships in the community, and getting to know most of the people in the car business around them? What value is that to have that conversation? And how long should that meeting be on a weekly basis?

How should a dealership be forecasting talent needs?

I think that this starts at a very, very high level in knowing what the capabilities of your leaders in your organization are to be able to plan. When you take a look at a dealership, there are a few key areas that they all need to raise the bar competency-wise, right?

Volume, margins, expense reduction, people, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and setting a requirement throughout the year, once at least, maybe twice, for them to put and deliver what plans they're going to implement in their departments and how they're going to achieve those plans, 

That's a very big one because now you're going to be able to evaluate, as the leader of the organization, how good are the plans that are coming. How good are the ideas and are they going to be able to execute? Because in their plans, if they don't have the execution criteria and what it's going to cost, then you're failing before you start. 

But at the same time, when you're taking a look at these plans, if there's not a very, very strong emphasis on finding people, then you probably need to start with that, because people are always going to be the answer to growth and being able to acquire new dealerships.

And they're going to give you the ones that are able to execute on your plans.

How to identify management coaching opportunities.

So you know, when you're the leader, and you're seeing somebody who's extremely talented, maybe they're struggling on some of this planning process, that's a big opportunity, you know, to step in and help them become a better business person.

What's the organization missing? As it relates to this planning, how are we going to do it? But as it relates to the people equation, if your people can't turn on their juices when they're putting in place business plans, and get you sold on ideas, then they probably are not going to be able to sell your people on coming into your organization. So it's an important step, and it's really all related.

But you know, we started off with, hey, why don't more dealers do it? And I would tell you, we need to have the people meeting every week, you know, and who's talking to who, and what plans we need to have in place, and who are the movers and shakers in the market, and how are we going to grow people? How are we going to find people? How are we going to get more people referred to us?

And how are we going to make sure we connect with those people when they do come across our table? Are we wowing them?

You know, because I know that there are all types of things out there and tools about recruiting, and what needs to go into your job description, and you need to have a clear mission and vision statement, and, you know, in your compensation ranges, and how do you optimize the recruiting website for mobile?

But what we're talking about here is, as the leader of the organization, when a potential candidate is talking to one of your people, how are they going to feel? It's so different than buying a product, you know, how is this going to change my life?

We have got to be in a position as leaders inside dealerships, to be able to portray to people that this is going to change their lives.

How can a dealership raise the bar of its culture?

As trainers, we know, and we've seen that, regardless of whether it's a customer service skill, one portion of a road to a sale, just delivery, right, or a follow-up call, okay, that we can really have an impact in a lot of things just by the training of how we do that, and people will see that.

I think that optimism is really important. I also think that we have to be accountable to the organization and the people that we're training that when we see people who are not raising the bar when we're raising the bar, they're not putting in the time when we're putting in the time, they're not delivering the results and improving, you know, to the degree, in fact, they may be detracting, you know, there's a point at which we owe it to the people around that we're going to be committed to a, you know, goal-oriented, okay, successful organization, okay, well, those require people that want to come on board. We also have to know, when, hey, we've trained you, you can go be successful, we're a great organization, you're going to do well, but it's time to move on because we do have to raise the bar internally.

Creating a winning employee referral program.

This is one that is really, really important, okay, and should be part of the people meeting and should be something that's constantly evaluated, there are so many elements.

And again, they're HR people, they probably have other vendors that are familiar with the requirements of garnering and implementing employee referral programs, how they compensate employees and what they do, do they have a mentoring program in place, and things like that.

I would say this, okay, that all those things are relatively easy, and those are tactics, having a mobile app, that you're able to send somebody when you meet them, very simple things to do, having a splash page and a recruiting page, that your managers can send somebody that they're really interested in, very easy things to do, how you get your entire organization on the same page to tell them and outline them what we're looking for in our organization, and how people are going to feel when they are done with the interview process, and when they get onboarded.

So the execution needs to be planned at the time you're setting up the easy things. The response time for how quickly you get back to an employee referral may be even more important than the response time on selling one car. Because that referral could be 10, 15, 20 cars a month, like, right like that extra.

So having the execution items, having your managers on the same page, you know, having the right personality profiles, and those things in place for people to take, so that you know how they're going to fit in with the team, they know how they're going to fit in with other expert people that perform well in the job and your organization, okay.

Those are things that need to be put in advance so they can be done quickly.

They can be done quickly.

Dealerships need a strong process for recruitment.

Again, having these people conversations, not just with managers, but department-wide. , you. Here's what we're looking for, here's why we're going to be the best in service.

You know, LinkedIn is the greatest thing in the world, social media is the greatest thing in the world because we get to look at every day, the amazing dealers and leaders in our industry that make a commitment to this. And there's more than is reflected online, but we now get to see these things in place.

