By Laurie Halter, owner of Charisma! Communications

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of sitting down with Erich K. Gail, CEO of the Cardinale-Group of Companies to discuss the strategies they are using to market, sell, and serve their customers and associates during the pandemic.

In the following recap, Erich talks about how his group is of-service, how they are communicating with associates, customers, and communities, and the “unicorns” persevering, despite the challenges.

Erich – What are your thoughts on the current landscape?
Our belief is challenges provide us an opportunity to reach, stretch, grow, and learn more about ourselves – to find just how good we really are and to learn how creative we really can be. For example, Amazon and other high transactional retailers shaped the buying experience and evolved it over the past +10 years, leading us to a new environment of demand items on our doorstep within days or hours.

I agree that dealers are being asked to pivot extremely quickly. How is your group operating in the “new normal”?
We are encouraging an expanded view of our capabilities in service to our customers and communities – where one may not have driven 30 miles away to pick up a car before, but now the answer is, “Yes, we will!” Our customers are really in need of our help, so it’s time to throw the rulebook out and serve. If it’s something that you look at the P&L statement and say, that didn’t make us any money – too bad! It is the right thing to do for someone in need.

Can you give us an example of something you’ve done recently that shines a light on this mindset?
We have been deemed essential for a very critical reason. We are here to ensure that the functional operation of an automobile; the transportation that moves us, is in proper working order. That’s our primary concern.

So, in light of that, we’re sharing to our customers, “If you need assistance in any way, for any reason at all, click or call, we will do the rest.” That’s actually the name of our campaign, Click or Call – We’ll do the Rest. That’s all we need people to do at this point. Don’t overthink it. Don’t think that you have to be driven down some particular e-commerce platform with 18 different steps, just click or call, and we’ll be there to help.

I think people appreciate the fact that it is not a “fireworks in the sky, look, wonderful sales specials!” The message is more, “We’re here to help you in any way and every way that we can.”

And how have your customers responded to your outreach program?
Each day our sales and our service operations are blessed with customers, guests, and wonderful stories. As we’ve had the opportunity to get to know the specific needs of our customer, and they understand our motivation is to help and serve, there are just tears of joy, tears of gratitude and lots of “Thank you, you have no idea what I need to accomplish.” and statements like, “You were here for me when I needed you.”

In many cases, we may be unaware of what is happening on the other end of the line with our customers. An individual may have been furloughed, they may have to figure out how they’re going to reduce the payment of the vehicle they currently own, or they may have a vehicle that has engine lights on but can’t afford the repair. Based on the type of question from our customer, we do our best to determine what is needed. Do great things for wonderful people, and the rest works itself out.

Let’s turn from communications and campaigns to operational metrics for a moment. What are you looking at right now across stores?
We focus each day on success metrics which provide us real-time views of performance actions and activities. Such as, how many associates do we have in each of our departments and stores today? How many engagements have we created thus far today? How many guests have we served? What is the end result of every phone call that we make, every email, chat, or text message that we engage in?

How many appointments have we created per store, per department, per associate, today and each day? How many of our guest appointments have been voice-to-voice confirmed by our department managers? Of our created, and now manager confirmed, appointments, how many of our guests have shown for their appointment? How many vehicles were sold or how many repair orders were completed of our shown appointments?

Our commitment to success metrics is known as being Management-Driven; where we engineer and determine our objectives and results with precision and accuracy versus Market-Driven; where growth or decline is based upon the subjectivity of the market.

Based upon our efforts each day we are able to apply predictive performance modeling which indicates how we will perform each day, week, month, etc. in each department of each store in each region, state, and group. This advantage allows us the clarity of vision to then evaluate variable investments and direction, “Do we need shiny widgets? Do we need third-party systems or fear-based initiatives for the have’s and have-nots? “

As a Management-Driven group, we are a first-party direct investor in our marketing, merchandising, and relationship tools. We focus on our brand, our digital assets, our message and use our phone numbers as well as CRM routing direct to our teams. We are not going to place our future on a third-party ecosystem.

We are not alone in our commitment to first-party direct; we are privileged to operate ZMOT Auto. ZMOT serves, shares, and aligns our success metrics and marketing science with fellow dealers and groups throughout North America.

High-performing stores within this pandemic are known as Unicorns, can you enlighten us further?
The unicorns are the stores who outperformed February in March. The teams within these stores stood tall on the foundation of the skill they had built into the skeletal structure of culture and operation. And they knew that they would be just fine, and they have been. It has been very rewarding to see and share with these groups and teams in the United States and Canada.

I’m sure it has been! Any last words of advice for dealerships out there finding a new way forward?
We are servant leaders. As professionals, members of teams, and in service to our associates, customers, and communities we are servant leaders. We believe that as an industry, “Our Time Is Now’ means it is time to evolve and elevate ourselves and our capabilities to ensure that our guests and our communities are provided with enhanced levels of service and care. As colleagues and associates, we are a family in relationship. Together, we will lead, serve, and support each other as we navigate our new normal. Together we started strong, together we will finish stronger.

For access to the on-demand recording of the Dealer Executive Forum Q&A: “Our Time Is Now,” with Erich K. Gail of the Cardinale Group of Companies, please click here.