Dealership Innovation Guide Q3 2013 by DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership

INNOVATION

GUIDE

A DrivingSales Publication â&#x20AC;˘ 3rd Quarter, 2013

Quar terly Ranking of Dealership Vendors and Best Practices

Meeting Shoppers on the Mobile Path to Purchase Adam Flegge - Page 28

Mobile Conversion

Chad Sabatka - Page 36

How to Engage your Audience with Social Media Nicole Campbell - Page 32

What does the Online User Want? Jennifer Suzuki - Page 42

Mobile Live Chat

Rebecca Kon - Page 22

Visit DrivingSales.com to view more than 8,000 verified dealer ratings of over 800 vendors in 28 categories.

I help find the formula by diving deep into the technology to keep our client solutions running at full speed resulting in optimal lift. Jing An, Guardian of Technical Excellence

The Complete Guide to a Killer Mobile App

Download your free copy on our website today! MasterCall Solutions Dealer Branded Mobile Apps Science Driven Direct Marketing that gets Results www.DMEautomotive.com Images ÂŠ Steve Thornton

866-846-9046

Dealership

INNOVATION

GUIDE

A DrivingSales Publication

Quar terly Ranking of Dealership Vendors and Best Prac tices

Dealership Executives, One of the best parts of my job is to act on behalf of the dealers in the community and, at their request, connect them with the most successful people in the world and the subjects dealers are interested in. In that light, I was really pumped when Danny Sullivan’s name came up and was requested as a keynote for DSES 2013. Danny is someone I’ve personally been following and learning from for many years – he is one of the most brilliant minds in digital marketing and I’m stoked to announce him as a keynote at the DrivingSales Executive Summit this year. Our goal has always been simple: Help dealers fill in the gaps that exist within their dealerships to improve performance. Danny Sullivan will be another incredible resource to help you understand what’s happening now and stay more than just a couple of steps ahead of your competition. Danny’s keynote presentation, Racing to Keep Up with the Fast Pace of Digital Marketing, will cover: • • • •

Current state of search marketing strategies What Google is doing to help brands & consumers How marketers need to respond to the new rules Content marketing strategies - how the auto industry needs to be thinking

I want to personally invite you to join me at this year’s DSES, which will be held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas from Sunday, October 13th through Tuesday, October 15th. We have even more great keynote surprises coming out in the next few weeks, so stay tuned! Every year DSES has sold out and this year will be no different, so don’t hesitate and register now. See you in Vegas! Sincerely,

Meet the Team Jared Hamilton Founder, DrivingSales Inc. @jaredhamiltonDS Jeff Pease Art Director jeff.pease@drivingsales.com @jeffpease Mike Jeffs Marketing Coordinator mike.jeffs@drivingsales.com @mikejeffs3 Larry Schlagheck Director of Advertising larry@drivingsales.com @larryschlagheck Eric Miltsch Director of Product Strategy eric.miltsch@drivingsales.com @emiltsch Bart Wilson Business Development bart.wilson@drivingsales.com @bartrwilson Tommy Bay Director of Marketing tommy.bay@drivingsales.com @tommybay

Jared Hamilton Founder, DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 3

Thanks to our Sponsors!

MAGAZINE CREDITS About This Guide Dealership Innovation Guide is published quarterly by DrivingSales, LLC. To subscribe, visit DealershipInnovationGuide.com. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright © DrivingSales, LLC 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without publisher’s written permission. Dealership Innovation Guide and DrivingSales, LLC assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs.

4 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Letters To The Editor Dealership Innovation Guide and DrivingSales, LLC welcome Letters to the Editor. If you have questions about the guide, or would like to make a comment, or voice an opinion about the guide, DrivingSales, LLC, or the industry in general, please feel free to write us. Please send letters to mike.jeffs@drivingsales.com. Include a telephone number and email address. Letters may be edited for clarity or space. Because of the high volume of mail we receive, we cannot respond to all letters. Dealership Innovation Guide

Table of Contents

3rd Quarter - 2013

FEATURES 14

Internet Lead Management: Implementing an Effective Process

Ron Henson

Did you Hire them Dead or Kill them After you Got them? Craig Lockerd

MOBILE LIVE CHAT

Adam Flegge

By Rebecca Kon

to be legitimate and posted for you

Mobile Conversion

Advertising of the Past & Digital Marketing of the Future

Dealership Innovation Guide

Chad Sabatka

Kyle Reyes

What does the Online User Want?

Training is Built on Trust

to learn who the best vendors are – directly from your peers.

How to Engage your Audience with Social Media (and have them loving every minute of it) Nicole Campbell

On DrivingSales.com, dealers can rate their vendors. All reviews are verified

Meeting Shoppers on the Mobile Path to Purchase

Jennifer Suzuki

Chris Curry

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 5

Over 8,000 unbiased vendor ratings submitted by verified dealers.

CATEGORIES 8

Call Management Chat CRM/Sales Department Dealership Management Systems (DMS)

Fixed Ops Solutions Internet Lead Management (ILM)

1 0 Internet Trainers Inventory Pricing Mobile Sites New Car Leads

1 1 Owner Marketing Reputation Management

1 2 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEM - PPC Used Car Advertising Websites

6 â&#x20AC;˘ 3rd Quarter - 2013 â&#x20AC;˘ DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 7

Call Management Solutions that track inbound calls through designated tracking phone numbers so that you can manage your marketing spend and increase ROI.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

CAR-Research XRM

Call Tracking / Ad Sourcing Solution

128.26

Century Interactive

Call Tracking from Century Interactive

14.6

ELEAD1ONE

ELEAD Virtual BDC

CallSource CallTracking CallRevu, LLC

CallRevu

271.66

98%

122.66

100%

0.6

92% 100% 100%

Chat Products These solutions allow you to meet, greet and converse with customers who visit your website, as well as set appointments, generate leads and provide better customer service.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

Dealer e Process

Dealer e Process Live Chat

46.57

ActivEngage

ActivEngage Chat

1.58

ContactAtOnce! LLC

CarChat24

ContactAtOnce! Chat Connect

CarChat24 - 24/7 Fully Staffed Chat

Client~ConneXion Chat~ConneXion

121.02

100%

18.47

100%

0.25

100% 91% 100%

CRM-Sales Department Variable Ops: these are CRM systems that track all your walk-in, phone and Internet customers through the complete sales funnel and owner life-cycle. They allow for advanced customer segmentation and marketing and track your sales activities by employee to make your team more effective at attracting customers and managing relationships.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

CAR-Research XRM

83.07

Dominion Dealer Solutions

ELEAD1ONE DealerSocket

VinSolutions

Dominion CRM

ELEAD CRM

DealerSocket CRM

VinSolutions MotoSnap™ CRM

474.81

97%

82.73

98%

8.36

0.17

99% 71% 86%

Dealership Management Systems (DMS) Dealership Management Systems connect all your dealership departments with accounting and maintain your dealership data in one central place. These ratings are for the DMS systems themselves, NOT the solutions that plug into the DMS systems such as a Desking or CRM solution.

Company

Auto/Mate Dealership Systems

Product AMPS

Quorum Information Technologies XSellerator Reynolds and Reynolds

8 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Reynolds ERA DMS

Score Rating Rec 417.03

100%

4.23

50%

68.83

100%

Dealership Innovation Guide

Fixed Ops Solutions Customer Relationship Management systems for the Fixed Operations.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

CIMA Systems

CIMA CarView

367.47

Dealer e Process

Virtual Service Consultant

13.06

CIMA Systems

CIMA Car Care Service Menus

ELEAD1ONE AutoPilot Dealer e Process

Live Repair Orders

754.29

100%

337.51

98%

10.68

100% 100% 100%

Internet Lead Management (ILM) These Internet Lead Management solutions are built exclusively to handle incoming Internet leads and manage your Internet sales process. Many full-service CRM systems include Internet Lead Management features, but the ILM systems listed below are stand alone utilities built exclusively for managing Internet Leads.

Company

Dominion Dealer Solutions

ELEAD1ONE

Product Dominion ILM

ELEAD ILM

Score Rating Rec 636.13

100%

82.63

CAR-Research XRM

Internet Lead Manager

37.72

DealerSocket

DealerSocket ILM

0.03

HookLogic - AutoHook

Lead to Show 2.0

“ELEAD1ONE offers the most complete CRM and lead management solution. With ELEAD1ONE, I communicate better with my sales and service customers which significantly improves retention, loyalty and market share. The live call center is unbeatable! By partnering with ELEAD1ONE, I was able to consolidate multiple vendors into one, easy-to-use retail solution that more efficiently manages three high-volume dealerships, including the nation’s #1 Nissan store.”