And you know, some of these places are, they're capturing some of the top people. I did work for years back, for a Honda store, and they had probably the best recruiting strategy I've ever seen. They went out and over a course of a period of time, captured the top nine Honda salespeople within a three-state area, and they had flexible programs and assistance and everything.

The lowest person on the totem pole sold 30 cars a month.

This is an industry opportunity.

Imagine if, from an industry standpoint, if we're having positive conversations about where our industry is going, and we're implementing and executing positive conversations for people that we're introducing to our industry, you know, this is an industry opportunity for us to captivate, you know, a generation of people to really hone their skills and change their lives.

When you look at, top performing dealer personnel, they're some of the highest paid people in the communities that they live. You know, everything from service to sales, to leadership roles.

And, you can't really put a price on it.



Explore the forefront of automotive purchasing with "Indulge in the Future of Car Buying" — a captivating interview with Matt Chinn of Gubagoo, presented by DrivingSales. Dive deep into the transformative digital retailing solutions that are reshaping how dealerships interact with customers online and in-store. In this insightful conversation, discover how Gubagoo is leading the charge in integrating digital tools for a seamless car buying and selling experience, especially in the evolving landscape post-COVID.

What is the current dealership climate on digital retailing?

COVID sped everything up, kind of forecasted the direction that Gubagoo among many companies that offered digital retailing thought we were going anyway. Coming out of that we've seen a slower adoption. I think people are eager to do what they haven't been able to do and that is get into a store and test drive vehicle, kick the tires, so to speak.

There has been kind of a lull, but just taking the opportunity to take advantage of the entire car shopping experience. But for us, where that really comes in is kind of move in the direction of maybe the the need or desire that we thought was going to be there to buy a car exclusively online, that was required out of necessity from COVID, has been reduced a little bit and now the the real demand is for that blended buying experience so that online and in store to match and to be seamless. I think that's really the need for digital retailing is most important. 

The definition of digital retailing differs from customer to customer.

That's what we see it as moving more in that direction. I think you nailed it. I think the previous notion, especially from dealers, was that the customers are gonna want to buy A to Z online, and that might not be the case now. We had to go through the experience like we just talked about, but the the demand is still there that you need to be able to offer some sort of shopping experience online, even if it's not fully a buying experience online.

And it's really important so that all the work the consumer's done, when they show up, it matches 1 to 1. And it like I said, it just builds that blended experience and the numbers and the interactions that they have online matter. It's not just smokescreens of what you want them to think they're seeing., it actually is like that.

Where do you find dealers struggle with digital retailing consistency?

 Some of it is just capabilities, working with tools that don't speak well to each other. Maybe they have a website that comes with a digital retailing experience, but has no interactions or talking to their DMS or CRM. So in the inventory that they're looking for online maybe isn't updating as quickly. The numbers that they're seeing online aren't backed by actual lenders or the desking tool would desk a deal that's not going to match at all. I think for us, it's really just using such disjointed tools. 

You've got dealers who say, Yeah, I have a digital retailing tool, that's what customers demand, but then when they go instore or they try to back up and try to do the car buying process, as if they didn't do any of that work themselves. Those are the things that immediately fracture trust and hurt the consumer experience.

Lack of consistency is frustrating to the customer.

I think it's a kind of akin to the existence of DoorDash and Ubereats. If you're going online and you're like, "it makes it so simple, here's all the information, here's all the stuff I want", and I place the order and what shows up isn't what I ordered. I don't know if I'm calling DoorDash or I'm calling the restaurant. The restaurant doesn't have any record. They say that's DoorDash's fault. That's not my fault. And if that happens to the car process, you get there, these numbers that you talked about are fractured. It's going to lead to that same experience.

I hate to say it, but there are restaurants I don't frequent anymore because the online to physical interaction just didn't match and there wasn't any support or trust in those tools that I had. 

What are top dealers doing right?

I think you find this with any software application. It's the commitment to the tool that you're paying for and training and dedication from the staff. We have a chat platform that is all hands off if you want it to be, but where you really see the improvement is where they have the dedication of the staff and have people that are bought into the tool as well and are handling those conversations, moving people through the digital retailing process, moving them from a conversation, just a chat question out of the blue about inventory to okay, here's how you explore your payments, execute a credit app and things like that. 

I think when you have that commitment end to end it, you can really feel it. Whenever a customer arrives in store, they understand what you were talking about. We can pick up right on our iPad. We can jump right in. I think that and commitment to the applications and the software that you're purchasing, that's going to drive the difference. 

How does Gubagoo approach support?

There's onboard training. We want to make sure that people are in the store training people how to use these products.

I think the big differentiator for us is our client success team. You have someone you know tied to your account immediately right off the bat that is there to support you, is there to show you the different things you do to leverage and implement in the store, train you up on things and give you like real honest, conversational reporting when these things are happening to show how either your salesforce or your team is using the tools.

