I answered my phone and greeted the BDC Manager we’ve been training at one of our client’s stores.

BDC Manager: We have started getting a bunch of calls about a mailer that was sent out and my team doesn’t know how to handle them. Can you write up a script for us?

Me: Of course. Can you send me a copy of the mailer?

BDC Manager: They never gave us one.

Me: Do you know what the mailer says on it?

BDC Manager: I’m not sure.

Me: Does it make an offer to the customer?

BDC Manager: I don’t know.

Me: Does it invite them to do anything?

BDC Manager: No clue.

This is not uncommon. BDC training is an afterthought (or never takes place) when new marketing initiatives launch. Sales and marketing departments are not often integrated as they should be. On the regular, we see dealerships operating at a high-level in their BDC, at a strong pace on their showroom floor, and dominating the market with their advertising. And yet, rarely are these three integral departments sharing information openly. Long has our industry heard the customer knows more about the vehicles on our lots than the salespeople themselves. Whether this is due to some shoppers’ willingness to research their vehicle of choice tirelessly, or it be chalked up to salespeople’s unwillingness to educate themselves on product without being pushed to do so, take your pick. Now there is yet another glaring deficiency in our sales and BDC teams and that is the lack of knowledge of their store’s marketing initiatives.

The ad agency meets with the owner and General Manager to plot out a campaign to rev up sales. The eCommerce Director connects with the digital marketing agency (sometimes an entirely different company) to roll out a (sometimes entirely different) campaign to drive traffic. Maybe the individuals above remember to tell the sales managers of these new marketing initiatives. Even if they do, I assure you, it is rarely passed down to that of the sales and BDC teams. The last thing any organization wants is for their consumer-facing team members to be ill-equipped to answer customers’ questions. Knowing shoppers often have questions about current incentives, promotions, specials, and deals, why wouldn’t we want to make sure our sales team have access to that information.

A marketing department should:

Allocate a budget to each resource

   •  Identify specific audiences based on their opportunities and the needs of the              shoppers
   •  Create omni-channel marketing campaigns
   •  Develop content and call-to-actions based around those campaigns
   •  Target the audience with their messaging
   •  Incorporate that messaging across all platforms and teams
   •  Measure and analyze the effectiveness of the campaigns

Do this monthly, and you have yourself a marketing department. The breakdown occurs when ownership, management or marketing creates and launches advertising campaigns without educating the sales and BDC teams about these new initiatives. It is one thing to place a banner on your website’s homepage. It is something entirely different (and better) to keep them abreast of all active campaigns in weekly meetings.

As a dealer, if you’re dedicating dollars to marketing efforts (and we know you are), you need to ensure both your sales and marketing departments are working together to generate a high return on your investment. The moment a shopper encounters a salesperson or BDC agent who doesn’t reinforce the campaign, or even worse, gulp, isn’t familiar with it, the campaign loses all credibility.

Here is how to integrate your sales and marketing at each campaign’s launch:

   •  Educate your entire team on the new marketing campaign in a company                      meeting. (Yes, both sales and service, if you’re doing it right).
   •  Explain the opportunity for the campaign as well as any specifics regarding the           audience targeted and why.
   •  Provide copies of the campaigns/ads to them, including links to webpages for             them to review.
   •  Create point-of-sale material for them to have at their desks and reference when        working with shoppers.
   •  Incorporate into email templates for your lead handlers and, if possible, build out         a custom workflow process within the CRM for those leads specifically, both                  pre-visit and post-visit.
   •  Craft phone scripts for the BDC to use if calls will be generated (or, if your our               client, just call DealerKnows and we’ll create the phone scripts for your team)
   •  Request the sales team to do their part in return by sharing the campaign                       across their own social platforms, or at the very least, their own book of                          business within the CRM.

Inevitably, some advertising campaigns (smartly) revolve around “why buy” messaging. If that is the case, it is still important for the sales and service teams to see the content (and hopefully exude those tenets as well). In marketing, there is what is known as MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL (Sales Qualified Leads). In automotive, suffice it to say, the great majority of leads are considered SQL – leads where the prospect expects to connect to a dealership agent to discuss a transaction. MQL’s are typically leads that indicate a customer has shown interest in a campaign, but generally would need to be a “soft-touch” if engaged with in the short term. Both MQLs and SQLs need to be nurtured, only differently. In both instances, the sales and BDC teams must have the insights to understand what drove that potential shopper’s intent or desire.

