Training is a key component of any dealership’s long-term plans. It unifies your team’s approach to sales, fine-tunes your brand identity, and can consistently deliver one of the biggest ROIs of anything you do for your business. 

However, if you don’t know how to train a sales team properly, it can also be a huge waste of time and money. It’s not enough to give your people some videos and occasionally bring in a presenter. Today’s sales strategies are complex, and training is a specialized skill that’s not often present in-house. 

You’ll need an expert in both the industry and modern sales strategies to get it right and deliver skills that translate to your bottom line. That’s why we’re sharing our step-by-step guide on how to train a sales team—and how to spot a great training partner. 

STEP ONE: ESTABLISHING THE BASICS

The very first step to master when learning how to train a sales team is the initial teaching of basic skills and concepts. Whether you’re working with everyone at once or a single new hire, the process is very similar. There are several good ways to go about it, but no matter which one you choose, you’ll need a balance of listening and activities to make sure it sticks.

The Presentation

First, a person, video, or software presents the information. Presentations should be less than twelve minutes to hold your team’s attention, and six minutes is ideal. Videos or software should make liberal use of color, animation, and subtitles, as this is proven to increase engagement. Live teaching benefits from whiteboard demonstrations, dynamic movement, and colorful, labeled backup materials.

Active Engagement

After the initial session, perform an interactive group activity to start modeling the information. This can be a discussion, a Q&A session, roleplaying, team competitions, activities, creative projects, etc. The critical point is that everyone immediately starts using the information to solve problems. 

This helps immensely with retention versus a single lecture or video. Vary the nature of these activities for each segment to avoid predictability and ensure you cover the needs of all four learning styles (visual, aural, tactile, and reader).

Using this format, you can develop full-length instructional sessions by combining multiple listening/activity cycles. It can be difficult to know what information to present and how to pace everything, which is why a dedicated training partner can be a valuable ally and resource. 

STEP TWO: COACHING

Once your team knows the basic information, you’ll need to actively coach them over time on these skills with the sales scripts they’ll be using on the job. Obviously, you can’t keep team members off the floor for weeks while they learn, but you should be checking in with each person individually by going over the calls they actually took for your dealership.

This step is one of the most overlooked when learning how to train a sales team. So often, the initial presentation is followed by…nothing. Without active coaching on the content over time, new skills typically don’t become habits and fade quickly, and that devalues your investment. Real, durable skills take around 20 hours of dedicated practice to become useful, and up to six months to fully master. 

That being said, all it usually takes to keep a sales team on track is a few minutes a week with a coach to highlight a key point or two so they can practice on future calls. In a perfect world, weekly coaching sessions are a great interval for meeting with each employee. This gives them time to absorb the content of the last coaching, as well as work on their new skills on the job.

STEP THREE: CHECK THE LEARNING ON THE JOB

Next, you’ll need to evaluate your sales team’s performance, but it’s not as simple as it sounds to get the info you’ll need. People who know they are being watched or tested will change their behavior, an effect known as observer bias.

Mystery shopping is a key component of any modern training program because it evaluates your sales team’s actual on-the-job performance. These calls mimic real customer interactions, and an experienced coach will know how to ask the right questions and test whether new information is sticking. Any training partner worth their salt will rely on mystery shopping to generate actionable reports and insights for future work.

STEP FOUR: FOLLOW UP AND RETRAIN

Now that you’ve got the mystery shopper’s report in your hands, analyze it to see where things went well and where there are areas that may need to be polished up a bit.

Follow up with shopped employees as soon as possible so memories are fresh. Begin by thanking them for their great work, and celebrate the successes they achieved during the shop to start out on a supportive and positive note. Next, address the targeted areas of growth as opportunities to refine skills and earn more money.

In the following weekly sessions, polish out any final blemishes until everyone’s hitting their stride. 

TRAINING PARTNERS SAVE TIME AND MONEY

As you’ve probably noticed while learning how to train a sales team, this is a very time-intensive process that requires great skill on the part of the trainer. In many cases, partnering with a top-notch training agency that does this sort of work every day is the best way to get the most out of your investment. 

Phone Ninjas is staffed by amazing coaches with decades of experience in the industry coaching automotive professionals to even higher levels of excellence. We know what it takes to get ahead in automotive sales and deliver a complete package of training, coaching, and evaluation so you can focus on running your dealership—not worrying about whether your salespeople have what they need to capitalize on opportunities. 

Our clients routinely see foot traffic from phone calls triple, even quadruple, when working with us, and we can help you develop every aspect of your dealership’s strategy. Contact us today for a free demo to find out how easy great training can be with Phone Ninjas. 

Investing in a great training program is one of the best ways to increase all of your key metrics and meet your monthly sales goals. By bringing a specialist consultant who understands the auto industry and what it takes to sell effectively in this unique environment, your sales team can stay ahead of the competition by following the latest trends and perfecting vital skills like appointment setting and lead management. 

That being said, sometimes it can be difficult to prioritize sales team training. It takes employees off the showroom floor, costs money, and never seems to stop. Employees often dislike training for similar reasons—every second they’re not selling it’s costing them money, so if they don’t instantly understand how it translates to better sales, they’re going to check out fast. 

However, if you work with a partner who delivers skills and strategies that put more money in their pockets, they’ll be eager to put their foot on the gas when it comes to training. Here are six excellent reasons to keep your team’s skills sharp with a highly effective training partner.

1. UNIFORM CUSTOMER SERVICE

Today, twice as many companies compete on customer service compared to twenty years ago, and 96% of customers say the quality of service they receive is key to their brand loyalty. If you want to keep your customers happy while maintaining the consistency of your brand message, sales team training is one of the best ways to keep everyone in your sales department on point. Your training partner can achieve this through:

• Sales scripts that are well-crafted.
• Coaching that keeps delivery fresh, drives toward revenue, and improves long-term brand/dealership awareness.
• Individual training sessions that help each team member utilize scripts naturally for their own style and personality.