What is the best digital retailing structure?

I think the scale of dealerships you work with varies wildly, so I'm not going to say anything is like a one size fits all approach. I think anytime you are working within silos, that just creates the opportunity for communication breaks and gaps. I prefer if there's the opportunity to eliminate those silos that have everybody on the floor understand, whether your BDC, or maybe you have a chat team, or maybe it's just one Internet manager that's trying to facilitate all this, the people on the floor are aware of what's happening on the Internet side whether they're working those leads themselves or not. As long as the communication is consistent that if someone arrives into the store, everybody on that floor can understand how they may or may not have interacted with on your website.

I feel like that's a big miss a lot of times that your sales folks don't even understand what's possible on their website. They haven't got anything for themselves. They haven't gone through that digital retailing experience to see what a customer is going to see before they arrive at the dealership. I think going through that process one time and level setting for all the salespeople, they'll have a better understanding of what the expectation will be when the actual customer arrives.

So regardless of who's working the leads in the back end, I think that consistent communication and level setting is what's really going to drive success and make for a better customer experience when they arrive on a lot. 

What are some chat trends you are seeing?

I don't have the stats in front of me, I probably should, but a lot of these chats that we're handling and we manage, that we train our chat specialists to handle as well as the AI within the tool, is to handle these like concierge chats.

When I think of the fixed ops side, I think of that a lot. Our goal with sales is that we want to gather PII, we want to make these are actionable leads. We want to work them into digital retailing so that you're working a deal when you get that information not just chase down lead information. 

On the fixed side, it's a little more interesting because there's not that 1 to 1 as much. But if as we say, if our websites are truly extension of the showroom and extension of the dealership, when someone hops on, when they are chatting, they expect it to be someone in the dealership. That's where we use AI and our chat specialists really step up and if you want hours we know what they are and we respond immediately.

We have integrations that allow you to schedule your service appointment directly within the chat and have that turned around immediately. A lot of those concierge chats are the ones that really step up, and that's a huge bulk of what people expect when they land on a website. They interact with somebody and it's surprising how often those fall flat or require follow up when consumers today demand that 1 to 1 immediate answer. I feel like that's probably the biggest role that we play on a fixed side. 

What is your philosophy on AI in chat?

We believe our model is very much like Goldilocks terms. If you want to have the AI there to answer easy, simple questions that people want immediately and you want to be able to turn that around just to make sure that interaction was good and they got what they needed quickly and then our chat specialists are trained to jump in when those conversations get more complicated. Where does it make sense to start with PII, let's get this person working, here's a vehicle or two that they should be shopping and then they know to when to notify the dealership of when there's what we call like rescue opportunities for them to jump into chat themselves.

So we really believe in like that balance between artificial for immediacy, which people demand today and the human touch to make sure that they are getting where they need to go and we are supplying the best possible help lead to deal information to the dealership.

Redesigning chat interfaces.

 We've got this one example that seems so subtle, but it was pretty impactful for the dealers. Coming out of NADA a couple of months ago, we had a simple like an option for the dealer to have a redesigned chat interface. It's not the bubble that pops up, that just screens at you right when you're on the website, but it's one that's a little bit more subtle that people can react with. We're listening to dealers, giving them the tools that they're hearing from people that they want on their website and allowing them to customize these interfaces to be what they want.

Because every website is going to be different in terms of how much real estate they want covered by a chat agent, for example. So we listen, we react, we create different interfaces that they can choose from. But we also do want to be present and be there, so when people have questions, they know to come to us and have the answers immediately, that they will get their answers immediately. 

Consumers are more and more getting comfortable interacting with these chat agents, and they have a higher expectancy of getting the right answer. I remember when these things first popped out, it was so kind of like a it was a coin flip whether or not this was going to be a go, or do you just kind of like trained your brain to ignore it? But now more and more on it is like customer service. People are willing to engage the chat agents and actually get answers as opposed to here, we'll call you with answers.

That's what we train our chat specialists to do. 

How comfortable are consumers chatting with AI?

Candidly, the way that people are more and more comfortable, like interacting with your expectations, they are people who don't care. I think there's an expectation when you interact with somebody first on the website, you kind of expect this is the person that's going to facilitate, get my conversation to the right to the right person. So that's where AI comes in and answers all those like immediate question that is like that. You just want answers immediately. No person needs to hop on an answer that we know you're hours. You set those yourself, all that good stuff, and then a person can come in and take over and kind of pick up right where I left off. It's a very seamless interaction. But they're getting our chat specialist chat specifically for these chat conversations. And then when someone from the dealership comes out, we make it very clear like this is someone that's physically at the dealership, they're the person you're going to talk to you when you get there.

