By Michael Renaud, General Manager, Alan Ram’s Proactive Training Solutions
In this blog, I would like to focus on the subject of the inbound call, on BDC teams and the top three mistakes they make regarding the inbound call.
From all the BDC dealership teams we have visited and trained, we’ve collected the three main factors that are hindering dealership success, and what keeps people from being more successful. Stop spending so much time worrying about who sells the most and start worrying about who is spilling the most. Regardless of who is answering that first call, data shows that the average dealership doesn’t answer 20-30% of inbound calls, and of those callers, 68% never call back. They move on. Success begins with avoiding the following three mistakes, without this you are selling far less cars, trucks, RVs and SUV’s; let’s work smarter not harder.
1. Lack of Understanding of Your BDC Process Flow
Does your dealership have a clearly mapped process for every sales call that gets handled when you have a BDC helping with sales calls? Do you follow it? Somewhere in your dealership’s files (or perhaps buried in a manager’s drawers) you can probably find these steps. From the moment the phone rings to the customer delivery, the appointment confirmation, the lead assignment, the CRM notes, and the introduction to the sales department — every little step is critical to the success of the call and every dealer should have clearly defined expectations for them. The more the dealership follows this process, the smoother the experience will be for the customer. And when you don’t follow these steps, the customer is the one that feels it the most.
Whether you are a BDC rep answering sales calls, a manager who is assigned the lead immediately, or a salesperson who receives these leads and are then in charge of closing that lead, you need to know exactly what your dealership expects of you for every step. Stop winging it! Slow down and take the time to understand and follow these steps. The result will be a happy customer and another closed deal for you.
2. Communication & Synchronicity Between Departments
All sales reps involved need to understand this process, and it is critical for each person involved with that customer to follow those steps and to work in sync with one another. Have you ever seen two people on a boat paddle in different directions with no synchronicity whatsoever? No matter how hard they paddle, they’re not going anywhere. But if those two people were paddling in the same direction, in sync, everything working in a rhythm, they could take that boat anywhere they wanted.
BDC and sales reps need to be in sync, moving in the same direction when working with customers. Oftentimes we see these two positions clash, and there is an obvious imbalance between them, which is then reflected onto your customers. Perhaps one department feels more empowered than the other, or one side gets more respect or recognition. In some instances, these two departments aren’t even working in the same building or might even be located on two different sites. This makes effective communication even harder to achieve.
This also means that BDC reps should be documenting as much information about the shopper as possible so that when the second rep is introduced, the customer’s experience is not impacted. The worst thing for a customer to experience is inconsistency within the same dealership. Staff who are clearly not on the same page will create distrust with the shopper. And that distrust can lead to lower gross profit or even worse, a customer walking out.
If sales reps are relying on their BDC reps to sell cars, they need to empower them. Communication & meetings with BDC reps should be daily, reviewing their customer notes, and any unsolds or no-shows. BDC reps are not phone operators, they have a huge responsibility to master that first conversation with the shopper and set the sales rep up for success.
3. BDC Reps are Not Trained Like Salespeople; and Vice Versa
BDC departments should be treated like a boot camp for new salespeople. Oftentimes we find that salespeople in BDC model stores feel entitled and don’t feel the need to really work their customer base. They have that “closer” mentality and rely heavily on leads from the BDC. Your BDC department should be open to a sales rotation, allowing each sales rep to work their follow-up, polish up phone skills, outbound calls, etc. Those are the daily activities and farming habits that make great salespeople.
And in turn, BDC reps – I challenge you to spend more time with your sales reps and understand what success looks like on the sales floor for them. Spending some time every day will provide insights into what makes their process more effective, which will in turn help you ensure that you are being the most effective before handing the customer over.
Train together. Join each other in your huddles, review your performance numbers together, and review what things need improvement. Practice your scripts, train online, and make sure that you are doing the best you can with every customer. Both teams working together for the dealership’s success is the teamwork that makes the dream work!