This flow of communication and content should also be a two-way street. If marketing is smart, they’ll seek out insight from the sales team as to what is trending in their conversations with customers so it can be incorporated into future campaigns. Sales can definitely lend a hand in understanding current shopper needs and concerns. The teams should be open to discuss what is working and what is not, by offering suggestions, providing feedback, and even sharing constructive criticism. Only constructive criticism. Include management as a part of these discussions as well.

In the end, your dealership is spending money. Money to drive attention, traffic, leads and sales. You can be amazing at marketing, but if your consumer-facing team is blind to your advertising goals, you’re throwing money away. Make sure your marketing, service, and sales teams are sharing content with each other, working toward one common goal. They must be an integrated workforce. Otherwise, your salespeople look like a deer in the headlights when the phones ring and the leads pour in about offers which they have no information. Integrating your sales and marketing efforts is the key to setting yourself up for seamless success.

Want to get better at marketing? Read about lessons learned from my New Years Eve party two years ago.

• Want to get your team better at selling your store? Train them not to give lip service.

As shoppers seek more and more information before transacting on a vehicle, it is no wonder that they are inquisitive, not just about the price, but about the deal. Dealers have long displayed a price, but rarely do they justify it with data.

Edmunds has been offering their assessment of “True Market Value” for more than a decade. CarsDirect and, later, TrueCar built their business around, not just sharing the price, but analyzing the price. CarGurus ranks the quality of your online price against competitive vehicles in the area and CarStory Market Reports have been confirming the legitimacy of the deal with a higher level of data insights for a couple of years now.

The survival and now success of these corporations prove that more is better when it comes to building trust with pricing data.

Now Cars.com is in on the mix. With their recently released pricing comparisons and deal badging on your inventory listings, there is one more automotive marketplace helping shoppers determine the quality of your online price. You may not realize it, but this is a good thing. The newest data suggests consumers in the car shopping phase spend roughly 60% of their time on automotive resource sites, and yet they are still surfing across a multitude of different sites, because one site doesn’t have all the information they seek.

They search vehicle reviews on reputable sites. They seek out consumer reviews in online forums. They ask around to ensure they’re choosing the right vehicle, they scour dealership ratings to do business with the right dealership and are going so far as to select their salesperson in advance of a store visit. It is only natural that the price of the product needs to be justified. They’re using all the info the Internet has to offer as a means to prepare themselves for a purchase (that fits their budget and their lifestyle). They’ve always asked “what’s the best deal?” Now they have the data to answer it. As dealers, you must embrace this.

As leads, calls, and walk-in customers flow into your store from these sites, are you using the data they’ve provided your clients to your benefit? Your team must reply back with validation of their data. You can’t say “that’s not really correct” when confronted with this information because they carry more trust in these sites than they do you at this point. You haven’t earned their trust enough to scowl at that pricing data. Instead, you need to re-confirm it. Your research and subsequent replies must include this information back to them, even if it may be redundant. Let the shopper know you’re on the same page with them regarding the professional reviews your vehicles have garnered. Make sure they’ve seen your dealer ratings. And by all means use these sites as well to justify your pricing. This will help streamline the in-store negotiation time and hopefully deliver a less antagonizing experience for every car buyer.

Just because it is online information doesn’t mean it works against you. Leverage it to your advantage. By showing you’re in-line with the online data, you’ll earn their trust and their business.

Your customers have questions. You can only hope that your people have the answers. Not all of your prospective clients (or loyal customers) want to speak to a live agent, though, so they visit your website in search of a quick solution. Above and beyond the relatively generic content placed onto your website at its launch, how well is your website at delivering them answers? Chances are, rather poorly.