2. GET NEW EMPLOYEES UP TO SPEED FASTER

Turnover is a given in every business, and sales team training is critical for helping new hires hit the ground running. The faster they can align their sales skills with your brand and business, the faster they can operate as part of the team to generate maximum revenue for your business. This includes general training on the use of scripts, understanding inventory, and general phone skills, as well as more advanced concepts like appointment scheduling and lead qualification. 

3. ENSURE REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AND FINANCING

Automotive dealerships have any number of requirements they must adhere to, ranging from brand policies to the law. Consequences for failing to comply with these directives, even in single instances, can come with severe penalties. And as the owner of the business, you’ll be the one paying the price.

Also, many customers will be interested in financing options for purchases, and a great training partner ensures your people are delivering compassionate, accurate information to customers on this sensitive point every time. Plus, they can help your sales team understand how to make the most of the opportunities your dealership can offer. 

4. KEEP VETERAN STAFF UP TO DATE

The sales environment is changing right before our eyes thanks to the internet, phones, and developments in the industry at large. Phone skills are more important than ever, and the top dealerships are integrating and aligning messaging and customer experience from initial online searches to well past the final sale. 

That means even the best team member is facing a constantly evolving environment, and your most experienced salespeople are perhaps the most vulnerable to falling behind. They may be closer to retirement, overconfident from decades at the top, and may need some extra assistance adapting to the modern environment.

A great training partner can easily bring them up to speed, answer any questions they have, and use their expertise to help instruct the rest of the team for maximum success. 

5. BRING IN MORE CUSTOMERS

Getting people through the door has been increasingly challenging over the last few decades thanks to the ever-increasing number of competitors and internet sites. Appointments from phone calls are a huge driver of foot traffic, but the average dealership only converts these at a 20% rate.

Proper sales team training can boost that number to 60%-80% of your call traffic. It’s surprising how easily a few seemingly minor missteps on the phone can be the difference between eager customers in the showroom and an empty lot. 

6. INCREASE PROFIT

At the end of the day, everything that happens at your dealership is about delivering a return on your investment, and training needs to give your sales team a big bang for the buck. Fortunately, a great auto sales consulting partner who specializes in supporting sales teams can give you an edge in a number of ways:

• 84% of companies that work to improve their customer’s experience see increased revenue. 
• Good training on sales scripts helps your team close leads and identify revenue opportunities they might otherwise miss out on.
• Employees who are well-versed in CRM software and strategy keep the central data collection effort streamlined, organized, and functioning as it should, critical to the effective functioning of your BDC.
• Not everyone is going to have a natural talent for sales, and training helps build the skills they need to bridge that gap. 

IMPROVE ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR BUSINESS WITH PHONE NINJAS

Sales team training touches every corner of your dealership. That being said, it is a specialized type of long-term coaching, and finding the right training partner is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as an owner.

At Phone Ninjas, we’ve made a name for ourselves by working with some of the top dealerships in the industry to get their sales teams ahead of the competition—and keep them there. Our clients regularly see increased KPIs across the board, including appointment-from-call rates that are three to four times the national average, giving their sales teams far more quality leads to work with.  

If you want to set your people up for success with industry-leading sales team training, contact Phone Ninjas today for a free demo and two free mystery shops!

Time is money, and your sales force needs to be efficient in their work. Extended pitches can derail closing and waste time, while a laser focus on identifying customer needs and pain points is key to solving problems and overcoming objections.

However, achieving this is easier said than done, and training is essential for keeping your team sharp. They’ll need to focus on the skills that matter and deliver individualized coaching to ensure every team member has the opportunity to develop their skills in the most efficient way possible so it doesn’t interfere with achieving your larger business goals.

So, what should you look for in a training partner who can create the biggest returns in the least amount of time? Glad you asked—here are the areas they should focus on to keep your team firing on all cylinders and burning clean. 

LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS WORK

Training is not a one-and-done solution for any business. It works best as an ongoing process to grow skills over time in a supportive active coaching environment. The benefits of this type of long-term relationship are many for both the employer and employee: 

• Increase employee confidence.
• Confidential sounding board for ideas and challenges.
• Improved awareness of other sales techniques and styles.
• Individualized training that leads directly to revenue.
• Durable skills that stand the test of time.
• Employees feel more valued, improving employment length, loyalty, and productivity.
• Solid training relationships that become more valuable over time. 

All of these qualities lead to more efficient training programs that ultimately deliver increased ROI. 

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC TRAINING

The program you choose should be heavily customer-centric instead of employee/product-centered. Survey data shows that when companies focus on improving the customer’s experience, 92% see brand loyalty improve, 84% see revenue increase, and surprisingly, 79% see cost savings.

To achieve these results, your training partner should prioritize teaching employees to find solutions to customer challenges rather than pitching products, and there are several areas to focus on:

• Active listening skills can dramatically increase sales team efficiency by improving their understanding of their customer and what they value and require. 
• Techniques to identify customer needs and explore products and services that will solve those needs.
• Awareness of customer pain points is key to quickly qualifying customers and overcoming objections.
• Focus on bringing customers into the dealership with solid appointment-setting processes. 

SALES SCRIPTS

Sales scripts are essential for delivering optimized service that efficiently maximizes your revenue opportunities in the modern car sales environment. They give your sales team a roadmap to success, prioritize your business’s values and goals, and make it much easier to deliver for your customers. 

Here are some great techniques your prospective training partners should highlight:

• Emphasize memorization of the script to make navigation easy.
• Practice the script sections out of order. This improves the durability of memorization and flexibility of message delivery when agents have to shift gears quickly.
• Give employees the freedom to tweak non-essential language for a more personalized and natural conversation. 