0.03

98%

100% 100% 100%

Trusted by the Nation’s #1 Nissan Store

Philip J. Delzatto

General Manager Nissan of Garden City Nissan of Huntington Volkswagen of Huntington

Dealership Innovation Guide

866. 989.8077 | sales@eleadcrm.com | www.elead-crm.com DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 9

Internet Trainers Consultants and trainers who focus on bringing online success to dealerships. General Dealership Consultants, Sales Trainers, and Fixed Operations Consultants belong in their own categories.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

PCG Digital Marketing

Brian Pasch

11.97

eXtéresAUTO

eXtéresEDU - Dealer Training

3.28

KPA

Phone Ninjas

DealerKnows Consulting

DealerWebinars.com 342.18

100%

Phone Ninjas

100%

Joe Webb

100%

3.95

94%

100%

1.70

Inventory Pricing With market volatility and transparency increasing online, knowing how to price your inventory is a science critical to increasing your store’s profitability. These “Inventory Pricing” tools collect various forms of market data to help define the optimum pricing for your inventory to maximize both Gross and Turn.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

DealerTrack Technologies

TrueTarget™

1.09

vAuto

Black Book

Pricing & Merchandising Tools Black Book Used Car Guides

386.10

100%

50%

100%

0.98

Mobile Sites These websites are built specifically for mobile browsers to cater to customers surfing the web from mobile devices.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

DealerOn

DealerOn Mobile Sites

0.24

Dealer e Process

DealerFire

Dealer e Process Mobile Websites

DealerFire Mobile Websites

572.01

100%

0.24

100%

New Car Leads These providers collect and aggregate leads from their web properties and from partner sites, then distribute these hot leads to dealers. Currently this category is for both finance and vehicle leads.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

Autobytel Inc.

Autobytel New Car Leads

7.47

92%

0.20

50%

Dealix

Dealix New Car Leads

115.24

AutoTrader

New Car Advertising

0.95

Edmonds.com

Edmunds New Car Leads

0.14

TrueCar

TrueCar New Car Leads

98%

75% 100%

*Category scores are computed per category and are not comparable across the board. For questions about Vendor Ratings, please email to bart.wilson@drivingsales.com 10 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

Owner Marketing These targeted solutions help you mine and segment your customer database, and then market to them successfully. These solutions can market to your customers through email/direct mail/phone and other means.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

CIMA Systems

Complete Virtual BDC

141.59

J&L Marketing

bLinked

ELEAD1ONE GoldDigger

OneCommand OneCommand CAR-Research XRM

Owner Marketing

193.74

100%

65.50

100%

31.24 11.51

100% 100% 100%

Reputation Management These products and services help a dealership manage its online reputation. They may assist with review collection, monitoring, resolution and promotion of online reviews.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

eXtéresAuto

Online Reputation Management

98.89

Cobalt

Reputation Management

1.62

DealerRater.com

Slipstream Creative Dominion Dealer Solutions Dealership Innovation Guide

DealerRater Certified Dealer Program

Reputation Management Dominion Prime

161.98

98%

16.27

100%

1.62

97% 100% 100% DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 11

SEM - PPC These solutions help you determine how to invest in and execute a Pay-Per-Click campaign on the major search engines for greatest ROI.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

Local Search Group

Search Engine Advertising

184.99

PCG Digital Marketing

PPC Management Service

26.38

Dealer e Process

POTRATZ

Dynamic Web Solutions

Dealer e Process Digital Marketing

Search and Behavioral for Website Pay Per Click Advertising

435.64

100%

54.77

100%

2.06

100% 100% 100%

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) These companies will help get your website optimized so that it shows up higher in the search engine rankings. These services generally include both on-page and off-page optimization.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

Dealer e Process

Power PageRank SEO

49.96

KPA

Search Engine Optimization

0.84

eXtéresAUTO

PCG Digital Marketing Dynamic Web Solutions

eXtéresAUTO - SEO

SEO & Strategic Internet Marketing Search Engine Optimization

228.65

94%

36.56

100%

0.84

100% 100% 100%

Used Car Advertising These consumer facing websites allow you to display your inventory to in-market consumers. They make huge media buys to attract customers to your inventory, and to increase your walk-in, phone and web leads.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

PureCars

PureCars SmartComments

105.59

100%

GetAuto.com

Advertising & Leads Program

5.88

100%

Dealix UsedCars.com 121.54 97%

PureCars

PureCars Value Report

93.71

100%

Websites These full service websites are built to be the main hub of your dealership’s online presence and are central to your dealership’s marketing, branding and customer service. Note: Micro Sites and Mobile Sites are rated in their own categories on DrivingSales.com.

Company

Product

Score Rating Rec

Dominion Dealer Solutions

Dominion Websites

121.48

DealerFire

DealerFire Custom Websites

7.16

Dealer eProcess

DealerOn

Dealer Car Search

Dealer eProcess Dealer Website

DealerOn - Flex Sites Web Design

218.29

100%

108.57

97%

0.93

99% 100%

90%

*Category scores are computed per category and are not comparable across the board. For questions about Vendor Ratings, please email to bart.wilson@drivingsales.com 12 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

How Vendor Ratings Work

Vendor Ranking

The DrivingSales Vendor Ratings site is the first formal mechanism for dealers to rate and review their vendors in a comprehensive, real-time vendor directory. It empowers dealers by allowing them to learn about all the solutions available and to view actual customer feedback, both good and bad, about how each solution actually performs.

In each product category the vendor solutions are ranked in real-time as each new dealer rating is submitted. The vendor products are ranked based on a weighted Bayesian Algorithm. This is a standard mathematical calculation that looks at the number of stars the reviewer gave as well as the statistically valid sample size needed, relative to the competitive set, to create a ranking based on the statistical accuracy of the results. Sometimes a company with 3 stars will rate above a company with 4 stars if mathematically the first company has a higher probability of success based on the submitted reviews.

Rules • •

•

Only dealership employees can post ratings and reviews. Reviewers are verified to ensure they are valid and eligible to leave reviews. Dealership employees can only rate and review the products they have experience using. The ratings are a chance to hear from actual customers with live experience using the solutions in their stores. Each reviewer must answer three questions to complete their rating: 1. How many stars does the solution deserve? 2. Would you recommend the solution to a friend? 3. Why would or wouldn’t you recommend the solution? All three components of the review, along with the job title of the reviewer, are posted live to DrivingSales. com for all to reference when selecting new vendors.

Safeguards •

•

DrivingSales.com protects the anonymity of each dealer employee who leaves a rating and review. However, DrivingSales requires valid name and contact information for each reviewer so that each reviewer can be validated. Each review is passed through a variety of technological checkpoints to ensure vendors are not gaming the system. Furthermore, DrivingSales staff calls to verify a large percentage of the reviews.

We encourage all dealers to rate and review their vendors by visiting DrivingSales.com/Ratings

Dealer Satisfaction Awards The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards recognize those solutions with the highest vendor ratings. For each category within the vendor ratings there are three award winners, the “Highest Rated” vendor and two “Top Rated” vendors. These awards reflect products and providers with a proven record of success and excellence in serving their dealer clients. The Dealer Satisfaction Award trophies are presented annually. Learn more at DealerSatisfactionAwards.com

Rankings Only dealership employees are allowed to rate their vendors on DrivingSales.com and all submitted ratings are verified. The vendors are then scored and ranked using a weighted Bayesian Algorithm (shown below). Sometimes a company with 3 stars will rate above a company with 4 stars if mathematically the first company has a higher probability of success based on the submitted reviews.

w = (m*v 2 )*r+(v 2 *m)*c

The Vendor Ratings in this issue are based on the aggregate of all dealer ratings submitted from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. *Category scores are computed per category and are not comparable across the board. For questions about Vendor Ratings, please contact bart.wilson@drivingsales.com

View detailed vendor reviews written by verified dealers at DrivingSales.com/Ratings Dealership Innovation Guide

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 13

Internet Lead Management Implementing an Effective Process

Google search of the term “Automotive Internet Lead Management” returns 27,000,200 results in .32 seconds. Suffice it to say, there are a number of different schools of thought on this topic. If you have the time to look through 10% of the aforementioned search results, you may have too much time on your hands. I certainly think the content of what you are sending to your prospects is of utmost importance, but I also subscribe to the notion that having a defined process your entire team follows is of equal importance. Once you have dialed in an effective process, it is management’s job to assure that said process is:

Do you know your current average response time? If not, it’s time to put a measurement matrix in place. Also, a fast response is not enough. Quality must be achieved as defined in the following items. 2.