In countless other industries, websites are constructed with a Frequently Asked Questions page (FAQ). Unfortunately, this common element is absent from the majority of dealer sites. A study last year from Blue Nile Research uncovered that 27% of all searches come in the form of a question. We like to believe that the text within our webpages answersthose questions, but I can assure you it rarely does. If a website content’s goal is to match up an online shopper’s search query with their intent, you must recognize what their questions encompass. The fundamental basis of a question starts with a “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Why”, “Where”, or “How”. Are those exact words written on your website? Not to sound like Alex Trebek, but you need to phrase that in the form of a question.

As Google looks to connect a searched question with that of website content, it is certainly in your best interest to actually have the full, written questions and their corresponding answers on your website. For that reason, you need to have a FAQ page on your website. The questions can be the sub-headlines on the page, and the answers can be either below them, or within an internal page linked by the question itself. (Talk to your Internet Manager if you have questions.) A FAQ page can improve time on-site, reward you with more search traffic/views, and earn you business if you do it right.

So how do you build a FAQ page? How do you know what customers want to see or are looking for? Crowdsource it.

• Distribute a simple questionnaire to each customer-facing employee (sales, service, and parts) at the dealership, asking them to write down the 5 – 10 questions guests asked them most regularly.
• Survey your in-store service waiting room guests, asking what the most pressing questions they generally have before a visit to the dealership.
• Set up a page on your website asking for the questions.
• Contact the OEM’s toll-free help desk number for customer service and ask them for their most frequently asked questions.

Once you have gathered all of the questions, simply pare them down and see which can be combined. Come to a collective agreement as to the best (and truest) answer to each question. If you determine that shoppers are wondering about a specific price for maintenance/service, make sure that you actually provide the pricing on your website. Know that you can support the pricing with any additional information you see fit.

Then, go one step further. Whether you decide to have a FAQ page for each department, or one page that links down to internal pages (whereas each question could potentially have their own page), know that text-based answers aren’t enough. It is important to go one step further. Associated with each and every question, you should both have the answer written (in a very conversational language), as well as have that department head shoot a brief 30 second video answering the question. (You should post the video to Youtube with the title being the entire written question.) This way you have both a written answer and a video response with an answer. This will help tremendously with the search engines. Your video answers can exist both on Youtube, as well as the associated webpage.

One great bit of advice…”How” is the primary word that begins most search queries, so don’t forget to create How-To videos as part of your FAQ pages. You can start with the basic questions your clients ask such as…

“How do I check my oil?”
“How do I change my tire?”
“How much is an oil change?”
“How long does a tune-up take?”
“Why is my check engine light on?”
“When will the New Model be out?”
“What do I need for a down payment?”
and so on.

Each department will have their own questions, and the value for consumers to be directed from the search engines to your Frequently Asked Questions page is invaluable. You can still end every answer with a call to action to contact your dealership in some fashion. At DealerKnows, we even work with our dealer clients and their web providers to build “Ask a Tech” and “Ask a Manager” sections of the website to generate more conversations with shoppers. Live chat can certainly help, but if it is a managed provider, you are likely unable to answer common questions directly.

Think about what your website needs to do from a customer service perspective, and start answering the questions that are most advantageous, not just for the dealership, but for your customers. The who, what, when, why, where, how of our industry needs a digital refresh, and it starts with the often-under-utilized FAQ page.

– as seen in Dealer Magazine, October 2016

You pride yourself on the quality of your used car inventory. You ensure your customers that each pre-driven vehicle is sales-worthy, and it is because you have made it so. Every vehicle, whether they be trade or auction-bought, is inspected, valued, and detailed. But what costs dealers the most time and money is the reconditioning. Are you leveraging that work performed to convert shoppers into buyers? More than likely, you’re not.

CarStory data reveals less than 3% of all vehicle listings mention any reconditioning information. Why spend $700 making a car lot-worthy if you aren’t going to celebrate it?

All dealers know that shaving days off of their overall recon process can add countless thousands of dollars to their bottom lines (which is why software such as Recon Ninjas or Rapid Recon are taking off), but they aren’t utilizing this information when building value in their customers’ eyes. CarStory places a vehicle’s recon information on the VDP and inside the CarStory Market Report of every used car in an effort to add credibility to each unit.