These basic tips lead to more advanced tactics that your sales team will be able to explore over time. Also, as market dynamics change and evolve, your training partner will be in the perfect position to update scripts so your business can begin taking advantage immediately. 

THEY HANDLE THE DETAILS

One of the most valuable benefits a great training partner delivers is that they will save you time and energy as well. Ideally, they can work with your managers and team members directly, and only engage you as necessary or to deliver reports. After all, management fatigue is a real thing, and you’re already overloaded. 

By streamlining the training process from the top down, they free everyone up to focus on the things that lead directly to revenue—and avoid the complications that don’t. 

FEEDBACK AND ANALYSIS 

There’s no efficiency without effectiveness, and any great training program will build in evaluations and feedback. However, not every approach is ideal for a unique sales environment like the automotive industry. It takes an expert consultant with years of experience in the business to know what works and what doesn’t—especially on the phone. 

Training on real sales calls helps with this, but mystery shopping is the best way to check up on your sales team’s work. Your training partner should be using mystery shoppers to evaluate your employees’ work. Not only does this verify trained skills, but it gives coaches accurate feedback to focus on in subsequent training sessions.

MAXIMIZING EFFICIENCY WITH A GREAT TRAINING PARTNER

When you find the perfect fit with a training partner, they’ll be able to achieve levels of sales team efficiency that give you a lasting edge over the competition. At Phone Ninjas, we’ve spent years honing our training program to routinely boost KPIs across the board for our clients. With one of the most efficient and effective training programs on the market, we’re able to increase appointment rates by 300%-400% over industry averages for our clients. 

Our coaches work with your sales team in weekly one-on-one sessions that deliver valuable insights in less than 20 minutes per employee. This helps your team build skills that focus on improving your customers’ overall experience. Our mystery shopping team follows up to evaluate skills and target areas for follow-up training, and all of it follows the shortest possible path to raising your bottom line.

Call today so we can set up a free demo and two free mystery shops!

Every department at a dealership needs training, but your BDC can benefit the most from regular coaching to maximize the results they get for your business. They rely on their phone scripts and skills to set appointments for your salespeople, and the tiny details they get from training can be the difference between hitting your monthly goals and the entire dealership falling flat.

Of course, every business is different. There are many types of automotive dealership BDC training available for a variety of budgets, but how do you find the most effective strategy for your business model?

In many cases, a professional consulting agency that specializes in long-term active coaching is the best way to go and will deliver the biggest return on your training investment by far. However, we’ll cover all the training options—from single written materials to a full-blown partnership—so you can choose the right balance for your BDC team. 

BOOKS/WRITTEN MATERIALS

There’s no shortage of printed content to keep your BDC sharp, and this time-tested strategy offers a number of benefits. You can put expert tips into your people’s hands quickly, and they can review them whenever they need a touchup. Almost any automotive dealership BDC training program will include some of these resources.

Pros:

• Inexpensive 
• Content is typically in-depth. 
• Employees can refer back to the text whenever they need to.

Cons:

• No trainer on hand to explain the material when, inevitably, someone needs help.
• Not ideal for the (up to) 75% of your team who are tactile, visual, or auditory learners.
• Only 10% of the information is retained long-term on average.
• 
  

PRE-RECORDED VIDEO PRESENTATIONS

Video presentations can be extremely beneficial, and these run the gamut from professionally produced instruction to amateur how-tos. As long as the information is solid and presented effectively, the production values aren’t terribly important.

Pros: 

• Will likely appeal to a wider range of learning styles, depending on how the video is put together.
• Retention rates are 2.5x better than only reading the content.
• Costs will range from free to moderate. A few of the best trainers in the country offer excellent content for free as an introduction to their full active coaching program. These resources give you excellent tips and help you find the consultant who’s right for you. 

Cons:  

• Without follow-up training and mid-video breaks for interactive group activities, retention rates are still on the lower side (about 20%)
• No one is available to answer questions and clear up misunderstandings. 
• Any repetition of training videos to re-train staff can quickly become very tedious, limiting long-term program effectiveness.

REMOTE/IN-PERSON PRESENTATIONS

Live training presentations with an industry expert—whether remote or in-person—are often more effective than printed materials and videos in most cases. These options allow your people to ask questions and engage in role-playing scenarios that mimic common customer interactions. 

Pros: 

• Deeply interactive and engaging presentations with multiple audio/visual elements and group activities can boost retention rates as high as 75%. Engagement is also vastly improved.
• The opportunity to ask questions and get real-time answers is finally on the table, and it’s a crucial tool in this process.

Cons: 

• If you’ve opted for a one-time presentation, once it’s over… it’s over. 
• Expensive, especially when you’re covering the presenter’s flights and hotel.
• Inefficient in terms of individual learning, as some team members inevitably fall behind. Others get bored and zone out.
• Presenters who spend more time talking and very little time interacting can produce retention rates of as low as 5%. That’s an extremely poor return on your investment. 

ACTIVE COACHING WITH PHONE NINJAS

The automotive dealership BDC training resources we’ve talked about are actually just individual components of an ideal training model. They can produce decent results on their own, but will never be anywhere near as effective as hiring a training partner who has built a complete program utilizing these tools in addition to active coaching that supports your team’s development over time. 

Phone Ninjas has combined the best of these teaching methods to produce our time-tested training program that consistently brings in three to four times more appointments every month from your phone traffic than the average dealership. How do we do it?

• Our VP of Training, Mike Hoyser, conducts an initial group training session, either in person or remotely as you prefer.
• Written training materials like our free scripts have been perfected through years of fine-tuning in the field, and serve as a foundation for the scripts we fine-tune for your business. We’ve also got an extensive resource library available on demand.
• Our professional training videos are available 24/7 and serve as support resources for your internal BDC training. 
• We’ve got a roster of amazing coaches who work with your people individually in weekly sessions until your BDC team has everything down. These individual sessions focus on real calls taken from their daily work and often serve as helpful examples for your entire team.
• Our mystery shopping team confirms that new skills translate to the real world—where they result in higher sales numbers for your dealership. 