If you are not pricing your inventory “on the money,” you are out of the Internet game. You do not need to be the lowest price in the market, but you do need to be in the more aggressive sample set to gain consideration. 3.

2. Repeatable 3. Defined 4. Managed

Rather than telling any reader of this article there is only one tried and true way of handling Internet Leads, I offer a checklist by which you can self-evaluate how effective your current process is.

Quick Response

Best practice dealers are responding to leads in less than 10 minutes. This does not include an auto-responder. Dealership Innovation Guide

Advantages of your product, your dealership and your staff

The notion that Internet customers know exactly what they want is FALSE. Internet customers are like walk-in customers, they need to be sold. We sell online by sharing knowledge and using links to quality content. 5.

Appointment Request via Telephone

Your chances of succeeding with Internet customers skyrocket once you get them on the phone. Unless they specifically request communication via email only, use the phone to your advantage.

So, here comes the hard part. Does implementing a process and instilling accountability require a lot of work? Of course! However, as with most things in life, hard work has its rewards.

CHALLENGE: Interview multiple members of your team representing a wide cross-section of job roles. Ask them to define your Internet Lead Handling Process as it currently stands. If you receive consistent answers, you are on the right path. If you get quizzical looks and a lot of mumbling, perhaps it’s time to break it down and start from the ground up. I will say with certainty the journey, as arduous as it may be, will be worth the trip!

About The Author:

Ron Henson is the Director of Dealer Services for DrivingSales & DrivingSales University. Prior to joining the DrivingSales team, Ron spent over 20 years in the retail side of the auto industry, most recently as the General Manager of a successful Honda dealership. He is an avid sports enthusiast and spends much of his free time watching his kids play football and soccer. Ron resides in Bountiful, UT with his wife of 22 years and his 3 children.

Long-Term Follow Up

Statistically speaking, many 3rd party leads close post 30 days. Manage a 120-day follow up process to capture the customers you have reached early in their buying process.

Keep in mind, a strong system is crucial for your dealership’s success online. Does your Internet process achieve these seven items? 1.

Vehicle Options

Statistically speaking, many customers ultimately buy a different vehicle than the one they submit a lead on. Be prepared to switch vehicles by showing the customer other great deals you have in inventory. This will also help steer the discussion away from price and let you focus on the “right car.”

1. Executable

So, what is the magic bullet when it comes to establishing an effective Lead Handling Process? Obviously, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and if you find and implement an effective process, you have taken a giant step up the mountain. Many times I speak to dealers, and more importantly dealership employees, and ask them to explain their ILM process and to rate its efficacy. The answers I receive are sometimes entertaining, rarely consistent, and oftentimes alarming. One of the biggest problems I see is there is not a defined process and it is left up to the individual who happens to be handling a particular lead… Oops!

Transparency in Price, Availability and Trade

cannot switch to a model of hiding information once they show up at the dealership. If the process is consistent, closing rates and referrals will both increase.

Consistent Sales Process on the Showroom Floor

Once you have built a relationship of trust and transparency, you

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 15

Did you Hire them Dead or Kill them After you got them ?

he way dealerships make the decision to hire more salespeople and how they replace underperforming salespeople has always baffled me. I’ve seen countless formulas, statistical data and seasonal hiring decisions, but very few of these models make any sense. I’ve even had managers tell me they need to hire four salespeople, and when I asked why four, they respond by saying, “That’s how many desks we have open!”

Law of Diminishing Returns The Law of Diminishing Returns in terms of hiring employees at a dealership can be simplified into three stages: •

Stage one is the addition of more salespeople, which allows for specialization of job responsibilities and increased production efficiency. The result is a larger output return for each additional unit of input.

their salespeople decided to come in late. How many dealers have invested millions into their store and sales staff just to see them leave for a hot, new store that opened down the street? Take a minute to write down how many hours a salesperson is currently scheduled to be at the dealership. Would an additional shift or shifts allow them to work fewer hours and be more effective? Would working fewer hours allow sales professionals to have a better quality of life, if that is what would make them more loyal to the store? Would a more robust staff scheduling model also help dealers deal with talented sales professionals at the dealership who have occasional “manageritis”; employees who have threatened to leave if they don’t receive a promotion?

Is More Better?

•

Stage two is where inputs equal outputs. Each new salesperson added will continue to increase production, but only at the same rate as the increased input of labor.

How much time do salespeople have to create more business when they’re at the dealership bell to bell? Did the dealership sell more cars when it had more sales staff?

•

Stage three is when additional salespeople will start to decrease production efficiency because the work environment is fixed in the short-run. This results in returns that are much less than the labor input.

Some rural dealers are selling 5 to 10 times more cars than dealers in major metro areas. While there are several factors involved in this, the definitive answer is this: Dealers need better recruited and trained salespeople. I want to share my insights on how dealers can achieve world-class results through better recruiting and training.

Do dealers have any idea where that third stage is for their dealership? The ideal outcome at the dealership should be to have as many people as possible buy the dealer’s products and services at the highest possible profit margins and deliver 100 percent customer satisfaction. Dealers can’t achieve that outcome unless they’ve maximized the quantity of quality, properly recruited, screened, interviewed and trained salespeople. I can hear a dealer or general manager object and say, “I don’t want to flood my floor.” That’s admirable, and I applaud their moral judgment in trying to make sure their salespeople all make a good living. However, how many times has a dealer invested in having a special sale, and they look around on the day of the event and notice several of Dealership Innovation Guide

Judy B. Margolis, writes: “Employees who grow too comfortable and complacent lose their edge. The more they know, or think they know, about how their particular slice of the business world works, the less likely they are to challenge their old tried-and-true methodologies and to innovate. The same holds true for companies that fail to embrace change, and instead have it foisted upon them, often when it is too late.”

How to Recruit When a GM/GSM decides it’s time to hire salespeople, they may post a job opening in the newspaper, Craigslist, or CareerBuilder, or post something

on an industry job board and expect candidates to start rolling in immediately. They may even suggest their existing salespeople go to the mall and look for good candidates. This rarely, if ever, yields a promising candidate. So the classified ad is placed and what happens? •

Candidates will call but when transferred, they go to a manager’s voice mail. These calls may or may not get returned.

•

Candidates walk in, but the manager is busy, so they are told to wait……and wait……and wait…. and then….the candidate leaves.

•

Candidates walk in and leave a resume. They never get called back because the resume was buried or there was no procedure where resumes should be placed.

Does this recruiting process sound familiar? Dealers are missing great candidates. This practice paints a very poor picture of the automotive retail industry.

What Hasn’t Changed in 50 Years Everything changes constantly and rapidly except one thing—what people want. This survey came out in 1946 in “Foreman Facts,” from the Labor Relations Institute of New York, and was produced again in 1949 by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine. Here’s what employees said they wanted, starting with what’s most important to them: 1. Full appreciation for work done 2. Feeling “in” on things 3. Sympathetic help on personal problems 4. Job security 5. Good wages 6. Interesting work 7. Promotion/growth opportunities 8. Personal loyalty to workers DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 17

9. Good working conditions 10. Tactful discipline Now take a look at what managers think employees want, starting with what they think is most important: 1. Good wages 2. Job security 3. Promotion/growth opportunities

new home because of the training and mentoring the dealership provided. Top commissions don’t necessarily translate into something positive to the candidate reading a job posting. Candidates don’t understand what “tons of inventory to sell” means; they might think the dealership is having trouble selling cars! Employment ads must have strong “hooks,” and I will share some winning templates with readers.

4. Good working conditions

The Interview

5. Interesting work

Once the candidate arrives at the dealership, what does the interview process look like?

6. Personal loyalty to workers 7. Tactful discipline

•

“So what makes you think you can sell cars?”

•

“Why did you leave your last job?”

•

“Can you handle 60-hour workweeks?”

•

“How do you feel about working with a bunch of men hitting on you everyday?”

8. Full appreciation for work done 9. Sympathetic help with personal problems 10. Feeling “in” on things Dealers need to structure their job postings based on what the employee wants to achieve. There are so many success stories at car dealerships, like the former forklift operator I knew who was able to buy his family a beautiful

•

“Sell me this pen.”

Do these questions sound familiar? Have they ever worked? My guess is, not often. Dealers need to rethink their interview process.

