You’re not closing as many leads as you want, but you can’t figure out how to improve the situation. Your sales team is jumping on hot leads and setting follow-up reminders in the CRM, but your closing ratio is still below the 12.5 percent industry average.

It’s fairly commonplace for follow-up to be perfect for a week to ten days, and then fall off a cliff. That’s a problem when the average cost for an automotive lead is $205, and that figure is on the upswing. Abandoning follow-up is as good as throwing money away.

Yet, it happens every day with hundreds of leads. In fact, nearly 24 percent of the average dealer’s leads are flagged for not receiving follow-up within 24 hours. Nearly 68 percent of those flagged leads do not receive follow-up within a week!

I believe the problem is that a manual follow-up process is time-consuming and difficult. Plus, there’s very little visibility into follow-up activities and minimal accountability. How do you know a salesperson is calling that list you provided instead of going rogue and making birthday calls that net you zero sales?

The problem of dropped leads is compounded today with our historic labor shortage butting up against time-intensive follow-up. There is a lot of pressure to attack new leads, while older leads languish and are eventually forgotten altogether.  

You can solve the problem without adding more staff. The solution lies in combining the right technology with automated processes so one salesperson can do the work of three and convert more of the leads that other dealers throw away.

Relying on your CRM to help with lead follow-up, schedule tasks, and click-to-call dialing will never get you the results and productivity you can expect from an automated contact management system. The right technology will perfectly track all productive time your agents are punched in and engaging with customers.

A system that manages customer data, campaigns, and follow-up tasks in one platform allows salespeople to quickly work through all leads, not simply the lowest funnel. You keep more of the leads that you paid for in the funnel until customers purchase from you, tell you they’ve purchased a vehicle or dropped out of the market.

Automated follow-up allows you to set rules so that salespeople contact customers according to a prescribed cadence and length of time. So instead of follow-up dropping off after a week, you can put in place a process that triggers communication for as long as 180 days.

The latest in automated dialing technology is key to help salespeople make more calls in less time. This software automatically pulls up the next customer record when a salesperson is done with a call so there’s no rummaging through your CRM or scanning spreadsheets trying to decide who to call next.

As an example, I recently spoke with a dealer with a list of nearly 4,000 leads who had not been contacted in 30 days. Using dialing software, the dealership was able to contact every lead in one day and connect with 592 customers. That’s nearly 600 “lost” customers back in the pipeline!

Dialing software also ensures salespeople can’t skip records. If you put a list in the system, you’ll know that every customer is contacted, notes are automatically logged, and the next action is automatically scheduled.

Too many salespeople give up on leads way too quickly. Leads that your dealership paid good money to acquire. You can convert more of the leads that other dealerships throw away with an automated contact management system and sales processes that keep leads in the pipeline without adding more staff.

Implementing a BDC at your dealership is a proven way to maintain control of leads and processes. However, too many BDC’s underperform or even break-down completely due to a fatal mistake: a poor BDC manager. Poor managerial skills lead to erosion of processes and employee morale, resulting in unanswered calls, long wait times, loss of business, and high employee turn-over.

Don’t let a poor manager bring down your BDC. The following tips can help you hire the right manager, set that person up for success, and develop a profitable BDC.

Hire a true leader.

Cast a wide net for the right manager. Don’t limit your search process to only candidates with automotive experience or knowledge. That can be taught. Hire for intrinsic personality traits that make a good leader. In my experience, the best managers exhibit integrity, adaptability, tenacity, and self-motivation.

Excellent communication skills are also key. According to a Gallup report cited in the Wall Street Journal, people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. What do workers want from their managers? Number one is clear and consistent communication.

It’s worth noting that the average contact center has an agent turnover rate between 30 and 45 percent. That’s a lot of coming and going, and even worst, wasted time and money spent on training and onboarding. The right manager, with the right skills, can significantly cut that churn.