GET YOUR BDC FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS TODAY WITH PHONE NINJAS

At Phone Ninjas, our reputation as one of the best automotive consultants in the country is backed up by decades of industry experience in the business. We can’t wait to show you how we’ll turbocharge key BDC metrics several times over, increasing your appointment set and show rates and driving business to every aspect of your dealership.

Contact us today for two free mystery shops and a free demo of our program and find out what a difference the best automotive dealership BDC training on the market can make.

BDCs are one of the most important revenue generators for your business, but it’s not always easy to directly measure ROI because they don’t sell directly. They generate leads, manage and anticipate customer needs, and use that information to set appointments and nurture customers toward engagement with your services.

As a result, the concepts and strategies it takes to make a BDC successful are unlike any other aspect of your dealership. Many of the skills your reps need are soft, and they have to be supported with the right tools and a solid coaching partner.

Best practices can be hard to pin down, but we’ve identified the most important points for your BDC manager to prioritize. These four items are sure to boost your bottom line.

1. USE SALES SCRIPTS

Phone scrips give your BDC team a clear, repeatable path to revenue, and there’s a reason they’re at the top of our list of dealership BDC best practices. Without scripts, your team is relying on improvisation and personal experience—and that’s a recipe for leaving revenue and opportunities on the table.  

Well-written scripts provide a host of benefits, including:

• Keeping team members moving smoothly towards conversion.
• Eliminating distracting chatter.
• Establishing a proven roadmap for all employees, covering the situations they’ll encounter on the phone.
• Providing a safety net for newer team members.
• Giving your reps confidence that frees them up to focus on customer needs.
• Collecting customer data for your CRM software database.
• Guaranteeing your team members will always ask for an appointment.
• Ensuring your customers know instantly that they’ve reached your dealership.

Evidence shows that if your scripts are written with more events and branches, they will be more successful. A great script covers all common customer interactions as well as sections for troubleshooting, and field testing is essential for dialing in your messaging.

2. WORK WITH A COACHING PARTNER

Once you’ve got an amazing script in place, it’s not enough to hand them out and let your team hit the phones. Your staff will require intensive coaching to master the new material. 

The automotive industry is unlike any other sales ecosystem, and it takes a dedicated industry specialist to identify and improve the nuanced skills your BDC teams will need to master. With just 15-20 minutes a week, they can provide your reps with key specifics from their own calls that can drastically improve their work.

They’ll ensure:

• Delivery is natural and enthusiastic every time.
• Memorization that limits errors and improves delivery.
• Team members know where the pitch is going, enhancing their intuition when going off-script becomes necessary.
• Team members can tailor the language of the script to match their personality and individual manner of speaking, further improving the naturalness of delivery.
• Advanced techniques for working with individual customers.

The best model for this sort of coaching is one-on-one mentorship using real calls taken in the course of their job duties. It will take time for your team members to master your scripts, but this sort of in-depth and personalized coaching is one of the key dealership BDC best practices that pay off quickly. 

3. MAXIMIZE APPOINTMENT SHOW RATES

Now that your team has the basics in place, you need to implement dealership BDC best practices that significantly improve the rates at which your customers keep their appointments. Here are five simple and easy-to-implement techniques that should govern every appointment-setting process:

1. Customer contact information is obtained and entered into the CRM software.
2. Agents give customers your dealership name and contact information.
3. Agents give high-quality directions to your dealership starting from the customer’s location.
4. Customers are reminded that someone will be following up to confirm the appointment and answer any follow-up questions they might think of.
5. The BDC manager makes the follow-up call.

This solid road map to success makes the most of your opportunities and ensures that appointment sets turn into shows for around three-quarters of all inbound calls.

4. INCENTIVIZE YOUR BDC REPS

In many dealerships, rank-and-file BDC agents are paid an hourly rate. But does this really make sense? You’d never consider paying your salespeople an hourly rate, and commission approaches work just as well for appointment setting as they do for direct sales.

Dealership BDC best practices demand your BDC agents be paid on commission, as it’s a proven way to increase productivity in sales. There are a variety of ways to implement this model, but at its core, your agents should be paid a commission on every high-intent lead appointment they set that shows up, and a cut of the sale commission. 

Often this means splitting the commission on the sale with the sales staff. The sales department won’t like this, but when you consider your BDC team is generating appointments from up to 80% of your call traffic, they’re hand-delivering a flood of ready-to-buy customers to your sales team’s doorstep. And the sales staff can close more deals more quickly (more traffic, better lead preparation), so ultimately, they’ll be making more money, too.

TRIPLE YOUR PHONE TRAFFIC APPOINTMENT RATES

Phone Ninjas’ clients routinely see 60% appointment rates on inbound calls—three times the industry average of 20%—and some of our hardest-working clients are able to get up to 80%.  

We can achieve this for your dealership because we specialize in honing scripts to the unique challenges of the automotive industry and tailoring them to every client’s needs. Our unique training model then coaches individual team members over the course of short weekly appointments using calls they took for your dealership. Finally, our mystery shoppers verify this training on the ground and perform any necessary follow-up coaching.

Implementing these dealership BDC best practices begins by contacting us today for a free demo and two free mystery shops.

Over two-thirds of customers say a business’s customer representatives are key to a great experience. Given that your business development center is the communications center of your entire dealership, the BDC reps you choose can make or break appointments and customer relationships before they even get started. 

But how do you pick the winning candidates from the stack of resumes? What are the personal qualifications, experiences, and intangibles a new BDC rep needs to excel?