For the most part, when people hop on and handle chat, they're not concerned that they are talking with AI, what they're concerned about is the quality and the answer that they get. And that's where we try to put our focus. 

What does the future look like for Gubagoo?

For Gubagoo specifically, our focus has always been trying to create the best consumer experience and dealerships and providing their customers. What we've found is that people want immediacy. They want answers now. Down the line our focus is kind of going to be kind of like a CRM, and create a platform that allows for that immediacy, that messaging, and it gives dealers the opportunity to know where their prospect is online, and be able to reach out and engage in any step of their car-buying journey. Blending it so that you don't have your chat, the digital retailing, that goes from your digital retailing tool a prospecting that might not have any information on it. 

Our goal is to combine that all into one to make for that optimal consumer experience. It's just another opportunity for that disjointed experience that we talked about for online store. If you've got prospecting tools like CRM that aren't talking, that don't have any idea of what chat conversations you had or how far along they got in their digital retailing experience, where they're shopping for their own vehicle, where do they abandoned, then you're creating another disjointed experience where they're going to go jump on some prospecting schedule for internet leads. It's just going to seem like they don't know I that already picked my vehicle, that I'm just waiting on this credit application. Our goal is to create that kind of CRM that pulls that all together and create for that even more optimal consumer experience.

That's on the horizon out a ways. But I know that that's the kind of direction Gubagoo is thinking and wanting to go, essentially make sure that all those consumer interactions are together. 

A digital retailing customer is not a lead.

We really try to differentiate ourselves from a lead provider because this is all part of the consumer journey, really just maximizing and capitalizing on their intent and giving the dealerships the tools. 

If you're getting something from your digital retailing tool it shouldn't be seen as a lead, in my opinion. That's a partially worked deal. It's just picking up where you left off. It's engaging the customer, getting to the dealership, just finalizing some steps. That's my view of digital retailing, and we want to create a tool that is it providing lead information so a dealer doesn't have to chase down and see if this is a real email address or a real phone number.

We're creating a conversational experience with the customer that is working them down the funnel of this digital retailing experience where by the time they get to the dealership, they should know obviously all the PII information that normally lead would have. But we know it's good because they have shopping intent on the website, what vehicles they are interested in, what payments they want, maybe their exact credit score if they run the credit application. We know what their trade-in is. We know what lender and loan payment they picked. They're coming to you with that partially created deal. I view it all as a consumer experience and the digital retailing tool should signal some really strong intent for dealerships and it should equip them to be able to pick up right where that consumer left off.

And I think the CRM is the next iteration of that because we're just trying to identify every gap in that car buying journey and try to fill it with a tool that we think can talk to your other tools and create that better consumer experience.

Dive into the heart of dealership dynamics with the latest episode of the DrivingSales Defining Leadership podcast. Join hosts Bart Wilson, J.D. Mixon, and Craig Wilson as they unravel the essential components of a successful Business Development Center (BDC) through the lens of leadership and strategic management. This episode zeroes in on the transformative power of scorecards for BDC agents and the pivotal role they play in dealership operations.

Our experts dissect the intricacies of BDC metrics, from appointment settings to CRM task completion, offering a treasure trove of insights for dealerships eager to refine their approach and skyrocket their success. As you listen, you'll discover the delicate balance between performance indicators and the art of effective scorecard implementation. Whether you're a seasoned dealership manager or just stepping into the world of automotive sales, this episode is your roadmap to enhancing your BDC team's efficiency and impact.

In this episode, J.D. and Bart delve into the findings of our post-pandemic talent market research project, shedding light on key takeaways and their impact on Millennial and Gen Z employees in the automotive sector. They discuss the current job market's dynamics, the gap between available jobs and qualified candidates, and the nuances of employee satisfaction and engagement.

Like many dealers, Buckeye Honda needed to adapt to customers’ online shift during COVID. But in order to improve the sales process for both consumers and employees, Buckeye Honda new connecting the online and in-store experience would be key.

Discover how Buckeye Honda leveraged Upstart Auto Retail across online, in-store and financing to increase profits, close rates and provide more affordable financing options to their customers.

Key Takeaways:

- Faster training and onboarding: hear how Buckeye Honda streamlined training and onboarding for their sales teams, allowing them to confidently use the new tool within just a week

- More affordable financing options: learn how Upstart is presenting the lowest rate 71% of the time for Buckeye, enabling more affordable financing options for consumers

- Higher efficiency and higher close rates: discover how Buckeye has generated a 76 percent higher lead-to-close ratio, increasing vehicles sold from online leads from 83 to 146 over six months after implementing-Upstart Auto Retail.

- Improved customer engagement: learn how digitization boosts customer trust

Watch the recording of Boosting Car Sales & Profits with a Connected Online & In-Store Experience to learn more.