Write down your must-have leadership skills in order of importance. Have each candidate speak to instances in their careers where they had to use these qualities (providing examples, of course). Remember, you’re looking for a true leader – not just someone to give out tasks and orders.

Set your manager up for success.

You can hire the best manager out there, but without strong support from upper management and the right tools, even the brightest star can crash and burn. Ensure that your sales managers and service managers understand the importance and value of the BDC. Enlist their help in setting up processes for inbound and outbound calls.

Bring in a contact management system designed to help managers and agents succeed. The best platforms integrate with your DMS and are a central hub that includes data management, automation, and campaign management. Make sure a platform tracks the metrics that matter, including agent productivity, effective rate, and conversion rate. These metrics are the key to accurately award the commissions and bonuses that are crucial to retaining BDC employees.

Last but definitely not least, make sure your manager and agents have proper training. Most contact management systems offer employee training as part of implementation. Make sure you partner with a vendor that adapts to your preferred processes, not the other way around. Every dealership is unique and has unique BDC needs. The right system will be flexible to align with your dealership’s strategy.  

Work with your manager to design ongoing check-ins and training with agents. There’s nothing more demoralizing than feeling overwhelmed and unsure about hitting expectations and targets. These check-ins will happen less often as time goes by, but your manager should continue doing them weekly for at least the first couple of months.

Consider limited outsourcing.

If your manager and agents are continually swamped with calls and it’s not in your budget to add more staff, consider outsourcing some activities. An outsourced call center can handle more mundane tasks and lower-funnel opportunities that need to be acted on, but may not be immediate money makers. For example, outsource long-term unsold prospect follow-up, such as phone, internet, and showroom leads that are 60 to 90 days old.

A BDC manager can make or break customer engagement. Don’t make the fatal mistake of hiring a poor manager. Hire according to intrinsic traits, establish processes and technology that drive success, and don’t be afraid to get outside help if you need it.

Phone and email are the titans of customer communications and most likely form the backbone of your business development. But they shouldn’t be the only way you communicate with customers. Relying on only one or two traditional forms of communication can be fatal to your dealership.

Customers today expect to be able to converse with you through multiple channels. Everything from texting to Live chat to Facebook messenger. And they want those communications to be seamless and easy. To keep up with customer demand and grow your business, you must have an omni-channel communication strategy.

“Omni-channel” has become a big buzzword in almost every industry. But it’s still not well understood. At the most basic level, it means you provide integrated and seamless communications across the myriad of channels we have in 2021, including online chat, texting, video chat, Twitter chat, etc. 

Omni-channel is often lumped in with multi-channel, but they are different. In multi-channel, the customer has access to a variety of communication options that aren’t necessarily connected or synchronized. During an omni-channel experience, however, there aren’t only multiple channels, but the channels are connected so customers can move between them seamlessly.

What does this look like in real life?  

Think of a customer who visits your website and live chats with an agent. The next day the same customer uses his smartphone to text about a particular vehicle. Then he picks up the phone and calls to ensure a vehicle is in stock. Finally, he shows up at your showroom ready to test drive the vehicle.

With an omni-channel approach and the right technology platform, every time that customer interacted with your store it was tracked and logged. So, every subsequent time he reached out, the system recognized him and automatically displayed his customer history. The customer never had to repeat information or start the process all over again. He received a continuous, seamless, intuitive experience through every channel, and exerted the least amount of effort to get it.

That experience helps customers gain trust and confidence in your dealership, which can be a huge factor in lowering sales resistance. High-quality interactions also make customers want to do business with you again. That’s how you cultivate long-term relationships, instead of one-off transactions.

So far, we’ve discussed building an omni-channel customer experience for customers who reach out to your store. But you can also apply omnichannel strategy to enhance your outbound marketing, generate leads, and acquire customers. The key is using your customer data to identify the preferred channel of a specific audience segment – or individual prospects – and create a great experience on that channel with ad content or special offers tailored to that specific segment.