Here is an example of how Subaru of Wichita leverages reconditioning data on their site using the free CarStory Market Reports:


In DealerKnows' opinion, though, a visual representation, while excellent, still isn’t enough. Dealers should also be sharing the recon info in their written vehicle descriptions. Let’s face it…using an automated tool that pre-populates descriptions filled with phrases such as as “This is a nice one!” or “Clean and in the wrapper” is not going to grab eyeballs. And writing those same word tracks IN ALL CAPS doesn't make it better. It makes it an eyesore. Instead, share information that builds value and credibility, not just appeals to emotions. Data science company CarStory also revealed there are 3 pieces of used car info shoppers seek first and foremost:

1. Vehicle Condition
2. Accident History
3. Service History

The parts you replaced, maintenance you conducted, and reconditioning you performed strongly influence two of the top three most valuable provisions you can share with shoppers. Show your recon process and info online, in your listings, on your VDPs, and in the showroom. Prove the money put into each vehicle to give peace of mind to buyers. You’ll find yourself in a better negotiating (and profit-retaining) position than you would have if you kept it quiet.

Have you ever run a red light? Did you do it by accident? Not paying attention? Did you need to because you were in a hurry? Or maybe you did because no one was around and you just felt like it. Could that have been it?

Inevitably, the law catches up with everyone that continues to break the rules of the road, whether it be a stiff warning, a few points on a license, or a citation and fine. You know it is wrong, so you are deterred from doing it again. In most cases, it is senseless rule breaking, or a careless oversight that should be prevented. You get busted for doing it once, reap the consequences, and stop running red lights.

No, this isn’t a driver’s education class, but minor infractions are being committed on your showroom floor, within your CRM every day, and no one is correcting the bad behavior.  If you never stop someone from running red lights, they’ll continue to do it over and over. Eventually, a major accident or tragedy could occur. It is up to dealerships to elect a traffic cop in their CRM.

Whether your team are falsifying call logs/attempts with a simple “LM” note in the CRM (the most common culprit), or flipping active prospects to “Lost” far too early to avoid having to make follow-up, there are countless ways sales and BDC teams are getting away with wrongdoings. It isn’t their right to cost your dealership money if you’ve set forth rules for them to follow. But with no one to slap a wrist, issue a warning, or lay down the law, your CRM will be a cluttered intersection of wrecked opportunities.

If a salesperson knows you’re not watching (or doesn’t believe you care), they’ll continue this negative behavior. Not catching these sales misdemeanors as they take place is nothing short of burning your marketing and ad dollars.

You need a traffic cop. Someone who actually puts the “manage” in a manager title. Whether it is our , or an individual you select, we’ll tell you there is no better enhancement to your bottom line and lead metrics than actually ensuring no one is acting above the law.

Hold your people accountable. Demand them to utilize your CRM and follow the processes as they’re designed. Employ a traffic cop and see how quickly you can drive profits safely.

My wife recently decided it was high time to get a pet dog for the family. I had been delaying this decision since my wife and I first moved in together (years and years ago). I just wasn’t ready for the responsibility. (And, on top of that, I’m allergic). Nonetheless, almost 15 years and two sons later, I acquiesced and began researching a suitable breed. Long story short, we decided upon a Havanese. We researched breeders, investigated, awaited a litter, and picked up our new puppy.  Cute as can be, I realize that this ball of hair will be essential to the growth and development of my children. But these first few weeks have been a lot of work.

To tie this together, I was recently honored to have been hired by Jacuzzi corporate to speak at their International conference on the subject matters of lead management and process improvement. Even though I was the one to be dispensing knowledge onto the audience of franchise owners and manufacturer reps, I was able to walk away with my mind swimming with ideas as well. I was intrigued by a simple statement from Jacuzzi’s Director of Advertising and Digital Marketing, Martin Borsanyi, during his session on social media. He said “Social Media is free like a puppy is free.” I can say first hand that this statement hit home. Literally. 

Any corporation can have a social networking account the same way anyone can adopt a dog. It just takes doing it. Sure, breeders charge an arm and a leg the same way a social media management firm does for their set-up costs, but relatively speaking, you can do it on the cheap yourself. However, if you want to get the most out of your puppy (let’s name her Social Media), then you are going to have to invest a decent amount of money and a lot more time.

