Auto|Motivated

With the rise of online and mobile enquiries, dealer groups have invested in Business Development Centres (BDC) to centralise their enquiries, aiming to create efficiency and consistency as well as taking much of the leg work away from the sales team on the floor. There have been some successful examples on how a BDC increases appointments and, in turn, sales but there are a number of challenges in managing large volumes of leads, and team members, in a consistent and efficient manner. Some large dealer groups in the US have moved from a BDC to Direct Sales Model and are seeing uplifts in conversion, gross and customer satisfaction. Equally, by scaling down BDC resource as well as rationalising the sales floor, has seen an expense reduction, and in turn increased returns. From a customer experience perspective, the biggest disconnections in the BDC process are: The customer is inevitably transferred to a sales team, meaning they have to establish rapport and trust all over again. The p...

Change management or change maintenance: a culture of change Throughout my 25 years in the motor industry I have been heavily involved in managing change, whether that be system, process or culture, and I am constantly hit with the phrase change management. For the majority of my career this has rung true and been a key part of delivering solutions to my team and customers, but, recently I have started to challenge it. The digital age has well and truly arrived in automotive yet i challenge that we are more disconnected than ever. As managers we spend more time looking at our phones than we do speaking to our teams. We are adept at communicating our expectations around KPI's but how well do we communicate our expectations on our values, other than strategically placed flyers around the dealership. And, of those cleverly thought our vision acronyms, how often do we cite change as part of our core value? As an organisation, do you live your beliefs or print them? We seem to compartme...

How do you intend to lift finance share in your dealership? After conversations with numerous dealer groups since the inception of commission changes on 1 November, this topic still remains somewhat contraversial, yet the market is unanimous that industry Finance share needs to increase to over 60%...fast! Make no mistake, the 35-40% finance penetration industry standard ARE THE CAPTIVE CUSTOMERS. That is why it is the standard and achieved so universally across the industry. It is not because our sales teams and Finance Specialists are all equally adept at maximising the opportunities! The only way to reach 60%+ is to start the reeducation process of our customer...starting from the second they start their research online. Here are 6 reasons why the sales floor is a critical stakeholder in this education process: Early referrals are a fallacy! 92% of finance customers already know their funding intentions by the time they speak to the finance specialist. We are currently influencing t...