Timonium, MD –­ July 18th, 2017 –­ Helion Automotive Technologies, the retail automotive industry's leading Information Technology (IT) managed services provider (MSP), today announced the recent addition of Tracey Reyes as its new Director of Marketing. Reyes brings more than 20 years professional experience in marketing, advertising, events, branding and strategy to the position, with over 10 years of experience in the retail automotive industry.

In her role as Director of Marketing, Reyes will oversee the development and implementation of strategies to increase awareness of Helion's position as the premier choice of auto dealers for IT managed services.

"Tracey brings a wealth of marketing knowledge to this position and I'm excited to have her energy, expertise and guidance for achieving our vision for the future," said Erik Nachbahr, founder and president of Helion Automotive Technologies.

Prior to joining Helion, Reyes held positions as Marketing Director with Digital Air Strike and as Marketing Manager with DealerTrack. Additionally she has held positions as Director of Marketing with Paypro Corporation and Assistant Marketing Manager with First Data Merchant Services. Reyes has a proven track record of increasing customer engagement, lead generation and revenue with creative and innovative marketing campaigns.

"Helion's unique service offerings are one of the best kept secrets in the automotive industry, and I look forward to changing that narrative," said Reyes. "The main challenge lies in educating auto dealers about how IT services should be viewed as an investment that can help them grow and reach their business objectives, versus an expense to be contained."

Helion's service offerings to auto dealerships includes end-to-end management of hardware infrastructure, software applications support, Help Desk support, data and cybersecurity solutions, communications and more.

For more information contact Helion at 443-541-1500 or online at http://www.heliontechnologies.com.

About Helion Automotive Technologies

Helion...Putting Your Dealership in the FAST LANE! Helion Automotive Technologies is a leading IT solutions provider, providing auto dealers with faster, more efficient networks and secure data protection. From managed services to IT assistance and service desk help, Helion offers both short-term IT fixes and long-term planning so dealers can focus on what matters most: selling more cars. Helion has specialized in IT for more than twenty years and works with 650+ auto dealers nationwide. Dealers can request a free assessment of their IT needs at www.heliontechnologies.com.

Timonium, MD –­ July 17th, 2017 –­ Helion Automotive Technologies, the retail automotive industry's leading Information Technology (IT) managed services provider (MSP), today announced the recent addition of Tracey Reyes as its new Director of Marketing. Reyes brings more than 20 years professional experience in marketing, advertising, events, branding and strategy to the position, with over 10 years of experience in the retail automotive industry.

In her role as Director of Marketing, Reyes will oversee the development and implementation of strategies to increase awareness of Helion's position as the premier choice of auto dealers for IT managed services.

"Tracey brings a wealth of marketing knowledge to this position and I'm excited to have her energy, expertise and guidance for achieving our vision for the future," said Erik Nachbahr, founder and president of Helion Automotive Technologies.

Prior to joining Helion, Reyes held positions as Marketing Director with Digital Air Strike and as Marketing Manager with DealerTrack. Additionally she has held positions as Director of Marketing with Paypro Corporation and Assistant Marketing Manager with First Data Merchant Services. Reyes has a proven track record of increasing customer engagement, lead generation and revenue with creative and innovative marketing campaigns.

"Helion's unique service offerings are one of the best kept secrets in the automotive industry, and I look forward to changing that narrative," said Reyes. "The main challenge lies in educating auto dealers about how IT services should be viewed as an investment that can help them grow and reach their business objectives, versus an expense to be contained."

Helion's service offerings to auto dealerships includes end-to-end management of hardware infrastructure, software applications support, Help Desk support, data and cybersecurity solutions, communications and more.

For more information contact Helion at 443-541-1500 or online at http://www.heliontechnologies.com.

About Helion Automotive Technologies

Helion...Putting Your Dealership in the FAST LANE! Helion Automotive Technologies is a leading IT solutions provider, providing auto dealers with faster, more efficient networks and secure data protection. From managed services to IT assistance and service desk help, Helion offers both short-term IT fixes and long-term planning so dealers can focus on what matters most: selling more cars. Helion has specialized in IT for more than twenty years and works with 650+ auto dealers nationwide. Dealers can request a free assessment of their IT needs at www.heliontechnologies.com.