We’ve put together a list to help your hiring team find the right people for the job. Some of these elements can be developed or trained, and others cannot. But because you’ll know exactly what personalities and skill sets to prioritize, your hiring processes will be more efficient and productive. 

1. ENGAGING PERSONALITY

Expert Phone Ninjas coach Amy Hayes puts it best: “Anyone can learn the secrets of selling—but you can’t teach someone to have a personality.” 

Your customers will mirror the energy your BDC rep brings to the call, so the people you hire need to project an inviting and engaging experience by being:

• Warm and likable.
• Empathetic and a careful listener
• A real “people person”.
• An enthusiastic presenter.

Rarely will you find someone who is amazing in all these ways, but if they’ve got some degree of each of these four checkboxes, your coaching partner will have plenty to work with. 

2. ACTIVE LISTENER

The University of Southern California notes that up to 70% of all employees exhibit poor listening skills and habits that result in misunderstandings, errors, and missed opportunities. This is one problem your BDC team—and your dealership—simply can’t afford. Every BDC rep needs to have excellent listening skills, as these are key to qualifying customers and nurturing them toward setting appointments. 

This is even more true in an age where sales scripts are becoming the norm. Active listening will help your team know when to pause or elaborate on the script to address customer concerns instead of pivoting at awkward moments or missing opportunities. 

Your agents also need to listen to what customers are telling them as well as what they aren’t saying. Things like intent, tone of voice, confidence, and more all shape an effective approach to fulfilling customer needs. 

3. GOOD COMMUNICATOR

This is more than just having a decent vocabulary. Every successful BDC rep must have the ability to make meaningful connections with customers through nothing but their verbal communication.  

When interviewing candidates, listen carefully to how they respond to you. Great communicators will:

• Speak clearly and concisely.
• Be accurate in their facts.
• Display an understanding of appropriate word choice and tone.
• Restate what you have asked to confirm they understand you (up to 40-60% of message content can be lost between speaker and listener).
• Ask open-ended questions to avoid conversation-killing “yes-no” answers.
• Use regionally-accepted professional modes of speech.

People with these aptitudes and skills are going to be a lot more effective when delivering customer service as they’ll be able to quickly identify needs and deliver helpful responses. 

4. QUICK THINKER

The last thing any customer needs to hear is a BDC rep caught off guard by a question and fumbling for an answer. 

This doesn’t mean your team has to know everything that might be asked. Rather, they need to be able to process information quickly and come up with an answer that keeps the conversation moving—even if the response is a polite delaying tactic to give them time to find the answer.

5. HONESTY

This is a biggie. Instead of inventing an answer to move the conversation along, your team members need to have the courage (and the freedom) to say, “I don’t know—but let me find out for you.” 

Honest customer service reps will bring a number of benefits to your dealership:

• Build trust.
• Foster brand loyalty.
• Increase repeat business.
• Raise profits. 
• Prevent customers from being surprised during their appointments, leading to more productive sessions.

More than half of all customers say honesty is critical to earning their business. By hiring candidates with integrity, your customers will learn to trust your dealership.

6. GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Your BDC department is making and taking hundreds of calls a day, especially during peak hours/seasons. A BDC rep who knows how to manage their time effectively will get to all their tasks on a given day. 

They will also have a superior ability to pivot between tasks, which they certainly need to do in this fast-paced environment.

7. PASSION FOR YOUR PRODUCTS

This one is very difficult to train, but customers can absolutely tell when a BDC rep is enthusiastic about your products and services. After all, they will mirror the energy your employees bring to their phone calls. 

There are other advantages as well. These candidates will be more likely to learn about your product line on their own time, which will result in product knowledge and use scenarios you won’t find in the technical manuals. Product information will be remembered more consistently, and these types of BDC reps may have personal experience with your products.

SET YOUR TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS

Even perfect candidates will require the right support and training to be successful. Sales scripts are incredibly valuable, but they aren’t shortcuts to success; every team member needs a mentor or coach who can help them grow and develop in natural, effective ways.

Phone Ninjas is the training partner that can make that happen. Our active coaching program is designed to work with each BDC rep individually on your scripts and style so they can deliver your company’s customer service and brand message in a relaxed, natural manner that customers will embrace. 

Our training program is helping some of the nation’s top dealerships stay ahead of the competition by doubling and tripling appointment set rates from 20% to nearly 70%—and we’d love to show you what we can do for your business. Contact us today for a free demo and two free mystery shops.

Many dealerships have built an auto business development center to drive appointment rates and generate more sales. The leading dealers are making money hand over fist on these investments—but it doesn’t feel like your BDC is delivering the same for you.

What are they doing differently that’s working so much better?

Measuring success can be tough because a BDC doesn’t sell cars. It sells appointments, and that means you’re looking for revenue a little farther downstream. On top of that, there are many different angles to upping appointment numbers and generating leads, and all of it depends on the hard and soft skills your phone representatives have. 

The biggest secret to success is working with a dealership consultant who’s an expert in developing those skills. That’s when you’ll see these three key metrics for your auto business development center start to skyrocket—along with your bottom line. 

APPOINTMENT SET RATE

The appointment set rate is the percentage of all calls that result in an appointment being booked. The industry baseline of all inbound and outbound calls is about 20% on average—nowhere near enough for a BDC to be profitable. 

The top performers are converting at least 50% of inbound and 20% of outbound calls. Sound impossible? Not with the right mentality, says Phone Ninjas expert coach Amy Hayes:

“People will do everything they can not to pick up a phone. When they call you, it’s because they want a car, they’ve hit an informational wall, and they genuinely need your help. At that point, it’s your appointment to lose or sell.”

With the right strategy for handling these tricky dynamics, the top teams Amy works with are seeing appointment rates of 60-80% of inbound calls and 25% of outbound calls. And that’s where a BDC’s work starts to be measured in dollar signs. 