Screening Use a predictive index or screening tool in addition to your interview process: Wunderlick, D.I.S.C, AVA, or The Car Sales Simulator by Hire the Winners. The dealership screening processes, personal investigations, drug testing, DMV and background checks must be done fast! Top talent may not wait two weeks for the results; dealers need to tailor their process to the job seeker, not the other way around.

Training Dealers must invest in a strong training program, yet many have reduced training investments from their budget while others make excuses: Excuse: What if I train my salespeople and they leave? Response: What if you don’t and they stay? Dealers will train new candidates either in-house or in conjunction with an outside training program. The outsourced training can be online courses or live workshops. Once the training is completed, dealers must consider the processes they have in place to retain and inspect their training investment. After a limited training period, it’s common for a new employee to be placed on the floor to take “ups.” The first customer arrives and the new salesperson greets them just the way he/she was trained to do. The customer grabs a brochure and leaves without ever speaking with a manager. The manager calls the new salesperson over for a recap, and the employee responds with an excuse, which can be:

18 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

•

Oh, they were just looking.

•

Kicking tires on their lunch hour.

•

His wife was next door shopping and he was killing time.

•

They were asking for directions. Dealership Innovation Guide

u s e R s u m m i T 2013 s e p T e m b e R 12-14

T h e R i T z C a R lTo n , l a g u n a n i g u e l , Ca

useRsummiT.dealeRsoCkeT.Com

•

Their car was getting an oil change.

Since this was the 15th customer who visited the showroom today without one sale, the manager informs the new salesperson (in your best Alex Baldwin voice from “Glengarry Glen Ross”) “Coffee is for Closers, Kid.” The new employee cowers back into his office. At the end of the day, the manager remembers yelling at the “Green Pea.” The manager sits down with the new hire and informs them that he/she will be trailing “Five Car Fred” the rest of the week. Fast-forward three weeks, and one of two things have happened: •

•

The new hire has settled in nicely due to the training of Five Car Fred and has quickly become “Four Car Frank.” You look around and the new hire has blown out and gone on to become the CEO of Burger Doodle down the street.

Did You Hire Them Dead or Kill Them After You Got Them? This type of typical outcome can stop if a dealer is willing to step back and rethink their training program at the dealership. Failed recruitment and training processes can be easily fixed. Dealers must take an honest look at their processes and ask if they are really working to produce the desired outcome they want.

What Are We Selling? In the book, “The One Minute Salesperson,” author Spencer Johnson, M.D. says: “People don’t buy our products, services or ideas; they buy how they imagine using them will make them feel!” What logical sense does it make for any consumer to buy a vehicle that will be worth thousands less than they paid as soon as they drive off the dealership lot? Their purchase has an emotional aspect that cannot be ignored.

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Dealership training must focus on the emotions and feelings of in-market car shoppers. Two basics things motivate humans: avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. Dealers should train their staff to direct conversations with their clients toward those feelings that will give them the pleasure they are seeking,

Rethinking Training Frequency Car dealers need to train their sales staff every day! They may think they don’t have the material for daily training, but they are wrong. A dealer’s sales staff can easily conduct their own training meetings daily. The GM/ GSM should be the training facilitator

“

Keeping the Team Motivated I don’t care how much dealers train their sales team, spiff them, yell at them, threaten them or beg them. Salespeople will not be motivated until dealers understand what their real “why” is. Their “why” that is a “must,” instead of a “should.” Sales managers need to take five minutes at the start of each month to sit with each salesperson and see what it is they absolutely “must” have this month or quarter or year. I’m not talking about number of units sold or money made. I’m talking about their “why.” Managers should encourage sales professionals to express what it is they really want, which will become their “why.” The manager should write down their “why.” Let’s say one employee’s “why” is to get a new home. The manager then investigates why is the new home a “must,” rather than a “should.” In this case, the salesperson just had another child and needs more room.

People don’t buy our products, services or ideas; they buy how they imagine using them will make them feel. and the person who holds their team accountable, not the content provider. The sales meeting facilitator can walk into a meeting with a portable white board in hand. The facilitator starts by asking the sales team what is a situation that someone is having trouble overcoming. They write it on the board. Then they go around the room and ask if anyone else is having the same problem; heads will nod affirmatively. The facilitator then asks who has a solution they would like to share. Veteran salespeople love to give green peas and those that are struggling their opinion. In this scenario, someone else will chime in and the salespeople are engaged. The sales team actually starts training each other, and the facilitator keeps the discussion going. There is never a lack of material and conversation when this strategy is used.

Too often, we all say, “I should do this” or “I should do that,” and pretty soon we end up should-ing all over ourselves. Have you ever found yourself under a big pile of should? I know I have. Once the manager has the salesperson’s “why” and “must,” they need to obtain the “feeling.” Remember this quote from earlier: “People don’t buy our products, services or ideas; they buy how they imagine using them will make them feel?” The salesperson’s “why” is a feeling. The sales manager must ask the salesperson how it will make them “feel” to get their family moved into a bigger home. The salesperson will answer, and the sales manager should write down how they’ll measure the employee’s progress, because you can’t manage that which you can’t measure. Their answer might be to create a separate “new home account.” Finally, the sales manager should ask the salesperson to write down what results they’re not getting that they need in order to accomplish their “why.” Dealership Innovation Guide

Managers who follow this recommended process should give a copy of the discussion to the employee and keep a copy at their desk. The next time a salesperson says their clients won’t follow the dealership’s proven processes, the sales manager can pull out that folder and open it to their “why.” The manager will remind the salesperson of the commitments they made to themselves and ensure the salesperson follows the processes correctly every time. After a while, all the manger will need to do is reach toward the drawer that file is in, and the employee will get back on track.

Tapping Into the Marketplace I often hear dealers proclaim it’s very difficult to find good salespeople for their dealership. I want to challenge that thinking, especially at a time when we have record unemployment. Could it be the benefits of working at a dealership are cloudy at best?

Dealership Innovation Guide

Dealers cannot afford to ignore the tried-and-true wisdom of Fortune 500 companies and other dealers that publish best practices for attracting, training and retaining employees. Talented superstars are in every local market looking for a new start and a fresh career. Dealerships offer an outstanding career opportunity compared to other businesses in the local market. Dealers who want an unfair advantage must revise their HR practices and invest in training and retention.

blood in the auto industry. Craig has personally trained and developed thousands of salespeople and managers while AutoMax Recruiting and Training has conducted more 11,000 recruiting campaigns and has trained over 100,000 people into the auto industry, from “Porters to Presidents.” A highly sought-after speaker, Craig has spoken at numerous 20 Groups, dealerships and industry conferences. Currently, Craig is working on his first book. While Craig has had much success in his life, he prefers to be defined by his love for his church and family.

About The Author:

Craig Lockerd has been in the auto industry for more than 38 years, holding literally every position in a dealership. He became a turnaround consultant in the late ‘80s and started AutoMax Recruiting and Training more than 13 years ago, because there was an overwhelming need for fresh

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Dealership Innovation Guide

Mobile Live Chat

Are you following this trend?

id you know 46% of consumers only access the web from their mobile devices? That’s nearly half of your prospective customers who will never see your full website! As people are now using mobile devices more often than ever before, it is necessary to stay updated on the best practices for communicating via this new technology and how the audience’s behavior is changing. By applying this knowledge of the consumer’s habits and various needs, dealers can operate an effective live chat service on their mobile website and use it to improve the on-the-go consumer experience – while ultimately benefitting your entire Internet business!

choose to chat with a dealership in the first place – they want their questions answered quickly and do not have the attention span to wait for you to provide information. These shoppers may be ready to come in and purchase a vehicle, or want to have a service appointment set up right away. Be ready

to answer pricing questions or quickly provide a link to your directions page. Also, buttons that link directly to your location/contact information, service specials, service appointment form, sales promotions and pricing information is a must-have for your mobile site home page. Quick links

The Battle Between Two Mobile Devices There are two mobile devices with web-access that the majority of shoppers use to engage in live chat: the smartphone and the tablet. These devices, although similar, lend themselves to different activities because of their size and affordability. The smartphone, the smaller and less expensive of the two, is easier to carry around. However, the larger and more expensive tablet often stays at a consumer’s home despite its mobility. When having a conversation through live chat with a smartphone or tablet user, there are a few differences dealers should be aware of. The Value in Being Smart Most smartphone shoppers aren’t there to browse, which is why they Dealership Innovation Guide

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will provide a smartphone user with a positive consumer experience and thus get them into your store rather than the dealership down the street. 70% of Tablet Time Spent at Home One of the most common misconceptions is all mobile users are in a rush or on-thego. However, a big portion of mobile usage happens when consumers have time to kill, and those users are, more often than not, tablet owners. Tablet users are similar to PC shoppers. A consumer may actually start their search for a vehicle on a tablet, browse for extended periods of time, and do so in the comforts of their own home. Nielsen even reported 70% of consumer’s time spent on their tablets occurs at home. Not only that, about 95% of owners use their tablet in the bedroom and living room, where they can tap into the dual screen experience with their TV. Tablet users may not be any more focused than smartphone owners, but the information they expect is much different. People who use tablets are more interested in your online content than smartphone users. Since they have more time to read and have a larger screen that makes it easier to do so like PC users, they look for content like blogs, videos, and dealership or vehicle reviews when they browse on your website. When a tablet user requests to chat with your store, be ready to provide links to your dealership’s reviews or comparisons of one vehicle versus another. They are in research mode, so give them as much information as possible to help them decide to buy from your dealership!

