I am always surprised the answer I get when I ask a dealership about how many more cars they think they could sell a month if they improved their follow-up process.  This missed opportunity can often be fixed by implement a CRM technology, which is great for processes and campaigns. However, it is ultimately up to the salespeople to do what they are supposed to do. I have found that what you may think is being done in the dealership, often isn’t.

When I sold cars, I remember multiple times when the sales manager would tell a salesperson to make his daily follow-up calls and the salesperson would simply respond that he had already completed his calls.  It became a constant battle.  Apart from not making the calls, salespeople are notorious at finding ways to cut corners and cheat the system.  This not only hurts the salesperson but, the dealership and even the customers.

The first suggestion I have is to utilize reports in your CRM that track the number of new opportunities that your salespeople are entering into the CRM.  Nothing is worse than seeing someone take multiple ups and not having any of the customers entered into the CRM.  This can throw off your marketing and ROI reports.

The 2nd key metric is phone calls.  It is important that your CRM is integrated with your phone system in order to track outbound phone calls.  Having your salespeople mark all of their calls completed is one thing, but its better if there is proof that they actually made the call and how long they were on the call.  You can actually step this up and record their outbound calls.  This is great for managing quality and training.  Looking at the data that I have compiled, the top salespeople are constantly those that make the most calls.

Email and weblead tracking is also important.  You need to know how many emails they are receiving and sending out, as well as how long it is taking them to respond to their webleads.  (On a side note, a dealership recently told me they were going to be pulling the plug on their AutoTrader leads because they weren’t selling as many as they wanted.  I looked at some reports and noticed that all of the AutoTrader leads were being sent to one person and that person took an average of over 2 hours to respond to a lead.  It wasn’t the lead provider’s fault, it was the salesperson.)

Pipeline Management is also important.  Salespeople love people that come in and buy, but what about those that don’t buy or those that they talk to but are hard to get in touch with afterward?  Are they reaching out to them?  Make sure you are looking at reports that reflect this data.

Salespeople also love to move people to Lost. This is a way to get the follow-up to stop.  Do you have a review process in place for a manager to look at each lost deal and try to “save a deal”?

Another suggestion I have to improve accountability is to use a checkout system.  Some CRM tools have a daily activity report or check out report that shows everything the salesperson has done for the day (Ups, Appointments, Calls, Talk Time, E-mails).  One dealership that I was working with that had a problem with accountability, instituted a process that before a salesperson left for the day they would print out a report and give it to their manager to check out.  The report told the manager everything they had done as well as all of their calls (Daily To Dos) that they didn’t do.

Quickly, Managers were able to see what had been done and what had not been done. Often, the manager would send the salesperson back to make more calls before they left.  Salespeople began to feel ashamed when they handed a manager their sheet that said they didn’t do anything which motivated them to make more calls.  The dealership drastically improved their follow up process and began to see an immediate increase in their sales.

These are my suggestions. 

What do you do to make sure that your salespeople are doing what you want them to do?

I am always surprised the answer I get when I ask a dealership about how many more cars they think they could sell a month if they improved their follow-up process.  This missed opportunity can often be fixed by implement a CRM technology, which is great for processes and campaigns. However, it is ultimately up to the salespeople to do what they are supposed to do. I have found that what you may think is being done in the dealership, often isn’t.

When I sold cars, I remember multiple times when the sales manager would tell a salesperson to make his daily follow-up calls and the salesperson would simply respond that he had already completed his calls.  It became a constant battle.  Apart from not making the calls, salespeople are notorious at finding ways to cut corners and cheat the system.  This not only hurts the salesperson but, the dealership and even the customers.

The first suggestion I have is to utilize reports in your CRM that track the number of new opportunities that your salespeople are entering into the CRM.  Nothing is worse than seeing someone take multiple ups and not having any of the customers entered into the CRM.  This can throw off your marketing and ROI reports.

The 2nd key metric is phone calls.  It is important that your CRM is integrated with your phone system in order to track outbound phone calls.  Having your salespeople mark all of their calls completed is one thing, but its better if there is proof that they actually made the call and how long they were on the call.  You can actually step this up and record their outbound calls.  This is great for managing quality and training.  Looking at the data that I have compiled, the top salespeople are constantly those that make the most calls.