Social Media the Puppy requires time for training. Not only does the puppy need training, but you need training on the puppy. You have to spend time with it so it doesn’t get lonely. You have to work with it ongoing if you want to see results in its behavior. You need to dedicate money to its collars, food, and grooming, just as you do to its promoting of posts, PPC campaigns, and FB dark posts. To do it right, you have to spend some money. To be the best owner of Social Media the puppy you can be, you have to give it a fair amount of attention.

It needs to run.
It can’t just sleep all day.
You need to feed it posts, tweets, links, Likes and comments.
You need to listen to its barking notifications, and respond accordingly.
Social Media is a new member of the family, and regardless of what you think of the channel, it is in its infancy. Social Media is the 80 lb black Labrador puppy that is too big to act like one. It still needs to learn its way, and it will break things in the meantime.

​Social Media the puppy is a ton of work. If you aren’t giving it attention, money, and time, you aren’t going to like how it behaves when full grown. You’ll never have control, and you’ll never have full ownership of it.  Treat it the way a young puppy deserves to be treated, and you’ll have a friend and companion for life.

My wife recently decided it was high time to get a pet dog for the family. I had been delaying this decision since my wife and I first moved in together (years and years ago). I just wasn’t ready for the responsibility. (And, on top of that, I’m allergic). Nonetheless, almost 15 years and two sons later, I acquiesced and began researching a suitable breed. Long story short, we decided upon a Havanese. We researched breeders, investigated, awaited a litter, and picked up our new puppy.  Cute as can be, I realize that this ball of hair will be essential to the growth and development of my children. But these first few weeks have been a lot of work.

To tie this together, I was recently honored to have been hired by Jacuzzi corporate to speak at their International conference on the subject matters of lead management and process improvement. Even though I was the one to be dispensing knowledge onto the audience of franchise owners and manufacturer reps, I was able to walk away with my mind swimming with ideas as well. I was intrigued by a simple statement from Jacuzzi’s Director of Advertising and Digital Marketing, Martin Borsanyi, during his session on social media. He said “Social Media is free like a puppy is free.” I can say first hand that this statement hit home. Literally. 

Any corporation can have a social networking account the same way anyone can adopt a dog. It just takes doing it. Sure, breeders charge an arm and a leg the same way a social media management firm does for their set-up costs, but relatively speaking, you can do it on the cheap yourself. However, if you want to get the most out of your puppy (let’s name her Social Media), then you are going to have to invest a decent amount of money and a lot more time.

Social Media the Puppy requires time for training. Not only does the puppy need training, but you need training on the puppy. You have to spend time with it so it doesn’t get lonely. You have to work with it ongoing if you want to see results in its behavior. You need to dedicate money to its collars, food, and grooming, just as you do to its promoting of posts, PPC campaigns, and FB dark posts. To do it right, you have to spend some money. To be the best owner of Social Media the puppy you can be, you have to give it a fair amount of attention.

It needs to run.
It can’t just sleep all day.
You need to feed it posts, tweets, links, Likes and comments.
You need to listen to its barking notifications, and respond accordingly.
Social Media is a new member of the family, and regardless of what you think of the channel, it is in its infancy. Social Media is the 80 lb black Labrador puppy that is too big to act like one. It still needs to learn its way, and it will break things in the meantime.

​Social Media the puppy is a ton of work. If you aren’t giving it attention, money, and time, you aren’t going to like how it behaves when full grown. You’ll never have control, and you’ll never have full ownership of it.  Treat it the way a young puppy deserves to be treated, and you’ll have a friend and companion for life.

As you can see from the picture on the right, it may be time for this dealer to update their phone script.  (Yes, that is a real, actual, antique phone script currently taped to a real sales desk.  No, this is not a pirate’s map circa 1702.)

World’s Worst Phone Script found at a present-day car dealership by DealerKnows

Almost every dealer who records calls using a call management software knows that listening to those very calls is the quickest way to make their blood pressure skyrocket.  Phone handling is abysmal at most stores, and while some track the calls, and others preach the importance of phone skills, very few are training their teams to be skilled in today’s phone etiquette.

Much of this is the fault of the times.  With the digital smorgasbord that dealers must chew through, far too often they put phone training on the backburner. They assume that the online traffic will generate itself into sales and ignore the fact that phone handling has evolved.