Have you ever waited for an important call from a potentially important customer, only to miss it when the call finally comes through? Nothing is more aggravating. You call the person back immediately but meanwhile they're leaving you a voice mail. You try again and they don't answer.

What to do? If you call them a third time, you risk being obnoxious. If you don't call, you're playing the waiting game all over again. Every missed opportunity in auto sales is missed revenue, both for the salesperson and dealership. There are plenty of vehicles to choose from out there, so the last thing you want is to miss a call from someone who is actively shopping for a vehicle.

Unfortunately, it appears that dealerships are missing a lot of phone calls.

A 2016 CallRevu report revealed that 32 percent of incoming calls to sales departments never reached an agent. Only eight percent of those callers left a voice mail. The rest hung up. That means 24 percent, or nearly one in four calls, were potential missed sales opportunities.

One reason so many calls are missed is because most car salespeople are not chained to their desks, nor should they be. They're either calling customers or they're with customers out on the lot.

So when a customer calls the dealership's main number and asks for a specific salesperson, that call gets transferred to the salespersons' extension and rings at their desk; and rings, and rings.

To combat these missed calls, many salespeople give out their personal cell phone numbers to customers. But the customers may not always call the cell phone, and as a dealer this can present a few problems. Now your salesperson owns that customer contact information. If they're calling and texting back and forth with each other, your dealership doesn't have any documentation of those phone calls and messages. Something non-compliant could be going on and you would never even know it. And if your salesperson quits, he or she may do so with hundreds of your customer contacts stored on their cell phone.

A very simple and very effective way to solve these problems is a technology called Single Number Reach (SNR). If your dealership has a Unified Communications Platform (UCP) phone solution from a provider like Shoretel or Cisco, you probably have SNR capabilities. Hopefully you are using it and liking it. If you aren't using it, here's why you should.

SNR assigns one phone number for every employee. This means your business cards or email signatures will no longer have to include both a work number and cell number. Customers like it because they don't have to decide which number to call. Your employees should like it because they won't have to give out their personal cell numbers to customers.

How that phone number is routed at any given time can be customized by each individual. A default route would be the call going to the desk phone. After three rings, if it hasn't been answered, the call is automatically forwarded to the cell phone. If after three calls it still hasn't been answered, it goes into voice mail.

But if an employee knows they're going to be away from their desk for a few minutes, they can very simply -- by clicking one button -- program the call routing directly to their cell phone.

If the customer leaves a message, there is a universal voice mailbox that can be accessed from either the desk phone or cell phone. The employee doesn't have to check two separate voice mail systems.

A SNR also protects the dealership in a couple different ways. When a customer calls a salesperson directly, that customer's number is automatically stored in that salesperson's personal cell phone record. With SNR that's not the case; the customer's number is routed through the dealership's UCP and therefore is stored in the CRM. If a salesperson suddenly quits or gets fired, it would take a lot more effort to try and access and save all those records.

Also with SNR, call times and text messages are saved, documented and can be accessed for review in the event that any customer complains.

For salespeople, a SNR means that if they step away from the desk for a minute and that important calls comes through, they won't miss it. SNR increases the availability of all your dealership employees, which should also reduce the number of missed calls, missed opportunities and lost revenue.

My friends at CallRevu are allowing me to share some interesting statistics from their most recent 2 million call report. This quarterly report aggregates data from over 1,200 dealerships and is sure to be eye opening for many dealers.

Sales

CallRevu analyzed data from 699,639 sales calls and found the following:

• 32% of incoming calls never connected with an agent. Of these, 7% of callers hung up when placed on hold, 8% left a voice mail, 8% hung up when they are transferred into voice mail and 10% hung up because nobody was available to help them
• 27% of all attempted calls resulted in appointments
• 46% of connected calls resulted in appointments

Service

CallRevu analyzed data from 960,066 Fixed Ops calls and found the following:

• 23% of incoming calls never connected with an agent
• 45% of all attempted calls resulted in an appointment
• 74% of connected calls resulted in a price inquiry, inventory inquiry or appointment
• 18% of service calls are status checks on vehicles

If you look at these stats, the first thing that pops out is that dealerships are losing a huge amount of phone leads. Of calls to ALL departments, an average of 28% never got through to a human being! That's hundreds of thousands of lost opportunities.