How to Chat with Mobile Users Due to the different user interactions with these two devices based on size and mobility of the device, tablet and smartphone users often vary 24 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

tremendously in their approach to browsing and chatting on your mobile website. Dealers should pay attention to details, such as location of the customer, the style of the conversation, and user’s needs in order to provide shoppers with the most effective information and get serious buyers onto your dealership’s lot. Location, Location, Location! It is important to know where your mobile shoppers are coming from, so make sure your chat provider has this information readily available to you during a chat conversation and within your chat reporting suite. By pinpointing the distance between you and your shopper, you can identify if the shopper is at a competitor’s store or how easily it could be for them to stop by within the next hour. However, beware of sounding too much like “big brother” and telling the shopper you can see exactly where they are – this can be quite creepy for the consumer and will end with them closing the chat. Most smartphone shoppers take location and distance into account as to whether they will visit your dealership or not, therefore, it will be an important part of the chat conversation. Only about 66% of tablet owners are thinking about the location of your dealership in comparison to their location. Dealers should also consider using behavioral and location-based chat invitations to prompt mobile shoppers to chat if they are in the area. This way you can grab their attention with specific offers based on their location and your invitation to chat comes at the right time during their shopping experience. There are times when shoppers will come to a dealership just for pricing information, and they will do something called “showrooming,” which is basically chatting in or

browsing on their mobile phone while they are in a showroom in order to compare prices at other dealerships. In order to know if a shopper is showrooming your dealership when they chat with you, dealers should pay attention to the location of the consumer. Analytics can show you the name of the business or area the consumer is nearby and therefore you’ll know how to respond to them when they ask for pricing details. You want to make the best impression to showroomers to gain their business. Remember – they are probably comparing you to most other dealerships of your brand in the area, so you need to stand out! How to Combat Showrooming: •

Be ahead of the game and do your own research regarding the best competitive pricing

•

Offer no haggle prices with other discounts to bring in sales

•

Provide a customer experience no one else can beat. Studies show people will actually pay extra for better customer service.

•

Give them a positive online chat experience that really makes a personal connection with the customer

Condensed Conversation Style Live chat users sometimes require a different conversation style when chatting through a mobile device, and understanding this style can play to your advantage in making the best impression. It is more difficult for a mobile user to read a lot of text at once on smaller devices. Therefore, when you are chatting with your mobile website shoppers, you should only send them one or two lines of text at a time to ensure Dealership Innovation Guide

they are able to read your entire message without having to scroll up or down. Also, pay attention to how the shopper is talking to you. They may be in a rush, or have other distractions around them, so keeping things simple and getting answers to them in a short amount of time will help your shopper have the best possible experience on your mobile site. Mobile chat is about boiling down the information a shopper would need and ensuring your conversation mirrors their expectations as a smartphone or tablet user. How Does Age Affect Your Conversation? Speaking of expectations – as you might think, the ages of smartphone and

tablet owners do differ, and so does what they hope to gain from their chat experience. The majority of tablet users are in the 35-44 age group, whereas most smartphone users are younger, from ages 25-34. Dealers should keep this in mind when creating a mobile website, because your content might be better directed toward an older age group; however, you have to make sure it also appeals to the younger group with quick access to all of their needs. For example, tablet users are often more middle-aged and affluent, and therefore want to spend more in-depth time and research on their purchases. They want access to research pages and larger text that is easier to read, whereas smartphone users who are younger want more instantaneous

information. Smartphone users are also more likely to watch YouTube video content than tablet users, so making those clips available to them is a great idea to draw engagement from this younger group on your mobile site. Despite their divide in age and preference of user experience, it is important to realize that at least 90% of US adults use some form of mobile device, and they are becoming even more prevalent over computers. Dealers need to accommodate their website for this change, and make sure they are keeping up with the trend toward mobile adaptation.

Dealership Staff Go Mobile with Live Chat Apps Some chat providers offer a mobile app which allows dealership staff to answer chats from online shoppers via their smartphones. These live chat mobile apps offer dealership staff the freedom to walk around their physical showroom and assist other customers on the lot while waiting for incoming chat requests. It’s a very helpful tool, and the more experience dealers have with interacting on mobile devices, the better they will be able to communicate with their customers. Make sure your mobile chat app allows you to transfer chat conversations from a desktop to your mobile phone in case you start a conversation on a computer and need to walk your lot in order to answer a consumer’s question. The transition from one live chat medium to another should be seamless to the consumer.

Tips for Dealer Mobile Website Layouts When creating a mobile website, dealers need to make an M sub domain so consumers can access your condensed site on their mobile devices. In order Dealership Innovation Guide

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to ensure your shoppers can access your site on both mobile device options, it is important to optimize two versions of your mobile site – a simple version that has core features and a rich UI for smartphones.

easiest accessibility. Most shoppers aren’t going to scroll to find the button they need, especially those impatient smartphone shoppers.

Also, be consistent with icons you use for navigation to ensure moving around the website is a smooth journey for the mobile user. The examples below are often helpful to shoppers:

You should also take advantage of common touch “hot zones” to make actions easier. Below is an example of the hot zones for tablet users:

About The Author:

For a great example of a mobile website with the Chat Now button in the right place, check out Sun Auto Group (www.usedcarking.mobi). Lastly, don’t forget to ensure your mobile chat feature is compatible with all browsers for optimal use and effectiveness!

Mercedes-Benz is Leading the Way

Define Your Content Stacking Strategy Your goal should be to always present content in order of importance, no matter what the screen size is. This is where the Top-Down approach comes into play. By definition, a user enters a website “at the top” and then scrolls down. When deciding on columns and column size, keep in mind columns that are too wide are just as hard to read as columns that are too narrow. Also, make sure the Chat Now button is at the top of the screen on your mobile website. Shoppers should be able to find it on all website pages for 26 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

behind as others take the lead who are willing to accommodate mobile shoppers. Don’t get lost in the dust of old technology as the new takes the stage. Be vigilant, and learn to adapt to mobile and mobile live chat – it’s a necessity for your dealership’s future success.

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services is the first auto finance company to offer customers an account management option through an app inside their vehicles. This will help resolve customer issues with making payments online – which is a problem caused by less accessible systems and one that customers sometimes use live chat to discuss.

Rebecca Kon is a Marketing Specialist at ActivEngage, Inc., a live chat and business solutions provider for the automotive industry. Previously, Rebecca chatted on behalf of ActivEngage’s customers as a Virtual Sales Assistant and was later named an ActivMentor, a position which helps monitor the work environment and assists with developing the skills of new hires. Among her many talents, she is skilled in social media marketing, developing marketing strategies, Search Engine and Website Optimization, and writing interesting blogs, news articles, and press releases. She resides in Orlando, FL with the rest of the ActivEngage Team. Rebecca holds a BA in English and a minor in Spanish from Rollins College. She is also a published poet, health food fanatic, and her curiosity knows no bounds.