APPOINTMENT SHOW RATE

Setting appointments means nothing if customers don’t show up. A well-run auto business development center has scripts and protocols in place that help make sure at least 60% of all booked appointments show up.

“If you get somebody to actually commit to spending their time with you, you have to build value in that appointment,” Amy cautions. “We teach that there’s a fine line between giving away too much information and providing excellent customer service.” 

Your BDC team will also need scripts that efficiently gather everything they’ll need to confirm appointments and open the door to more questions a customer might have when they arrive.

They should guide representatives to:

• Obtain customer data (half of all agents do not).
• Enter the data into the CRM software.
• Provide the customer with your contact information, address, and directions.
• Have a manager call back a day before the appointment to confirm and follow up on any questions.  

LEAD GENERATION AND QUALIFICATION

The #1 task of your BDC representatives is to drive appointment rates, but they are also in the perfect position to develop your leads. The top dealerships are using their BDCs to analyze lead quality and prioritize opportunities, deliver valuable information to the sales team, and even handle referrals and introduce upsell opportunities. 

 “We want to get all of your numbers higher,” said Amy. “By talking with 20 people instead of 10, you can get more sets, more shows, and end up with five sales at the end of the month instead of one.”

And by coaching auto business development center reps to properly evaluate leads, up to 40% of the customers they send their sales team will be high-intent buyers they can capitalize on instead of only 10-20%. 

INTANGIBLES

While these KPIs tell most of the story, it’s important to keep in mind there are a host of intangible benefits that help your auto business development center drive profitability:

• Your BDC frees up other departments to focus on what they do best instead of spreading them thin. 
• Your BDC can proactively meet customer needs, as well as target promotions and help customers take advantage of your service department. 
• A well-run BDC will grow your customer base through their outbound call game identifying and contacting potential customers.
• Once again, there are a lot of ins and outs to successfully navigating all of these opportunities over the phone. Success and failure may depend on a few simple words, and a great training partner will ensure your team gets it right when the pressure’s on. 

MAXIMIZE WHAT YOUR BDC CAN DO FOR YOUR DEALERSHIP

Your BDC may not hand over the keys, but with the right coaching strategy, these business powerhouses can put everyone in your dealership in a position to capitalize on potential opportunities. 

This is where Phone Ninjas can supercharge your auto business development center’s performance. We have decades of experience in the industry, and we know every angle and tactic to make the most of your phone game. As a result, our clients regularly see appointment set rates three to four times the industry average—and that speaks directly to your bottom line. 

“Sales Managers and GMs have a lot going on, and I think they could rely more on what a partner like Phone Ninjas can deliver,” Amy said. “Of course, ‘What are your scores?’ is an important question—but we can tell you why and what to do about it.” 

Contact Phone Ninjas today for a free demo and two free mystery shops, and find out what a true automotive training and coaching expert can do for your business. 

Your business development center is the lifeblood of your dealership. Between channeling leads to your sales teams, setting appointments with customers, and staying ahead of customer needs, there isn’t a corner of your business it doesn’t impact. 

But it doesn’t generate profit all by itself, so it can be hard to understand how it’s performing. What metrics should you be tracking to ensure your BDC isn’t just doing “OK”, but amazingly well?

We’ll give you the lowdown on what KPIs to track to make sure your BDC is serving your dealership as intended. Here’s everything you need to know to build a winner that stands out in the automotive industry. 

WHAT SHOULD MY BDC BE DOING?

A lot of dealerships have a BDC because they want to improve a particular aspect of their business’s performance like appointment setting. And while a well-trained BDC team can definitely deliver, this department can serve a number of critical revenue-generating functions—they should never be limited to boosting one or two basic KPIs. 

While you should be molding your BDC to perfectly match your dealership, here are the core mission goals they should all be working toward:

Increasing appointment set and show rates

Determining customers’ intent and channeling them appropriately

Making lead development calls

Addressing common customer questions and delivering consistent service

If they aren’t doing all of these things yet, talk to your consulting and coaching partner. They will be able to help get your BDC up to speed and make the most of their time and resources for your business. 

In the meantime, here are the numbers you should expect to see in your reports to identify if your BDC is barely getting over the finish line or crushing the competition.  

SETTING CUSTOMER APPOINTMENTS

Whether the call is incoming or outgoing, your team should be setting appointments to bring customers through the doors. Inbound calls will naturally have a higher appointment set rate than outbound calls, as when a customer calls you they’re usually already looking for something. 

OK: Your BDC team is converting half your inbound calls to live appointments, versus 20% of the outbound calls. These are the bare minimums, though, and you should be aiming higher. 

Amazing: 80% of inbound and 25% of outbound calls resulting in appointments would be outstanding. It takes a lot of detailed work from your training partner and BDC representatives to get it right, but the rewards are huge. 

Boosting these numbers means refining your phone scripts and intensively training your people on them. Believe it or not, a big reason customers don’t set an appointment is…no one asked them! That line absolutely has to be in your scripts.

APPOINTMENT SHOW RATE

Setting the appointment is only the beginning. Getting them to turn up is the next step.

OK: A 50% show rate is the floor on this KPI. 

Amazing: 60% would be better, but with good systems in place you should be seeing around 75% of your customers keeping their appointments.

Training your people to ask for customer details and giving directions that ensure the customer knows where they’re going is critical. Having a manager follow up with a second call to confirm the appointment a day or so ahead of time is also a smart move. Do both.

DETERMINING CUSTOMER INTENT

Your BDC could be generating tons of leads, but still not serving your dealership well. Especially if you pay your BDC staff on commission (an excellent business model), if you don’t have qualifying metrics built in you could have a flood of low-intent customers clogging your sales team’s inbox, wasting valuable time.

