Do your customers' experiences match your brand standards?

Consumers are continuing to buy more products online – we know that. Does that mean retail experiences are becoming less important? The short answer is a resounding NO. In fact, for dealerships that want to set their brand apart from the competition and develop superior customer relationships, the retail experience is now more important than ever before. In the same way, as e-commerce continues to grow, it is important to create great customer experiences when selling cars online. In short, a customer who wants to come to the dealership should have a very similar experience to a customer who wants to do everything online. If done correctly, all parties in automotive retail – dealerships, customers and vendors – can benefit from this kind of streamlining.

Dealerships should be able to accommodate all types of customers; another word for this capability is responsive selling. Processes need to be in place both for customers who want to buy online without ever setting foot inside a dealership, customers who want to test-drive every car on the lot, and everything idiosyncratic customer in between.

Dealerships should optimize their technology and adjust their processes to sell in all settings to all types of consumer behavior. Your dealership’s brand and “why buy here” message should be portrayed consistently throughout every type of transaction, including online purchases. Consumers expect businesses to adapt to their buying style. The more dealerships can meet those expectations, the happier their customers will be.

Selling a car 100% online doesn’t excuse your dealership from providing an outstanding customer experience. Your brand is still represented online, and the customer will still remember where they bought their car, whether they remember it as an amazing experience or a terrible one. There’s a difference between buying something from Amazon versus buying it off eBay. Both are e-commerce giants, but consumers can have a different, unique experience interacting with each brand. For example, how quickly and easily were they able to complete their transaction? How much information was available to the customer? What is the return policy? The list goes on, and the considerations are every bit as important for your dealership as they are for any e-commerce provider. 

In that vein, the online buying experience you provide should match the in-store process as much as possible. Consistency is key for a streamlined brand experience. If you do something unique to celebrate with a customer who buys a new car in your store, it’s important to find an equally exciting way to celebrate with a customer who purchases their vehicle from your website. Similarly, be sure that your salespeople and BDC reps are cognizant that how they converse with a prospect via chat or email matches the way they’d converse with an up who walked into the dealership – responding in a timely, professional manner, and following a solid, well thought out process.

A better, faster, experience is what today’s customers are looking for, but they’re also seeking out consistency: whether the experience your provide measures up to the brand standards you profess.

A mini-webinar with Ryan Gerardi of DealerRefresh. 

These days, everywhere you look, individuals, businesses, and communities are “going green.” - but should they be "going blue?"

“Blue Zones” refers to Dan Buettner’s best-selling book by the same name. In the book, Buettner details and analyzes the commonalities among five communities throughout the world where people live until age 100 about 10 times more frequently on average than in the United States. These communities are called "Blue Zones," and the common factors that run through each of them are what Buettner refers to as “The Power 9”:

1. Move Naturally.  People in Blue Zones rarely go to gyms or “work out” in the way that generally comes to mind for us; rather, they incorporate physical activity as a natural part of their daily routine, including activities such as gardening or using walking as their primary means of transportation

 2. Know Your Purpose.  According to Buettner, this all boils this down to a simple question: What is the reason you wake up every morning?

3. Downshift.  In the Blue Zones, rest and relaxation, such as meditating or napping, occur daily, and often several times each day.

4. The 80% Rule.  Those living in Blue Zones don’t “diet.” They just live by this rule, which says to stop eating when you feel 80% full.

5. Plant Slant.  Blue Zones diets are plant based; they consist of more legumes and nuts, and less meat.

6. Wine at 5. 1-2 glasses of wine per day, contributes to physical health in the Blue Zones.

7. Family First.  In Blue Zone communities, loved ones are a top priority.

8. Sense of Belonging. The healthiest people, and the ones who live the longest, belong to spiritual communities (the denomination does not make a difference).

9. The Right Tribe. This emphasizes the impact of socializing with others who share and support healthy behaviors. 

A major aspect of creating Blue Zone-certified communities involves incorporating the Blue Zone principles in the workplace. Now, maybe some of these don't and can't necessarily apply for dealerships (I don't recommend providing your employees with wine). But many of them can be implemented on some scale to improve your dealership's culture and make it a great place to work (which, of course, leads to higher employee retention rates).

