Success Story
Rick Case Honda of Davie Rick Case Honda of Davie Doubles Sales Opportunities and Increases Gross Profits by $200K a Month without Spending a Single Extra Dollar in Advertising Converting calls into customers is the common goal of every dealership in the country. However, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to make the phones ring, the average dealership connects less than 50 percent of its incoming calls with the intended agent, and more often than not fails to obtain enough customer contact information to conduct worthwhile follow up or future marketing campaigns.
“This strategy took a huge problem and turned it into a huge competitive advantage,” said Richard Bustillo, General Manager of Rick Case Honda of Davie. “We now have the ability to take action in areas where our competition is completely blind. This has nearly doubled the value of our marketing dollars and, more importantly, has helped us convert frustrated customers into raving fans.”
Rick Case Honda of Davie, the No.1 Honda dealership in the Southeast and the No.1 gross-profit Honda store in the country, set out to conquer this industry-wide problem by implementing an intelligent call-management strategy that enables the dealership to put missed opportunities back in play, fill-in missing contact information and accurately load incoming sales opportunities into their CRM where people and processes can increase the number of sales each marketing dollar generates.
Just 12 months ago, over 40 percent of Rick Case Honda’s incoming calls were lost or terminated by the customer before they reached the desired location. This included customers who terminated the call after being left on hold, customers who were transferred to the wrong department, as well as a variety of other undesireable scenarios.
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“This may sound strange to some, but when I realized what was happening, I got pumped up,” said Bustillo. “For the first time, we not only had a way to see where we were disappointing our customers but we also had a way to reconnect with these customers before we damaged these relationships.” The comprehensive strategy that Bustillo and his team use focuses on three critical profit leaks that were undermining the effectiveness of their advertising budget. As a result, the same number of incoming calls now puts twice as many sales opportunities into their CRM while adding more than $200,000 in gross profits to their bottom line. To illustrate the significance of this new strategy, the following breakdown highlights Rick Case Honda of Davie’s three part callmanagement strategy and how it has significantly affected their numbers. PART 1: INCREASE THE NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS THAT CONNECT WITH THE DEALERSHIP In September of 2012, Rick Case Honda of Davie received approximately 3,500 calls from their tracking numbers. Fifteen percent (550) of these calls terminated before connecting with a human being. Forty percent (1,400) of the remaining 2,950 were mishandled and/or terminated without getting the customer’s contact information. This meant that only 45 percent (1,575) of the total incoming calls were actually connecting with the proper person in the proper department. In many dealerships these calls would have been lost, but because Rick Case Honda uses an intuitive call-management system that monitors all calls, not just connected calls, the dealership receives
alerts in real-time when calls are missed or mishandled. These real-time alerts go directly to dedicated staff members who quickly re-engage the customers before they become lost opportunities and make it possible for Rick Case Honda of Davie to recapture 65 percent (1,251) of their missed and mishandled opportunities – effectively connecting them with a staggering 81 percent of their customers.
Before implementing their new callmanagement strategy, Rick Case Honda of Davie entered approximately 60 percent of incoming calls into their CRM system. Although they were performing much higher than the industry average, this was costing the dealership over 200 follow up opportunities each month. To overcome this challenge, their call-management partner uses a revolutionary, proprietary technology
Since sales calls make up 25 percent of all incoming calls at Rick Case Honda of Davie, this translates to approximately 707 sales opportunities, 313 more than their previous process. Eleven percent (78) of the customers who spoke to a sales person actually purchased a vehicle. Thus, 629 sales opportunities remain in need of follow up. PART 2: INCREASE THE NUMBER OF SALES OPPORTUNITIES WITH ACCURATE NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION Of the remaining 629 sales opportunities that did not purchase a vehicle, 40 percent (283) had missing or incomplete customer information. To avoid losing these opportunities, Rick Case Honda’s call-management system uses a proprietary technology that matches incomplete customer records against national cell phone directories and NCOA databases before loading leads into their CRM. On average, this process completes 60 percent of their incomplete customer records. In September, this unique, proprietary technology delivered an additional 170 confirmed prospects. “This is incredibly important,” said Bustillo. “Seventy percent of customers call our dealership from their cell phones so most reverse lookup systems would completely miss this.” PART 3: INCREASE THE NUMBER OF OPPORTUNITIES INCLUDED IN FOLLOW UP PROCESSES
“This strategy took a hu into a huge comp
-RICHAR
GENERAL MANAGER OF R
Rick Case Honda of Davie that accurately loads over 85 percent (309) of incoming sales calls into their CRM. The sum total of these incremental increases has doubled their active sales opportunities on a monthly basis with game-changing results. “This system operates at a completely different level,” said Bustillo. “It automatically assigns incoming calls to
uge problem and turned it petitive advantage.”