The Future is Mobile Is your dealership’s website mobileready? Are you prepared to implement live chat on your mobile site and to understand how these shoppers operate? The future of mobile is here, and it’s not waiting for anyone. Dealers need to upgrade now for this change, or fall Dealership Innovation Guide

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Shoppers on the Mobile Path to Purchase 28 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

Making Mobile Strategies Pay Off With Chat and Text • Make sure ad listings and social media sites have mobile chat and texting options to enable immediate connections. • Optimize mobile sites and include click-to-chat or text buttons as calls to action. • Embed chat or text in any mobile app your dealership offers. • Take advantage of mobile chat apps offered by chat providers to send/receive chats or texts on the go and still track them through your chat software.

ealerships haven’t changed the way they sell cars—it still takes a conversation—but buyers have radically changed the way they shop. Now, dealers must meet buyers on the mobile path to a sale and develop new strategies for making connections happen. Mobile technologies have fundamentally altered how, where and when we consume information, connect with people...even what we (and our auto shoppers) expect. Likely, when you hear the term “mobile shopper,” the image of a 20-something pops into your mind. In fact, eMarketer estimates that 95.2% of millennials—many

Dealership Innovation Guide

• Add click-to-chat or click-totext buttons in mobile banner ads. • Ensure that texting solutions are legally compliant. • Opt for solutions that allow you to manage chat and text (You’ll minimize learning curves, ensure quality and protect data).

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 29

Source: R.L. Polk Analysis 2012

of your current and future buyers—will be mobile phone users by the end of the year (75% will own smartphones).1 Yet Nielsen says the average age of mobile auto shoppers is actually 43.2 What does that mean for dealerships? Mobile shoppers are already a force to be reckoned with and are only growing in importance in the marketing mix. You need strategies for meeting them on their turf and solutions for connecting with them because being unfettered by phone calls, forms and long waits for follow-up is becoming the new norm.

Right Here. Right Now. Today’s mobile mavens are constantly linked to the Internet often with multiple devices, and they’re rarely without at least their phones. (Raise your hand if you’d go back for yours after leaving the house, even if it meant being late for work.) And that means these shoppers have more opportunities to research their future auto purchases, from browsing your inventory to reading specs, reviews and more. Research backs this up: J.D. Power and Associates report the number of in-market shoppers who visited an automotive website from their smartphone doubled from 2010 to 2012 (31% in 2012).3 As mobile users increase and become ever more comfortable

30 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

using their devices for different tasks, that number only stands to grow.

Be Ready to Respond (Or Miss Out) Mobile shoppers also tend to have more immediate needs. If searching “on the go,” they’re often close to purchase, looking for answers to help make a decision or take action. Google’s “Mobile Search Moments”4 study found 55% of mobile searches led to additional followup by the consumer within an hour, from continuing research on a website to visiting a store. The study showed that auto searches actually resulted in more than two follow-up actions per search. But while these mobile shoppers seem ripe for the picking, all too many dealerships are letting the fruit fall to the ground. Let’s say you have a mobile website, mobile ads and a mobile app. It’s a great start, but if you’re not “always on” like your shoppers—if you’re not ready to respond to their inquiries at the moment they’re searching—you could still miss the follow-up that leads to a sale.

Meet Them One-onOne Everywhere Faster than waiting for an email response and less intrusive than a call, mobile chat and text solutions are proving to be the next generation’s answer to the

lead form. Take a glance at your own smartphone. Chances are, you have far fewer unread texts than you do unread emails. We’re “trained” to read those text messages ASAP. It’s part of the urgency ingrained in us by mobile technology. Text-based options can also create a communication “comfort zone.” They give shoppers who may be reluctant to (or can’t) make a phone call the ability to initiate an instant, real-time conversation with a dealership at the very moment they have questions. “Chat and text are like direct feeds to the customer,” explains Chris Hill, e-commerce director for Bill Jacobs Auto Group and a Contact At Once! customer. “They are right-here-rightnow options, and they help us reach customers on a level few others do... because we’re everywhere.” These days, shoppers visit many sites on their way to a new car purchase. A recent analysis by R.L. Polk showed that buyers who chatted came in almost equal percentages from third-party ad sites, dealership websites and OEM sites. To be most effective (and stand the best chance at capturing the most opportunities), your dealership has to be present in all the places shoppers are researching. Placing your chat and text calls-to-action webwide makes that presence even more powerful. Dealership Innovation Guide

But while many chat solutions can work on a dealer’s individual mobile website or social media page, few work across the entire network of sites auto shoppers visit, including those ad listing sites. These kinds of information-based websites are very popular with mobile shoppers,5 so look for a chat and text solution that goes where you need it to go.

Influence the Sale with Real-Time Access Along with placing your invitations to chat and text wherever the mobile shopper goes, you need to create a live, 24/7 presence for them. Choosing chat and mobile text providers with backup answering capabilities can

help cover the gaps when your dealership personnel can’t answer. Mobile shoppers have come to expect such real-time access to information and answers right as they search. After all, they are often en route to a purchase. In one Contact At Once! brand-specific analysis, most buyers who chatted purchased within 30 days. If they are looking to make a decision and need one final question answered, it’s in your best interest to be the dealer who is instantly available. Adapt to provide what they need when and where they want it, and you can be shaking hands on a deal in no time.

About The Author:

Driven to influence the market, Adam Flegge combines research, public speaking, marketing passion and an interest in how to best communicate with his own millennial generation. He uses real-world insights and market analytics to help audiences understand the unique needs of mobile millennials and encourage a more progressive marketing approach. Adam studied marketing at Indiana Wesleyan University and is a technology marketing evangelist at Contact At Once!

1“Digital-First Millennials Put a Premium on Value, Engagement.” eMarketer. 6 June 2013. Web. 10 June 2013. <http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-First-Millennials-Put-Premiumon-Value-Engagement/1009946> 2 The Nielsen Company. “Mobile Web and App Usage for Automotive Shoppers.” Cars.com DealerADvantage. Sept. 2012. Web. 10 June 2013. <http://dealeradvantage.cars.com/ download/2012-Nielsen-Mobile-Automotive-Shopper-Study.pdf> 3 “2012 Automotive Mobile Site Survey.” J.D. Power & Associates. 23 Oct. 2012. Web. 10 June 2013. <http://autos.jdpower.com/content/press-release/2IJZV1i/2012-automotive-mobilesite-study.htm> 4 The Nielsen Company. Google. “Mobile Search Moments Study.” Google Think Insights. March 2013. Web. 10 June 2013. <http://www.google.com/think/research-studies/creatingmoments-that-matter.html> 5 “xAd and Telmetrics Auto Study Reveals Two Distinct Mobile Search Patterns Among Car Shoppers and Auto Parts/Services Buyers.” Telmetrics. 13 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 June 2013. <http://www.telmetrics.com/2012/xad-and-telmetrics-auto-study-reveals-two-distinct-mobile-search-patterns-among-car-shoppers-and-auto-partsservices-buyers/>

Dealership Innovation Guide

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How to Engage Your Audience with Social Media

(and Have them I Loving Every Minute of it)

t is plain to see what everyone and their mothers are constantly buzzing about on social media. (And I do mean everyone, my grandmother recently friendrequested me.) Therefore, any business owner can see there are benefits to expanding your company’s online presence. Go where the customers are, right? It’s Marketing 101, and every manufacturer representative and industry vendor who visits your dealership has insisted it’s what is best for your business. They, along with trade publications and endless stories of success, hammer the reasons “why” into oblivion. You know why your dealership should be involved on sites like Facebook, what’s tough is knowing how.

Which Social Sites Should You Choose? There are countless social media outlets, and it is exhausting just to think about Dealership Innovation Guide

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doesn’t cut it these days. People need a reason to interact with you, and their reason will never be “because they’re here.” Make an effort to create content your target audience will find interesting and will keep them coming back for more. The beauty of social media is that it’s a two-way medium, so converse with your audience. Respond to their posts and questions, share their stories, and give your dealership a personality. What you want is for the people who connect with you to stop and read your posts, rather than scrolling past them. Eventually, when you spur enough engagement, you’ll have customers voluntarily posting rave reviews on your timeline and tagging photos of your dealership, thanking you for the new car.

Build Consistent Profiles Whether you have chosen two or 10, make sure your profiles are consistent across all social sites. Take care when entering store hours, “about me” descriptions, contact information, and links to your dealer website. You want to be helpful, not confusing. Inconsistent information is discrediting and may cause you to lose more leads than you gain.

managing profiles for all of them. Stick to what you know. It’s better to manage a small few very well than a lot of them poorly. Diving headfirst into a social site you have no experience with is a recipe for disaster and could quickly damage your online reputation. Instead, choose to start with sites you already use personally. Make notes of the brands you interact with on those sites and why you choose to maintain a social connection with those companies. This will give you a good idea of which social sites you feel fit your brand and how your dealership can interact with your target audience on each site.

Engagement Over Presence Don’t just stand there; do something. Simply being present on social media 34 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

One easy way to ensure consistency is to limit the number of people who manage your pages. Ideally, you would have one person dedicated to this, with only the Dealer Principal or General Manager having additional access. This way, your pages have a unified voice and nothing can slip through the cracks as it would with your whole sales force constantly checking notifications.