When dealers realize they are losing this many phone leads, they often blame it on people or processes. Sometimes that is the cause, but calls that never connect with a human being often have nothing to do with process. They have everything to do with technology. Specifically, these lost leads are a direct result of a poorly designed call flow.

A phone system's call flow determines rules like how many times a person's phone rings, whether a call gets routed back to the receptionist or into voice mail, and what happens to calls after hours.

Call flows are set up when the phone system is installed. An inefficient call flow emerges over time due to the following reasons:

1) Employee turnover, extensions change, call groups changes

2) New managers create new call flows, creates loops or black holes

3) Lack of training for receptionists on call routing

4) No tracking or management of incoming calls; what doesn't get measured doesn't get done

The good news for dealers is that it's possible to fix call flow problems. The first thing that needs to happen is a meeting that includes managers from all departments to discuss the current call flow. What does it look like? Do you have a call flow map? If not, create one so you can visually see the holes. Do you have a process for assigning and re-assigning extensions?

Now think about your sales process and service process. How do they work? Design a call flow that is synergistic with your current processes. Don't let phone extensions ring more than four times. Avoid sending callers into voice mail except as a last resort. Create multi-line hunt groups to increase the chances of someone picking up. Create a process for assigning and re-assigning extensions when employees leave, as well as adding and deleting extensions.

It's important that the people involved with creating the call flow are familiar with dealership operations and your specific processes. This is why managers must get involved.

Next, assign a keeper of the call flow. Someone has to be responsible for approving any requested changes to the call flow. If a new manager wants calls to be routed a certain way that does not fit in with your process, don't let it happen. Also, the keeper should conduct an annual review to keep the call flow clean.

Is it possible to get a 100% connected call rate? According to CallRevu, in the very best dealerships 14% of calls still don't connect with a human being. But there's a lot of room for improvement between 28% of callers not connecting with an agent and 14% of callers not connecting with an agent. That difference could translate to thousands of dollars per month to the bottom line.

The growing importance of video as a way to engage customers is difficult to deny. According to a think with Google report, video walkthroughs are one of the top three types of content that car shoppers like to watch.

When most auto marketers think of video walkthroughs, they think of a professionally produced video that can be displayed on their website and sent in emails. Those are certainly great to have, but videos don't have to be pre-packaged or professional to be effective.

Some innovative salespeople are using their smartphones to perform live video walkthroughs while they have the prospect on the line!

When a customer calls to ask if a dealership still has a vehicle in stock, salespeople will often respond in the affirmative and then ask the person to come in for an appointment or test drive. When the customer hesitates or insists they just want to know a price, the salesperson is in danger of losing them. One way to build rapport and keep that prospect on the phone is to do a live video walkthrough using your cell phone. If you're close to the vehicle, offer to do it on the spot. If not, offer to call the customer back in a few minutes.

To perform a live walkthrough, you'll need a video chat app on your smartphone. The iPhone's integrated video chat app is FaceTime. If you have an Android or Windows smartphone, the best apps to use are Skype, Google Hangouts, Viber or Tango. It's a good idea to have several apps on your phone and to know how to use them all. That way, odds are good you will have a video chat app that is compatible with your prospect.

While it's possible to do video chat calls using a cellular data plan, it's not very practical. Video eats up data like nobody's business, and data is expensive. To offer this type of service to your customers, your dealership will need an external WiFi network.

Many dealers are now installing outdoor wireless networks to accommodate the growing number of people with their connected devices. For a salesperson out on the lot with customers, it's great to be able to look up pricing information, message their manager or find the answer to any question using a mobile tablet. 

Video is a great way to engage customers and just maybe, get them excited enough about the vehicle to want to come in for a test drive. What do you think?  Have you ever performed a live video walkthrough and what kinds of results did you have?