RD BUSTILLO
RICK CASE HONDA OF DAVIE
the sales person named in the call. It automatically cross-references every call with our existing opportunities and ad sources to avoid duplicate entries, and it automatically inserts call summaries, alerts and links to the recordings into our CRM in a way that’s easy to read – and it’s all done in real-time.” These automated processes are all part of the comprehensive, intuitive callmanagement platform that has helped to dramatically improve the dealership’s internal processes. Brian Kane, BDC Manager for Rick Case Honda of Davie, shares Bustillo’s enthusiasm for their call-management strategy and points out that this new call-management technology has had a significant impact on the efficiency of their call center, “I used to spend 25 percent of my day de-duping our CRM,” said Kane. “This cuts out a lot of that busy work so I can focus on selling cars.” When one looks at the effectiveness and results generated by this three-part callmanagement strategy, it is easy to see how any one of these efforts would provide a noticeable boost in most dealerships. However, the combined benefits of all three parts seamlessly working together from a single technology platform are nothing less than extraordinary, as they have produced measurable growth in every profit center at Rick Casa Honda of Davie. When asked about the impact this new call-management strategy has had on his business, Bustillo answers in very black and white terms. “It’s simple. Before we implemented this strategy I connected with 45 percent of my incoming calls and generated approximately $266,000 in gross profit. Now, I connect with 81 percent of my incoming calls and generate over $475,000 in gross profit from the same 3,500 calls – all without spending a single extra dollar in advertising. That’s $2.5 million a year
“I used to spend 25 percent of my day de-duping our CRM.This cuts out a lot of the busy work so I can focus on selling cars.” BRIAN KANE BDC Manager
RICK CASE HONDA OF DAVIE
that I would have otherwise left on the table.” “It’s hard to argue with the math. Capitalizing on missed and mishandled phone calls is a huge opportunity,” said Chip King, Managing Partner of www. CallRevu.com, the call-management partner that Rick Case Honda of Davie uses. “Bustillo and his team aggressively stepped up to an industry-wide problem that plagues auto dealers and knocked it out of the park – to the tune of a couple ‘extra’ million dollars annually.” The average dealership misses or mishandles over 50 percent of their incoming calls. Rick Case Honda of Davie solved this problem by implementing a comprehensive call-management strategy that allows them to connect, convert and keep significantly more of their opportunities. This three-part strategy has increased monthly gross profits by over $200,000 by increasing the number of customers that connect with their dealership, improving the quality of their customer data and increasing the number of opportunities that are accurately entered into their CRM.
Success Story
Success Story
Rick Case Honda of Davie
“This has nearly doubled the value of our marketing dollars...” NOW
BEFORE
“Before we implemented this strategy, I connected with 45 percent of my incoming calls and generated approximately $266,000 in gross profit. Now, I connect with 81 percent of my incoming calls and generate approximately $478,000 in gross profit from the same 3,500 calls – all without spending a single extra dollar in advertising. That’s $2.5 million a year that I would have otherwise left on the table.” -RICHARD BUSTILLO | GENERAL MANAGER OF RICK CASE HONDA
IN A NUTSHELL Rick Case Honda of Davie Doubles Sales Opportunities and Increases Gross Profits by $200K a Month without Spending a Single Extra Dollar in Advertising • Increased the number of calls connecting with their customers by using an intelligent callmanagement strategy that enables them to quickly re-engage lost, dropped or misdirected calls before they become lost opportunities. • Improve the quality of sales opportunities by using a proprietary technology that detects incomplete customer records and automatically appends missing data before submitting leads into their CRM. • Increased the number of customers included in follow up activities by using an intuitive system that automatically cross-references every call with existing opportunities and ad sources and accurately posts incoming calls into their CRM. • Partnered with a call-management expert, www.CallRevu.com, to implement a phone strategy that has effectively doubled their sales opportunities and increased gross profits by $200K a month, without spending a single extra dollar in advertising.
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