Designate Your Dealership’s Social Hub For our dealership, I manage profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, our involvement on each decreasing respectively. With Facebook sitting comfortably at the top of the most used social media sites, it was not hard to choose as the hub for our entire social presence. Facebook is where the bulk of our audience lies, and thus, where all of our content is pushed. Events, special contests and offers are announced there first, and it is where we promote our other social sites.

Pay for Facebook No one needs to remind car dealers that you get what you pay for, so practice what you preach! Having tried it both ways, I can attest paying for Facebook will bring your engagement leaps and bounds over the results of free use. The results are incomparable. Facebook pages exist to promote businesses. You wouldn’t opt for a hand drawn sign on the roadside in lieu of a billboard for your dealership. Facebook is an advertising medium and is designed to be treated as such. A relatively small budget will go a long way. Depending on the size of your market, if you can find $1,000 to $5,000 in your budget, Facebook will prove itself to be one of your most necessary mediums.

Don’t Just Sell Cars – Sell You Social media is a means to stay connected with your customers – past, present and future. It is only your present customers who are looking to purchase a vehicle, so you don’t want to inundate the others with selling messages. If you ask a recent customer to engage with you, then just try to shove more cars down their throat, they’re going to feel underappreciated, and people not yet in the market don’t care to see your inventory all over their newsfeed. Instead, use social media to give your audience a glimpse into who you are as a dealership. Let them get to know your employees and feel like they’re part of something when they interact with you. Forget about selling cars and just have fun with it. Share staff birthdays and interesting things going on at your store. Then every once in a while, share some inventory. The key is build and maintain a unique identity for your store. After all, you and your employees don’t live for the sole purpose of selling and servicing vehicles; you have personalities, so show them off! Our Pinterest page is one way I chose to show customers the kind of things we care about. Aside from the obligatory car-centric boards, I also created boards like “Grins & Giggles” and “Texas,” so Dealership Innovation Guide

followers can get a feel for who we are as people and what we’re really all about.

track the number of clicks your link has and what days you got them.

One tried-and-true way of engaging fans on Facebook is to post photos and updates of your community involvement projects. Not only will your fans stick around, they’ll feel like they know you, and if you’re really good at it, they’ll fall in love with you. Building a more personal social image for your store will cultivate relationships and keep you top-of-mind when the actual purchasing time does roll around for your followers and fans.

Be Concise: Keep your posts quick and to the point. Think about how you interact with others on social media. If you aren’t willing to read a long paragraph (and most of us aren’t), your audience likely is not going to either.

Craft Your Posts with Care Once you’ve determined what to share on Facebook, it’s important to put a little time into your post. Small things make all the difference to your audience. Images & Video: Images and videos will always attract more attention than simple text updates. It takes a little more involvement on your part, but really enhances your post content. URL Shorteners: If you’re linking to an outside site, like an inventory listing, use a custom URL shortener. When a link gives an indication of where it leads, people are more likely to click through. With a URL shortener like Bit. ly, you can customize the link to show where it leads. Plus, with Bit.ly you can

Dealership Innovation Guide

Respond to Comments: A major part of audience interaction is ensuring they feel their voice is heard. On Facebook, you’ll get a lot of comments, some good, some bad. Like the good ones, or thank people for their kind words. As much as you may be tempted to, don’t delete the negative comments. Respond to them with decency and poise, but try to move the conversation offline. Offer up a name and phone number for someone they can call to sort out their frustrations. While it’s not ideal for others to see negative comments on your page, it is good for them to see you care to handle those situations with grace. (One exception to the rule would be comments categorized as vulgar or offensive. These posts should be deleted or at least hidden from public view so as not to offend others.)

your audience craves. It’s important to stick it out and try different things until you find what works for your store. Eventually, it all becomes a natural and fun part of promoting your dealership.

About The Author:

Nicole Campbell grew up working at her family’s dealership in Slaton, TX and is the Marketing Director for Smith South Plains in Levelland, TX. She has been the dealership’s Marketing Director for one year and has a BA in Advertising from Texas Tech University. Nicole married her husband, Tell Campbell, this past March and in her spare time enjoys graphic design, interior decorating and gardening.

Stay Involved Social media management is a neverending task. It takes time to find your groove and consistently post the content

DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 35

Mobile Conversion B

y now it’s no secret to dealerships that car shoppers are using their smartphones or tablets to aid in research and browsing for current inventory. According to a recent Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons® ConnectSM study the average smartphone user will spend 58 minutes per day on his or her phone, with 14% of that time browsing the internet. Additionally, Morgan Stanley Research

36 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

indicated that mobile usage will surpass desktop usage by 2014. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what percentage of mobile visitors dealerships see as an industry, but I’ve seen reported numbers ranging from 20% all the way up to 40% of total visitors. Within our dealer group’s family of websites we have seen a sharp increase of mobile visitors: 18.1% in March 2012, to a staggering 47.7% in May 2013. No matter what percentage

of mobile traffic you are currently seeing, now is the time to put focus and efforts into your mobile site, so you are not left playing catch up with everyone else.

Dealership Innovation Guide

Create A Separate Mobile Site Although this should be a given, I still come across dealership websites who do not have a mobile-friendly site. A mobile website is a must in the automotive world, whether it is truly dedicated mobile site or a responsive design site. A dedicated mobile site is essentially a separate website than a desktop website in which mobile users are redirected to. A responsive site adapts it’s design depending on device orientation and screen size. And, a single URL covers desktop, tablet, and cell phone users. All designers and developers have an opinion on the dedicated mobile site vs. responsive design site, but we have elected the route of a dedicated site. Most of the writings within this article are directed at dedicated mobile sites. If you elect on a dedicated mobile site, a decision you must make is how tablets are directed. With our sites, I currently direct tablets to the full desktop sites. This decision was made by looking at Mobile Device (tablets), mobile screen resolution, and Network Domain (internet

provider) within Google Analytics. At time of analyzing the data, 98.7% of our tablet users were on a Wi-Fi network and 1.3% were on a 3G/4G connection. This is significant because Wi-Fi tends to have faster connection speeds than 3G/4G, so I was comfortable with directing tablet users to the full desktop site which has more content, larger photos, and larger page sizes. In addition, Monetate’s Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ) has indicated tablet users have a slightly higher, but similar conversion rate as desktop users. Our desktop site provides a much better conversion

platform than our mobile site, so it was a given to direct tablets to the full site. The design, usability, and branding of your mobile site is just as important as a desktop site. With the percent of users visiting your mobile site increasing monthly, it is highly important to remain consistent with the look and feel between your desktop and mobile sites. As customers are shopping and switch between your mobile and desktop sites, you want to give that shopper the reassurance he/she is visiting the same dealership’s site. Your mobile site should have similar site navigation, call to actions, color schemes, verbiage, and functionality as your desktop site. It is highly important to remain consistent with the look and feel between your desktop and mobile sites

Correct Redirection is Critical In Mobile Usability

It is highly important to remain consistent with the look and feel between your desktop and mobile sites. Dealership Innovation Guide

Every page on your desktop site must redirect to the same or a very comparable page within your mobile site. This is an area I find lacking on a lot of mobile redirection scripts. I have seen redirections that simply redirect the mobile visitor to the mobile homepage, no matter what page the visitor was intending to view. This isn’t user friendly and creates a possibility for a lost customer. For example, Beth’s Mom is on a desktop and emails Beth a link to a VDP, Beth opens that email on her mobile phone and clicks the link. If DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 37

the redirection takes Beth to the mobile site’s homepage, Beth might become frustrated and never view that link again. If the redirection takes Beth to the VDP on the mobile site, you now have her attention and she is viewing the vehicle. Be sure to test your links within Google/ Bing/Yahoo! Results Pages, paid SEM ads, your email campaigns, and any other referring websites you receive traffic from. On average we see around 55-60% of our total traffic from Google, Bing, or Yahoo! searches. I will randomly check keyword sets to ensure the user is landing on the correct page and not seeing the dreaded: 404 Page Cannot Be Found. Additionally, look at your mobile site’s landing pages in Google Analytics (Under Content > Site Content > Landing Pages) to make sure those URLs are active and correct content is displayed. If you notice any issues, get with your

Be sure to test your links within Google and Bing searches on a variety of mobile phones. Avoid errors like the one above.

website provider and they will be able to fix any redirection errors you find. Be sure to test your links within Google and Bing searches with a variety of mobile phones. Avoid errors like the one above.