Email and weblead tracking is also important.  You need to know how many emails they are receiving and sending out, as well as how long it is taking them to respond to their webleads.  (On a side note, a dealership recently told me they were going to be pulling the plug on their AutoTrader leads because they weren’t selling as many as they wanted.  I looked at some reports and noticed that all of the AutoTrader leads were being sent to one person and that person took an average of over 2 hours to respond to a lead.  It wasn’t the lead provider’s fault, it was the salesperson.)

Pipeline Management is also important.  Salespeople love people that come in and buy, but what about those that don’t buy or those that they talk to but are hard to get in touch with afterward?  Are they reaching out to them?  Make sure you are looking at reports that reflect this data.

Salespeople also love to move people to Lost. This is a way to get the follow-up to stop.  Do you have a review process in place for a manager to look at each lost deal and try to “save a deal”?

Another suggestion I have to improve accountability is to use a checkout system.  Some CRM tools have a daily activity report or check out report that shows everything the salesperson has done for the day (Ups, Appointments, Calls, Talk Time, E-mails).  One dealership that I was working with that had a problem with accountability, instituted a process that before a salesperson left for the day they would print out a report and give it to their manager to check out.  The report told the manager everything they had done as well as all of their calls (Daily To Dos) that they didn’t do.

Quickly, Managers were able to see what had been done and what had not been done. Often, the manager would send the salesperson back to make more calls before they left.  Salespeople began to feel ashamed when they handed a manager their sheet that said they didn’t do anything which motivated them to make more calls.  The dealership drastically improved their follow up process and began to see an immediate increase in their sales.

These are my suggestions. 

What do you do to make sure that your salespeople are doing what you want them to do?

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

• How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
   
• Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
   
• What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

• How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
   
• Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
   
• What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?

I was asked recently to help a dealership with their email templates. Thought I would pass a long some of the tips I suggested:

• The subject line is the single most important indicator of whether an e-mail message will be opened and read. Ensure that the subject line is clear, concise, and, if possible, contains personalization so the recipient will distinguish it as being unique.

• Studies have proven that consumers are more responsive to e-mail communications when they are sent in a consistent format, with the same “look and feel” from one mailing to another.
   
• Dealers are advised to develop an “e-mail template” which will allow their content to change from month to month but still be consistently identifiable, over time, as a message from the dealership.
   
• Send information that is relevant to the customer.
   
• Provide both sales and non-sales content.
   
• Use Data-Mining tools in your CRM to market to the right people, with the right message, at the right time.
   
• Plan e-mail marketing campaigns in advance.
   
• Do not put critical text in images; many people will never see them as they have images off
   
• Make sure you always have Dealership’s contact info on email.
   
• Add any appropriate qualifying price criteria such as “* Your e-Price is valid ONLY on purchases made directly through our Internet Department. All vehicles are subject to prior sale and Price Quotes Expire in 48 hours. Your e-Price includes dealership discount, factory rebates, and online savings certificates.”

Tips for avoiding spam:

• Never send just a picture
   
• Never use all caps
   
• Never use multiple exclamation points (!!!) or multiple non-alphanumeric characters ie: %* #:?.
   
• Never use different colored fonts, Use Black for fonts only

What are your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

I was asked recently to help a dealership with their email templates. Thought I would pass a long some of the tips I suggested:

• The subject line is the single most important indicator of whether an e-mail message will be opened and read. Ensure that the subject line is clear, concise, and, if possible, contains personalization so the recipient will distinguish it as being unique.

• Studies have proven that consumers are more responsive to e-mail communications when they are sent in a consistent format, with the same “look and feel” from one mailing to another.
   
• Dealers are advised to develop an “e-mail template” which will allow their content to change from month to month but still be consistently identifiable, over time, as a message from the dealership.
   
• Send information that is relevant to the customer.
   
• Provide both sales and non-sales content.
   
• Use Data-Mining tools in your CRM to market to the right people, with the right message, at the right time.
   
• Plan e-mail marketing campaigns in advance.
   
• Do not put critical text in images; many people will never see them as they have images off
   
• Make sure you always have Dealership’s contact info on email.
   
• Add any appropriate qualifying price criteria such as “* Your e-Price is valid ONLY on purchases made directly through our Internet Department. All vehicles are subject to prior sale and Price Quotes Expire in 48 hours. Your e-Price includes dealership discount, factory rebates, and online savings certificates.”

Tips for avoiding spam:

• Never send just a picture
   
• Never use all caps
   
• Never use multiple exclamation points (!!!) or multiple non-alphanumeric characters ie: %* #:?.
   
• Never use different colored fonts, Use Black for fonts only

What are your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.