By Darren Haygood
...In today's challenging environment, which Internet strategy is right for you?
In my travels around the country, I am often asked what is the best way to tackle the ever changing challenge of improving our e-Commerce results? How can we maximize our return, without creating what seems like unnecessary, additional expense?
Well, in order to answer the question of "To BDC or Not to BDC" properly, first we must understand exactly what a BDC what created for and designed to do.
Let's face it. The only reason a BDC, or CRC was created, was to find someone to run the CRM effectively, so that the GSM could tell the CEO that everything was "AOK" in the variable ops department! Enough acronyms for you? I mean seriously, who thought up all these things anyway?
Probably, the same guy that figured out this one simple unavoidable truth - "Sales people do not like making phone calls or doing follow-up!" Hence, we've created an entire department to either remove this "burden" from their lives altogether or at least created a place that most of them view as a "JAIL" which they must serve some time in daily.
What's worse, in most cases, the person who's running the BDC, has never sold a car a day in their life, or at the very least was unsuccessful at it, so we've reassigned them to the BDC.
Let me ask you, would you give a personal friend or relative of yours to the weakest sales person in the store if they wanted to buy a car? No, of course not! We refer our "in-house" deals to the most experienced, well-rounded sales professionals we have working for us. Why in the world do then do we entrust our most challenging department, faced with the most difficult and cherished customers, (i.e., Internet, Phone-Ups, Be-Backs, Service Customers, etc.) with inexperienced--no I should just say WEAK, administrative personnel?
Here's my suggestion. First, if you're running a small to medium size dealership less than 200 units, new and used combined monthly, you don't need a BDC. Hire better people, and hold the ones you've got accountable! Put your BEST phone skills guy or gal in charge of the Internet department immediately and watch the results soar! Notice I did not say, I.T. person?!
Secondly, if you are intent on having a BDC, make sure you're paying everyone on a performance based structure. If you pay people for just showing up, that's all they'll do. Contact my office for suggestions.
And most importantly, make sure you've got the basic blocking and tackling covered! A BDC is designed to handle five (5) key areas, (Incoming Phone Calls, Internet leads, UnSOLD follow-up, SOLD follow-up and Customer Database marketing, i.e. Off-lease, retail maturity lists, etc.). In all my travels, I have YET to see any one dealer doing all of these things well. In fact, pick two (2) that you think are the most important and make sure you've got them covered first!
Last but not least, measure your results. Whether you've got individual sales people or dedicated BDC personnel, hold them accountable daily! When performance is measured, performance improves! When performance is measured and rewarded, the rate of that improvement rapidly increases. Your results will very clearly help you answer the question, "To BDC or Not to BDC?"
Happy Selling!
Darren Haygood, CSP
|