Because adults in the United States -- and especially in the auto industry -- spend a massive percentage of their lives at work, creating Blue Zones at the dealership is key to fostering them in the community. “To become a Blue Zones official work site required committing to Blue Zones initiatives offered on a program ‘menu,’ which includes options such as ensuring employee vending machines offer healthy food options, offering employees a place to lock up bicycles, or adopting a policy that supports employee volunteer days, in addition to having at least 25 percent of employees to take the Blue Zones pledge.”

But you need not be certified in order to reap the benefits of the Blue Zone principles; incorporating simple changes into your dealership is a great way to make health and happiness an integral part of your employees’ daily routines, thus naturally increasing productivity, engagement, and, of course, retention rates.

You might, for example, provide fresh fruits and veggies for your employees to snack on throughout the day. You could start up a fitness tracker program to get your employees engaged. We all know the average salesperson or service tech does an enormous amount of walking throughout the day, so why not have some friendly competitions to see who can take the most steps in a day, a week, or a month? You can also go out of your way to make sure you support your employees putting their families first. Invite employees' entire families to the Christmas party, or have a picnic just for the purpose of meeting one anothers' families. When someone in an employee's family experiences a tragedy, rally around that person as well as their family.  Allow your employees to leave early now and then so they can catch their kids' sports games. If your employee feels you value them and their family, they will be much more likely to be committed to you in return.

What are some other ways we could apply The Power 9 to improve dealership culture?

An analysis by call tracking and analytics platform CallRail has revealed that call volume to businesses on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday more than doubled year-over-year across all industries, including automotive. Most surprisingly, though, was Green Monday, where call volume increased nearly 10 times year-over-year. To make the most of the 2017 holiday season, dealerships must prepare for a rise in inbound call volume. With such a steep increase in calls from 2015 to 2016, we can only expect an even bigger jump from 2016 to 2017.

A huge thanks to everyone who attended DSES this year! We would love to know your thoughts on this year's event, as well as what would make next year's event even better!

Please take a moment to complete a short survey about DSES 2017 -- we're already looking forward to seeing you next year!

 
Here's your rundown of October's most popular DrivingSales blog posts:
 

Successful marketing isn’t always about competition. Counterintuitive as it may seem, collaborating with other local businesses on marketing efforts can grow your brand and put you far ahead of your market competitors.

An example:

Last week I went to purchase a new gym membership. When I walked up to the counter, I noticed a small cardboard sign: “Bring us a ticket stub from [the newly-built movie theater next door], and we’ll waive your new-membership initiation fee.” I thought that was pretty smart on the movie theater’s part. But it didn’t end there.  When I finished working out, I went by the smoothie shop in the next shopping plaza. Guess what? I noticed a little cardboard sign on their counter: “Bring us a ticket stub from [the same movie theater], and get a coupon for a free smoothie during your next visit.”

The movie theater’s move here was genius – they’re a new business, so they’re utilizing their local “peer” businesses to help garner attention and attract business. The theater, at the same time, is reciprocating by sending more business to the gym and the smoothie shop. It’s a win-win situation, and none of the three companies loses business to the others.

Business marketing consultant Diane Eschenbach explains, “By properly networking with other local businesses . . . you can expand your reach, more than double your word-of-mouth referrals, and become more easily ingrained in your community.”

Here are a few tips for making collaborative marketing work for your dealership:

Prospect.  Your first step to partnering with other local businesses is, of course, to find other local businesses to partner with. Eschenbach recommends joining your local chamber of commerce and other municipal organizations, and attending every meeting or event possible. You might also find local branches of groups such as the National Small Business Association, National Business Association, or National Association of Women Business Owners. Attending meetings and networking events is integral to prospecting the community for business partnerships. This article from Business2Community provides a list of business organizations you might join as a starting point.

Do your research.  Once you’ve identified a few businesses you think you might want to collaborate with, do your research before reaching out to them. This is a sales pitch in a sense, and you’ve got to know your “customer.” Eschenbach suggests finding out each business’s “vision, their specialties, their target demographics”, and incorporating those things into variable word tracks. That way, when you approach each business, you can customize what you say, work in phrases and buzzwords that specifically relate to that company, and effectively show them how this marketing partnership can really benefit them. Be sure that when you reach out, you’ve already got a proposed marketing campaign to share.

Test it out. CEO and Forbes.com contributor Deborah Sweeney recommends implementing a trial period for your new partnership marketing campaign, and measuring how much and what kind of customer engagement and reaction you garner. “In some cases,” says Sweeney, “you may need to go back to the drawing board. In the meantime, be 100% invested in the partnership. Know what you want, what your partner wants, what the customers want, and how you can make that happen to satisfy everyone.”