In the last decade, we’ve seen huge leaps in call center technology that automatically does this kind of data science for you. The right platform will integrate with your DMS to match customers with their data, even when they’ve gone across channels and marketing campaigns. This allows you to target them in a more efficient manner.

It will also allow you to schedule which customer actions trigger your dealership’s actions so the customer journey moves along with as little pause as possible, yet at a cadence so customers don’t feel hounded by too many communications.

Providing your employees with the training and technology to converse across a wide range of channels along with the content that your customers want will pay-off with a better customer experience, and enhance your outbound marketing for more leads and sales. Don’t make the fatal mistake of relying only on traditional communication channels. Embrace the omni-channel approach that customers demand and they’ll want to do business with your dealership.

A lot of dealerships prefer using an internal sales and service BDC to maintain control of leads and processes. Yet, many struggle to measure what’s working and what’s not when it comes to maximizing the efficiency and productivity of every BDC agent. Are you among them?

The BDC is the glue that holds it all together when it comes to bringing traffic into your store. Managed properly, your BDC can help increase appointments, shows, sales, and closing percentages.

But how do you know if your BDC is performing well for your market, region, and target customer? Sure, we’ve all heard the benchmarks. For example, the industry standard is that for every 100 leads, 40 percent should set an appointment. Out of those 40 people, 20 people (50 percent) should show up. Out of those 20 people, 10 people should buy.

Another “industry standard” is that BDC agents should make seven calls and send five emails per lead over a 30-day period to achieve the numbers above. Is that true for your dealership?

There’s a reason many dealerships struggle to assess the effectiveness of an internal BDC: Every dealership is different. The benchmarks that work for one may be ridiculous for another. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

What you’re asking of your BDC may be completely different than the dealer down the street. I’ve been in stores where service BDC are tasked with upselling the customer on the phone. If parts are needed, the same agent fulfills that order once the call is complete. These agents are likely making fewer calls, and the calls are lasting longer, then a service BDC tasked with simply setting an appointment. In this case, the number of dials each day is a poor metric of performance.

After more than 20 years in the auto call center business, including creating call centers for over a dozen of the industry’s biggest players, I have earned my reputation for helping dealers maximize BDC productivity and results according to their own specific business rules and metrics that matter.

I know there are four areas where you must identify and measure strengths and weaknesses in your current process to maximize BDC ROI. 

Contact Rate

Your agents are dialing, but are they connecting? Are they connecting with the right person? The number of outbound dials per day is far less important than your contact rate. Review call reports to determine when your phone calls work the best. Use this information to adjust call times and staffing so you have the most activity and proper coverage when you have the best connection rate and want to make the most outbound dials.

Effective rate

Your agents are connecting, but are those calls effective? Did they set the appointment? Or complete the CSI survey? Why or why not?  Record calls so you can pinpoint problems. Agents may need better scripts, or more training. I often counsel dealers to identify their rock stars and then create mentoring programs so under-performers can learn from the best. You may want to offer a bonus or incentive to get your rock stars on board with helping other team members.

Productivity rate

How much time are your agents spending working versus not working? Are they taking long breaks? Checking their personal phones before clicking to the next customer call? You have to be able to track and manage your agents’ time to maximize their productivity. Granted, this is difficult to do without the right software. Effective BDC software should require agents to log in and set their status as ready for a call. When away from their desks, they must change their status to unavailable and record why: lunch, break, training, etc. This holds them accountable for how they are spending their time, and alerts you when productivity drops so you can address the problem.

Quality control

Are you reviewing call reports daily? Are you recording calls? These are your most important measurement tools. Every week, you or your BDC manager should hold one-on-one meetings with every agent. Review a recorded call with the agent and discuss what he or she is doing great, and what can be better.

Don’t be a slave to BDC industry benchmarks. Every dealership is unique. There is no magic BDC metric that every dealership needs to hit to grow business. What matters is that you know and measure your specific numbers and set your specific parameters. Once you know what works for you, you can spend time developing your people to maximize BDC ROI.