OK: 20% of your customer appointments being high-intent leads is about what your sales team will need to hit those monthly sales goals.

Amazing: 40% and above makes the most of your opportunities, and you can build in language and strategies to your phone scripts that help nurture customers through your pipeline in the most efficient possible way.

Your BDC staff only has partial control over these numbers, but there are steps to take. Your training partner should be teaching your employees to sort incoming leads by intent: high-intent customers will have an appropriate budget and are ready to make a purchase in the immediate future. These customers should be a high priority for appointment set conversion. Lower tiers each have strategies to develop them.

To help your staff identify potential high-intent customers they can contact, equip them with customer data platform (CDP) software if you haven’t already. This innovation uses AI to sort collected and purchased data from across your dealership platforms (CRM, DMS, etc.) to find the “needle in the haystack” that would normally be missed.

LEAD DEVELOPMENT

This KPI should be judged by the ratio of inbound to outbound calls your agents are making every day.

OK: A 1:1 ratio of inbound to outbound calls indicates priorities need to be adjusted.

Amazing: Your BDC agents need to be making twice as many outbound calls as inbound. Leads calling in usually already know about you, and you can’t grow your business only catering to your current customers. Outbound BDC calls are critical to the long-term growth of your business.

Fixing this can take a few different forms:

Insufficient staffing/inefficient work schedules can leave a few employees taking too many inbound calls. Hire more people, or distribute your BDC agent hours to better match predictable call spikes (lunchtime) and dead times (weekday mornings). 

A lack of leads from your CRM/CDP can be an issue. You’ll need a highly capable platform, and your team will need to be properly trained to understand how to use it effectively. 

Check with your BDC manager or training partner to make sure the employees know they’re supposed to be making calls at a 2:1 ratio, and that their job duties are prioritized so as to allow them to hit these numbers.

CREATING A WINNING BDC

No matter why you started your BDC, the fact is, they can often drive revenue for your business in ways you never even imagined. Like any investment, these talented representatives need to be empowered to deliver the biggest return possible, and that means finding every way to leverage the opportunities they’ll have. 

And as you probably noticed, most of the remedies we’ve discussed above emphasize the need to properly and continuously train your people. The automotive industry is constantly evolving, and that’s why it’s so important to equip your BDC with a dedicated industry specialist who can keep them sharp, deliver excellent scripts, and help them stay on top of new customer trends. 

The best of the best not only deliver one-on-one coaching for your team using their real-world calls, but they can do so efficiently so they don’t interfere with larger business goals. Plus, they’ll be able to give you insight into many different aspects of your business and develop a flexible relationship that meets your unique dealership needs. 

That’s how you make the most of every investment—and take your BDC from the sideline to primetime so they can deliver for your bottom line. 

Even in today’s fast-paced digital world, the phone is still the most important business generator for every successful dealership. That means your team’s phone skills must be razor-sharp to capitalize on every revenue opportunity. 

Unfortunately, these critical phone interactions can be hard to evaluate, and a few small but important details can be the difference between a sale and a fail. On top of that, most generic training doesn’t address their actual performance, so it’s difficult for both managers and employees to identify and correct any problems. 

Phone mystery shops are the ideal way to discover what’s actually happening on sales calls, and empower your team with the constructive feedback they need to start closing more deals. Here are the top ways this mystery shopping can help you increase appointment rates and crush your monthly sales goals. 

A REAL CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE

What you need to know most about your customers is why they choose to purchase… and why they don’t. Since mystery shoppers pose as real customers, they get an honest look at how your sales team manages the experience. 

There are many invaluable aspects of calls that phone mystery shoppers can identify and highlight that won’t show up in any other training scenario or in customer surveys. These include key areas like appointment setting, asking for referrals, and confirming important customer details. They are also able to evaluate how sales representatives use scripted language to drive sales and examine soft skills like tone and delivery. 

And because auto sales are so specific, a training partner with industry experience is essential for providing mystery shops that can make the biggest impact. They’ll uncover every missed opportunity, and if something comes up in the moment, they’ll know how to dig deeper and explore new scenarios. 

ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK FOR FOLLOW-UP TRAINING

Because mystery shops are based on real-world calls, your training partner will be in the perfect position to identify specific language and teachable moments that can be shared with the team and developed individually to improve sales outcomes.

Some common issues include not asking for an appointment, deviating from the sales script, improperly navigating branching scripts, forgetting to collect full customer details, excessive hold times, and off-message conversations. All of these elements lead directly to gains and losses on your bottom line and can be easily addressed with timely feedback and coaching support. 

DRIVE HIGH-MARGIN UPSELLS

These are hugely profitable for dealerships and offer customers a ton of extra value. These service contracts, extended warranties, comfort and performance upgrades, subscription apps, and vehicle treatments do a lot more for your dealership than bolster the bottom line. They offer your customers increased comfort, performance, and peace of mind—all of which foster loyalty with your dealership. 

Phone mystery shops will consistently identify missed opportunities when presenting these high-margin upsells. This enables you to modify sales scripts and conduct supplemental training to improve your upselling ratios. 

IMPROVED BRAND MESSAGING

Every employee is an ambassador for your business, and phone interactions should provide continuity between online content and larger corporate messaging. A uniform, high-quality brand messaging campaign improves every aspect of your business: brand perception, customer loyalty, marketing effectiveness, sales volume, word-of-mouth referrals, top-of-funnel lead generation, and trust in your brand. Every single one of these is essential to a healthy, growing business.

Phone mystery shops will tell you how effectively your team is presenting your dealership and the brands you carry, and where your training partner can help them be even better.

KEEP TABS ON THE COMPETITION

Phone mystery shops can help you improve your business’s sales strategy, but they aren’t just internal processes. They can also tell you how you measure up to the competition—something every business owner absolutely must know.