Partnering with other local businesses in the community is a great way to get your brand out there into the community and attract new and repeat business without breaking the bank, and it allows you to network to build and foster relationships in the community.

written by Jonathan Dawson, Founder & President at Sellchology Sales Training
 

Are you a manager? Do you feel frustrated that you keep asking your sales team to do the simplest things but they can’t or won’t do them?

Motivating their people is a common area of struggle for managers. I want to help you by sharing an effective coaching and motivational technique with you.

The technique is conducting one-on-one coaching sessions. It means setting aside time to spend with each one of your team members.

In Part One of this article, How One-on-One Coaching Sessions Will Help Your Motivate Your Team, I discussed that there are 2 types of one-on-one coaching sessions: production-based and psychology-based. I also provided a structure and outline for the production-based meeting.

Let’s examine what a psychology-based coaching session is about.

In a psychology-based coaching session, you help your salespeople discover their motivation and what drives them. You also discuss specific strategies to help them grow personally.

Some of you might be thinking, “That sounds great, but how do I do that?” Others might be wondering, “Why would I spend my time talking about these things? Why can’t I just tell them to sell more cars?”

Fair questions! A short answer is investing your time into and learning how to do this type of coaching will help you understand your team. Understanding them will help you motivate them. And effectively motivating them will help you increase their production levels.

So, what happens in a psychology-based coaching session?

Here are some of the core topics I recommend when I teach management teams how to do effective coaching.


Structure of Psychology-Based Coaching Sessions

1. Your level of leadership with them
   People follow you for different reasons and you need to understand what those reasons are. It will help you grow as a leader and use the right motivational techniques. Some people on your team will do things just because you’re the boss and you said so, while others will only follow you if you make a significant impact on their lives. Do you know why your people follow you? This is one of the topics you should address in your individual coaching sessions.
    
2. Their skill levels in different areas
   There are 4 primary skills a sales professional must master to be effective: sales, marketing, people and life skills. When you sit down with a team member, spend time assessing their skills in each of these core areas. You also need to help them come up with a plan to maintain or improve those skills.
    
3. Their needs
   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to a sales person who’s under severe financial stress, is dealing with a family tragedy or has even become homeless, but their managers are not aware of it. Talking with a person about their needs means understanding where they are in their life or business. If someone’s primary concern is not losing their house, he won’t be able to relate to your pep talk to become the top sales person.
   
   Another type of need to discover is what type of environment they function best in. For example, some people need to have structure and certainty in their lives: they like things organized and like to know the schedule of upcoming events. Other people strive in an environment where things are more fluid and spontaneous. If you don’t know which type they are, your leadership and motivational approach could fail.
    
4. How they prefer being appreciated

   Have you ever taken a moment to think about what makes you feel appreciated at work? If your boss wanted to make you feel valued, what would they need to do? Is it to give you public recognition? Or would they need to take time to go to lunch with you and listen to your ideas? Or is it a simple gesture of a token gift, such as getting you your favorite Starbucks drink? Just like you have a preference for what makes you feel appreciated, so does your team.

   Understanding their language of appreciation will help you become a better leader and a better motivator. Spend a part of your one-on-ones discussing how you can show your appreciation in a way that will be received by your team.

What should you expect as outcomes of these sessions?

Spending dedicated one-on-one time with each of your team members will set you up for long-term success. If you do these sessions well and consistently, you will see the following results:

• You will become more effective at motivating your people
• Your ability to keep them focused on what’s important will increase
• You will form strong team bonds, which will lead to greater loyalty and less turnover

Please remember that as a manager and a leader, you should invest time in doing both types of individual coaching: production-based and psychology-based.

If you want to stop feeling frustrated with your team and see them improve, invest into your personal leadership skills and start doing one-on-one coaching sessions.

Do you do this type of coaching at your store? If not, has this article given you ideas on how to get started? Let me know your thoughts!

Here's your weekly roundup of the most popular blogs of the week. Have a successful Saturday and a relaxing Sunday!
 

5.	#bradswife: Why You Absolutely Need a Social Media Crisis Management Strategy
4.	Why You Should Implement Used Car Inventory Strategies on Parts Inventory
3.	Is Email Still the Preferred Way to Reach Customers?
2.	50 Creative Ways You Can Increase Your Sales
1.	The Truth About CarGurus

Earlier this year, Brad’s wife got fired from Cracker Barrel. You probably heard about it.

