Have you ever told a customer, “Your brakes are fine, but your alignment is totally out of whack!”? The same concept may also apply in your dealership. Everything seems fine, but if your frontline employees answering the phones aren’t driving the type of experience you want your callers to have, there is a major misalignment. Employees have the greatest impact on your customers’ experience, ensure that yours is going in the right direction starting with one of the first stops –the phone call.
By 2020, 85% of customers will manage their relationship with a business without ever interacting with a human. The quality of the phone call and ability to answer caller’s questions has always been important, but in today’s landscape it’s critical. Consumers have developed habits utilizing great technology; we can ask Siri to connect us to Face Time with our loved ones, Alexa orders our groceries from Amazon Fresh, and Cortana helps us manage our calendars and events throughout the day. After so many conveniences that great technology provides, when a customer calls a dealership and experiences fail points like being trapped in a looping phone tree, sent to the wrong department, or placed into the hands of an unskilled, subpar employee, they move on in search of a better experience.
The difference between a mediocre dealership and a great dealership is the strength of its people. Employees need to be prepared to drive an outstanding experience that aligns with rising customer expectations, this begins with hiring the right people for the phone.
Poor hiring practices cost the automotive industry billions of dollars annually. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the price of a bad hire is at least 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings. The NADA 2017 Dealership Workforce Study reported that overall turnover increased year over year in seven of nine key dealership roles, which suggests a significant, and costly, talent selection problem in our industry.
Research from a joint study from Hireology and Cox Automotive reports that nearly 67% of today’s dealerships have no staffing strategy or formalized hiring process. Dealers may not be able to control things such as recalls, interest rates, or industry evolution and trends, but they can control who they hire.
Take control of your hiring and selection process
Stop hiring candidates just because you need a warm body. Hiring decisions are too often made based on who we like best, who presents themselves with the most confidence, or who was recommended by someone we trust. That’s not a reliable way of picking the best performer or best fit for the job. Instead, create a pre-screening process that includes a formal assessment, behavior based interviewing techniques and an audition over the phone. Disney doesn’t hire cast members who don’t love talking to strangers, dealers shouldn’t hire employees who don’t love talking on the phone. How do you find out if your candidate is a skilled communicator over the phone? Conduct a working interview over the phone and make the phone interaction part of your interview process.
Once you find great people, keep them!
How you welcome and onboard new employees into your organization is just as important as how you might welcome a new customer into your dealership. Reports show that more than 25% of employees leave a new position within the first 90 days, and turnover is costly. In fact, the average dealer loses 25 people per year and will have to sell 1,200 more cars to cover the cost.
The good news is setting up new hires to succeed increases your odds of retaining them.
New employees who are part of a well-structured onboarding orientation program are 69% more likely to remain at a company for up to three years. Kick off your new employee onboarding by setting the right foundation and welcoming new team members from the start. Your onboarding process should start by getting new employees excited about you. In other words, the first week shouldn’t be comprised of a sea of paperwork and a rundown of the 50 ways to get fired. Spread out the paperwork and focus on inspiring a new team member and building excitement about working for your dealership and your brand.
Setting a foundation isn’t an overnight process. “Hitting the ground running” does nothing but set you and your new hire up for a train wreck. It takes new hires 8 months to reach their full potential, put the time in and do it right. A one-week onboarding process isn’t sufficient for new hires. Learning takes time.
Consider a 30, 60, 90-day plan to lay the foundation for success. Start with a checklist that maps out the 30/60/90 plan and provides key increments that allow employees to focus on learning specific skills at the right times rather than everything all at once. By day 90, your new employee will be engrained in your culture, acclimated with processes, and fully prepared to execute on your vision for the customer experience, but the journey dictates the success of the end result.
A positive customer experience isn’t just polite, it’s a differentiator. Selecting the right people for the phones and preparing them to optimize phone call handling ensures that every call between a customer and a dealership is a positive experience.
Don’t miss Holly’s session at Digital Dealer 25! Understand how customer expectations have evolved and the impact employees have on the phone call experience.