By mystery shopping the competition, you can gain critical intel on pricing, special promotions, competitive advantages, opportunities for differentiation, quality of customer service, inventory levels, inventory variety and availability, and a host of other details you must be aware of to remain competitive.

KEEPING YOUR TEAM SHARP AND ON POINT

Phone mystery shops are the best way to get very specific feedback on every aspect of your team’s phone game. They arm you with the information you need to improve your sales scripts and sales team’s presentations so you don’t lose out on sales and upsells. 

At Phone Ninjas, we use mystery shops as a foundational part of all our automotive training and consulting services to improve every aspect of your sales team’s strategy. Our in-house mystery shoppers are trained to spot every dollar left on the table, allowing our coaches to sharpen your representatives’ phone skills in efficient one-on-one sessions that examine the actual calls they handled for your dealership.

By helping people build durable skills that will stand the test of time, this approach allows our clients to routinely exceed their competition’s appointment set rates and outperform them on the bottom line. Reach out today for two free mystery shops, and find out the difference that a true automotive industry expert can make. 

If you’re concerned as an owner or GM that you’ve been putting too much time into your BDC, you might be right. A business development center is not the type of department you should need to micromanage. With the right manager and training partner, your BDC should be driving revenues in every department, and all you’ll have to do is make a few big-picture decisions here and there. 

Of course, getting a great team isn’t enough—they will also need a few tools for the job. If you give them a solid foundation with great hardware and software, phone scripts, and coaching, they’ll be in a position to make the most of your investment while you focus on other aspects of your business. 

So, what do they need to succeed? Here are the basics every BDC should have to maximize appointments, generate leads, and boost every aspect of your business—without eating into your daily routine. 

1. SEPARATE SPACE

Everyone deals with space limitations in their businesses, but your BDC is somewhat unique in that it really does require a dedicated workspace that’s physically separated from other dealership activities. After all, they’ll be focusing 100% on customer needs, and that means being removed from distractions and noises that will filter through. 

In fact, unlike other aspects of your dealership, a BDC doesn’t even need to be on the premises! They can operate efficiently from an offsite space, and this is a common choice when a BDC is acting as a hub for several dealerships at once. 

2. COMPUTERS AND CRM SOFTWARE

These two go hand-in-hand. A great CRM (customer relationship management) platform will allow your team to organize and analyze every customer detail, and it’s the foundation of their revenue-driving activities. You’ll also need to ensure they have hardware that can run it quickly and efficiently, so speak to your automotive consultant for details.  

You’ll need a dedicated workstation for each employee to maximize what they can deliver for you, and invest in some good-quality wired headsets. Wireless headsets can run into all kinds of problems, and every loss of service is a potential sale hanging up the phone. 

3. EMPOWER YOUR MANAGER

The right BDC manager can help you capitalize on revenue opportunities in every department. On top of that, if you empower them to take the reins, they can handle all the day-to-day operations, monitor key metrics, make adjustments with your team, and generate reports. 

To do this efficiently—and without you watching over their shoulder— a BDC manager must have the authority to:

• Offer employment to candidates.
• Select employee work assignments.
• Evaluate team performance.
• Write or modify sales scripts to improve performance.
• Exert reasonable control over the departmental budget.

4. ADEQUATE STAFFING RESOURCES

With the right resources, your BDC will be able to maximize the return they deliver on your investment. There’s always a temptation to ask a little more of a great team, but make sure you don’t overload them when it’s actually worth hiring another representative. 

Listen closely to your BDC manager’s input and keep an eye on key metrics like missed calls and callbacks. Too many calls is a good problem to have, and it may mean it’s time to expand. 

5. COMMISSION VS. SALARY?

Some businesses see their BDC as a customer service department and hire employees at an hourly rate. This is outdated thinking and misses an opportunity to leverage the advantages of a commission model. 

Just like your sales team, your BDC is about pursuing opportunities to drive revenue. That’s why setting goals for things like appointment set and show rates and rewarding representatives in their paychecks for hitting goals keeps them hungry and growing your business. 

6. SALES SCRIPTS

To ensure consistent brand messaging and top-notch customer service, scripts are a must-have. They give your employees a proven road map to closing and cover any normal situation they might encounter. 

Should you write them yourself? You can, but there’s a much better option: the automotive training specialist who’s working with your BDC should be willing to write them for you. These experts have professionalized knowledge of the latest best practices and customer trends in the industry, and they’ll already be working directly with your BDC associates to make sure they’re perfectly executed. 

7. A GREAT TRAINING AND COACHING PARTNER

This is the number one place where GMs and owners lose time and money. Keeping your team on point with training updates and constructive feedback is an ongoing job that can be the difference between huge returns and constant burns. You definitely don’t have time, but believe it or not… …neither does your BDC manager. 

They’re going to have their hands full coordinating your team, and training is an extremely specialized skill. The key to a BDC that runs like clockwork and delivers huge returns is to set them up with a dedicated automotive training and coaching expert they can coordinate with on an ongoing basis. They’ll catch all the details you’re looking for, and many more you aren’t. 

CREATE A BDC THAT RUNS HANDS-FREE

The top dealerships in the country stay ahead of the competition because they work smarter, not just harder. BDCs are an indispensable part of the modern industry, and getting the most out of the investment for the least amount of time is all down to organizing it properly from day one. 

With the right equipment, a great BDC manager will have everything they need to ensure the day-to-day operations are smooth so you don’t have to stress over the details. The final piece of the puzzle is working with a dedicated industry specialist who can handle the training and coaching side of the equation. These professionals make sure your BDC is always on top of its game and deliver the ongoing support it takes to stay ahead of the competition. 

Learn more about what goes into creating and maintaining one of these revenue-generating powerhouses, and set your BDC up to run on autopilot so you focus on putting your dealership into overdrive.