In case you’re one of the few who didn’t already know that Cracker Barrel terminated Brad's wife for apparently no good reason, here’s what happened:

Bradley Byrd’s wife (she has a name, by the way -- it’s Nanette) was a retail manager at her local Cracker Barrel in Indiana. She had worked there for eleven years, right up until this past March, when she got fired. We don’t know why she got fired. Neither did Bradley, her husband -- which is why he posted this simple query to Cracker Barrel’s corporate Facebook page: “Why did you fire my wife?” And lo, a social media firestorm was born. 

Fast-forward one week later: Cracker Barrel’s social media pages were pretty much hi-jacked by complete strangers demanding answers and justice for Nanette, who became widely known as  simply #bradswife (the other viral hashtag that arose from this situation: #justiceforbradswife). According to AdWeek, Cracker Barrel’s social media engagement increased by a whopping 226% after Bradley posted his question, and 90% of Cracker Barrel’s digital engagement between March 22 and March 27 was “Brad’s Wife-related.” Basically, the whole world was up in arms about Brad’s wife getting fired -- everyone, that is, except Cracker Barrel itself, which decided the proper course of action was not to so much as acknowledge that anything was amiss.

While we may not know what causes a single, seemingly insignificant social media post to become a global sensation, we can definitely take this as an opportunity to talk about some best practices on how to respond and bounce back in the event your dealership ever experiences something like this (it doesn't have to be global, either. Local disasters happen, too).

Acknowledge the situation.
Whether it’s a product issue, an employee misstep, or a seemingly insignificant post gone rogue, it is absolutely critical to acknowledge the situation immediately. In the case of #bradswife, Cracker Barrel showed us exactly what not to do. The company offered zero comment on the situation; in fact, it continued to update its social media sites with its normal marketing campaigns and advertisements, as if nothing ever happened. This, of course, made things exponentially worse. By ignoring the whole debacle, “Cracker Barrel [came] across as uncaring, unresponsive, and ridiculous, all at the same time. Consumers [we]re angry at a lack of any response or acknowledgement from the company, which result[ed] in even more outraged posts.”



Even if the problem at hand can’t be rectified or addressed right away, it’s important to at least acknowledge that the problem exists. When it came to #bradswife, Cracker Barrel failed to so much as comment that they refused to comment. By flagrantly continuing to post photos of new products and the like, Cracker Barrel gave a virtual middle finger to its customers and what may have been future customers, sending the message that it didn't care what they had to say.


Find the opportunity.
Imagine if Cracker Barrel had made amends with Nanette Byrd and brought her back onto their team. She becomes a celebrity of sorts, and all the supporters who sought #justiceforbradswife become brand ambassadors for the restaurant chain. With the right marketing team and strategy (and, of course, the initial problem having been properly addressed and rectified), it’s a golden opportunity for a whole lot of (free) positive publicity.


Develop a strategy.
Every brand should have a crisis management strategy in place from the get-go. It's kind of like having car insurance: hopefully you’ll never need it, but you don't want to be without it if the need arises. It’s a good idea to put together a "frontline social media team" -- a committee of a few people who are fully invested in the company and are authorized to speak on the dealership's behalf. Make sure those on the committee are empowered and well-informed, so that they can respond as effectively and as quickly as possible. Firebrand suggests starting with these questions as you build your social media crisis response strategy:

• How can the frontline social media team reach the crisis team—especially if a situation arises after normal business hours?

• Once the crisis team has been notified, who will craft the response?

• Who has final approval?

• Who will actually respond to the commenter?

Once you've taken this first step of forming the response team, consider investing in training for them. It doesn't have to be a massive undertaking -- an hour or two of training a few times a year can usually provide enough insight and skills to deal with a negative situation, should one arise. (If this type of publicity firestorm happens to your dealership on a regular basis, your team might need to do a little more than read this article and take a few hours of social media management training).
 

It doesn't have to be this way.
The bottom line is that what seems like a crisis initially doesn’t have to remain a crisis; it all depends on how your dealership responds to the situation. With a little preparation and a well-thought-out response strategy, you can turn a potential disaster into a business-driving asset (or, at the very least, stop it from poisoning your customer base and destroying your reputation and your brand).