If your dealership still operates off of an archaic phone script passed down from the sales managers of yesteryear, you need to update your phone script.  
(And yes, “phone script” can be a bad word on the
showroom floor. It still carries with it a negative connotation.  We, at DealerKnows, believe in phone structure over phone script.  With that said, we still provide scripts (and the corresponding structure) to our clients, solely as a foundation for quality phone etiquette.  You cannot rely on the antiquated questions…

• 2-door or 4-door?
• Automatic or manual?
• Lighter colors or darker colors?

These idiotic questions are medieval when you consider how detailed the consumer’s research process is, as well as how the OEMs build their vehicles.  These questions aren’t relevant.  So here is a proverbial “Call to Action” -
Walk up to the nearest salesperson and ask them for a phone script they use to train on.  Or something they use as a guide. Then ask your sales manager.
Do they have anything that wasn’t written on 1960’s parchment?
Does it need to be updated?
Does it need to ask more intuitive questions based on today’s researched customers in an effort to covert more appointments?

My guess is there are some holes in your phone script. It is time you get them some phone training and do something about it.

As you can see from the picture on the right, it may be time for this dealer to update their phone script.  (Yes, that is a real, actual, antique phone script currently taped to a real sales desk.  No, this is not a pirate’s map circa 1702.)

World’s Worst Phone Script found at a present-day car dealership by DealerKnows

Almost every dealer who records calls using a call management software knows that listening to those very calls is the quickest way to make their blood pressure skyrocket.  Phone handling is abysmal at most stores, and while some track the calls, and others preach the importance of phone skills, very few are training their teams to be skilled in today’s phone etiquette.

Much of this is the fault of the times.  With the digital smorgasbord that dealers must chew through, far too often they put phone training on the backburner. They assume that the online traffic will generate itself into sales and ignore the fact that phone handling has evolved.

If your dealership still operates off of an archaic phone script passed down from the sales managers of yesteryear, you need to update your phone script.  
(And yes, “phone script” can be a bad word on the
showroom floor. It still carries with it a negative connotation.  We, at DealerKnows, believe in phone structure over phone script.  With that said, we still provide scripts (and the corresponding structure) to our clients, solely as a foundation for quality phone etiquette.  You cannot rely on the antiquated questions…

• 2-door or 4-door?
• Automatic or manual?
• Lighter colors or darker colors?

These idiotic questions are medieval when you consider how detailed the consumer’s research process is, as well as how the OEMs build their vehicles.  These questions aren’t relevant.  So here is a proverbial “Call to Action” -
Walk up to the nearest salesperson and ask them for a phone script they use to train on.  Or something they use as a guide. Then ask your sales manager.
Do they have anything that wasn’t written on 1960’s parchment?
Does it need to be updated?
Does it need to ask more intuitive questions based on today’s researched customers in an effort to covert more appointments?

My guess is there are some holes in your phone script. It is time you get them some phone training and do something about it.

To this day, a guiding principle of DealerKnows Consulting is that a well-utilized CRM is the most valuable piece of technology in a dealership.  Some dealers bite off more than they can chew, while many others simply don’t want to consume it as much as they should, regardless of how healthy it is for them.

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools of today serve countless needs, but moreover, must serve countless masters.  While every single employee in your dealership should be well-versed and actively using the chosen CRM, every single different position at your store should be using it differently.  Some positions require using it to the Nth degree, while others can use it in a much more basic role.  But it must be used. 

A good CRM should be like a selection of fruits.  Here are the ways a CRM should be devoured by your team based on their role:

Internet Director/eCommerce Director: 
For them, the CRM must be like an Edible Arrangement.  Edible Arrangements are massively constructed bouquets of fruit baskets, whittled into extraordinary shapes.  They must understand it three dimensionally.  It must be able to be viewed in pieces, understood, crafted, and dined on as if it were art.

Dealership Owner/General Manager:  For an owner or GM, the store’s CRM should be a Fruit Cup.  They are looking at macro-level information and will likely not need the more granular reporting approach.  They can fill up easily on CRM and don’t need a lot of it to make decisions.  After all, it is the Internet Director likely sending them over small pieces of fruits to look at anyway.