Getting Visitors To Your Mobile Site Most of your focus of getting new visitors to your mobile site should come from SEO best practices and localized SEM. Referral sites and direct traffic will come naturally just like they do on your desktop site. Alongside our natural organic results, there are 3 areas I really concentrate on for mobile SEO — Google Places, YouTube Videos, and Google+ postings. We already put a lot of focus on gathering reviews for our Google Places pages, so this comes naturally for our dealerships. If you don’t have Google Places set up for your locations, I would highly suggest doing so and making it a part of your sales process to gather reviews. Google displays local Google Places results and reviews directly below the paid ads section. Having a dominant placement within this section is the most valuable organic placement for mobile. Videos posted to YouTube and posts to Google+ will also display on the first page on Google’s mobile results. Although these are links to other sites, I view them as branding spots and taking up placement from competing dealerships. Depending on the search, we could have 5 or 6 results on a Google search from a mobile phone: 1 paid ad, 2 local

38 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

Google Places results, organic website link, YouTube Video, and Google+ post. Another focus for driving traffic to our mobile site is localized search engine marketing (SEM). When reaching out past your immediate local area, SEO will only take you so far and you must rely on paid SEM to get you the rest of the way. For our paid Google and Bing campaigns, we work with Haystak Digital Marketing. A big traffic driver to our mobile site has been our local mobile paid SEM campaigns. Localizing SEM is critical, as mobile users are looking to engage within a short driving distance and targeting ad content relevant to what they are looking for. The xAd/ Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study of 7,500 smartphone and tablet owners found that 50% of users were looking for an automotive business within a local driving distance. Furthermore, 55% of users indicated they were more likely to click on an ad that was targeted to what they were searching for. For our dealerships, we run brand ads (Ford, Kia, Lincoln, Mazda, Anderson) and dynamic ad sets (keyword based on inventory) for searches performed within 50 miles of any of our dealerships. These dynamic ad sets auto generate ad content matching what the user searched for. Since partnering with Haystak, our mobile traffic has increased from around 30% of our total traffic to approximately 48% of our total traffic. Of the 5 SEM campaigns we run with Haystak, local mobile-targeted traffic is our highest lead converting traffic and our lowest cost per click (CPC). Recently we increased our ad budget and a large percentage went to mobile campaigns.

Separate Desktop Website Stats and Tracking From Mobile Stats To fully understand how customers use your mobile site it is best to separate analytics, tracking phone numbers, and reporting from your desktop analytics and reports. Separating desktop and Dealership Innovation Guide

mobile stats will allow you to see beyond the basics and become more advanced to cater to how customers are using your mobile site. This is something I wish I had done earlier in the process, but it was hard because I had month-over-month and year-over-year data and analytics for the last 2 years. This data was originally compiled with desktop and mobile sites treated as one. However, since separating the data out, I am now able to better analyze how mobile customers are using the site, what percentage converts to calls, text chats, or form submissions. Analyzing this data has not only helped me improve the usability and overall experience of the shopper, but more importantly increase mobile leads.

Converting Mobile Shoppers The most important, yet very difficult, area of a mobile website is converting your shoppers into leads or visitors to your lot. For analytics and reporting, I define a shopper as a unique visitor to our website who visits at least 1 VLP of VDP. Our mobile shoppers convert to a form or phone lead at a lower rate than desktop shoppers — on average around 5-6% less. Also, looking at the conversion by device chart I mentioned above, you can see smartphones convert at a much lower rate across all industries. That is not saying mobile traffic doesn’t generate leads or sales, but it just produces them in a different way. The first step to increase conversion rate within your mobile site is analyze

and understand how shoppers are using your mobile site. There are several tools I have used along the way to help me — Google Analytics, CrazyEgg Heat Mapping, sold customer surveys, CRM reports, and the xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study. The biggest improvement I made to help increase leads from our mobile site was introducing SMS Text Chats. We use a text feature from Contact At Once — the same provider we use for desktop chat. There were no additional programs to install or phones needed, the text messages come through like our desktop chats. This by far has been our biggest mobile lead capture tool and has converted nearly 50% of those leads to sold customers. Additionally, our customers who initiated text messages respond with an average of 12 responses, indicating a high engagement level. When integrating text chat on your mobile site, I highly suggest using it as a lead response system only. Don’t abuse it with marketing or unwanted offers, allow for opt-out, and send text messages after initial contact is made by customers. Respond to your customers professionally and with grammatically correct sentences avoiding text short hands. A whitepaper I found extremely interesting regarding text messaging as a sales communication tool is Velocify’s (formerly Sales360) study, “Text Messaging For Better Sales Conversion.” This data reflects results DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 39

aggregated across almost 3.5 million lead records from more than 400 companies from a wide variety of industries. Some key findings that are inline with what we are experiencing: •

The research found that prospects who are sent text messages convert at a rate 40% higher than those who are not sent any text messages.

•

Research suggests texting can be an effective way to supplement email and phone communication channels.

•

It’s not in a salesperson’s best interest to text prior to establishing contact with a prospect. However, texting after contact has been made can help significantly improve conversion.

Next to texting, phone calls were our next biggest point of contact from mobile users. Upon analyzing our lead reports, a stat I found interesting was our mobile sales customers were 9:1 more likely to call the dealership vs submitting a contact form. However, with our desktop sales customers they submit contact forms 3x more than placing a phone call. Finally, I have found 17.9% of our mobile visitors viewed a location or contact pages as opposed to only 6.9% of desktop customers viewed a location or contact page. After looking through Google Analytics, viewing our heat maps, and looking through our CRM lead reports, I concluded our biggest areas to capture our mobile shoppers was through Text, Phone, and Direction pages. With this knowledge a design adjustment I made

was placing three large buttons with icons for Phone, Text, and Directions at the bottom of every page. This gave the customer the ability to contact us or stop by our lot wherever they were on the site. Some heat map tests showed these buttons are being used extensively and have ultimately lead to improvements in website usability. With the percentage of mobile users increasing at a rapid rate, and with the amount of time a person spends on their smartphone daily, mobile websites are the future. I advise you to be ahead of the curve and prepare yourself now by analyzing your current status and define areas in which you can improve. Whether you have an in-house person handle your mobile website or look to an outside vendor, a highly attractive and easy to use mobile site will help increase leads and ultimately sales.

About The Author:

Chad Sabatka is a Web Developer | Digital Marketing Director for Anderson Auto Group. With 8 years of professional experience in design, development, and digital marketing, Chad brings extensive digital knowledge to Anderson Auto Group. Anderson Auto Group is a family of Ford, Lincoln, Kia, Mazda, and Mitsubishi dealerships with locations in Grand Island and Lincoln, NE, and St. Joseph, MO. Anderson Auto Group’s websites are designed and developed in-house. Contact: chads@andersonautogroup.com

40 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Dealership Innovation Guide

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WH@T DOES THE ONLINE USER W@NT

oday’s educated auto buyer will speak to 5 dealerships, visit just a couple and choose one to do business with. This consumer must be approached with customer service techniques while served a time-savings buying experience at the dealership. Dealerships must adopt a culture of extreme customer service and deliver in every communication method. It’s easy to implement when you are face-to-face but on the phone and through emails and voicemails, that can be much more challenging. With phone opportunities on the rise, this is one core aspect you 42 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

can center in on and conquer. When you achieve this, the online buyer and the dealership gets what they want. You can meet today’s buyer’s expectations by looking closely at present processes. You must have a prepared phone call guide for the following situations:

•

Showroom visitor that does not buy

•

Showroom visitor that buys

•

Appointment confirmation

•

Referral

Before freshening up what you have or as you begin a new project, follow these three steps:

•

Callbacks to new internet leads

•

Incoming sales call opportunities

1. Know the buyer

•

Lease retention

2. Know the process 3. Know the players Dealership Innovation Guide

Example: The buyer has many thoughts and feelings about a dealership and salesperson experience. Most are not pleasant, which is why they call and email versus coming into the store. Knowing this, we can assume the buyer thinks or believes the experience will be time-consuming, unprofessional, and high pressure. Take the negatives, turn them around and develop a positive car buying experience that can be talked about in phone calls, emails and voicemails. Your competitive advantage will be clearly noticed when you do this. You will stand apart from the competition and no doubt will be considered as a place to buy a car from.

2. Know the Process The process must be clearly defined so your players know what to say and how to guide the conversation on the phone. Your process must include your buying experience that focuses on outcomes like time-savings, professional, and no pressure. Identify exactly what you can provide in each of these categories that accomplishes each outcome. Example: Time-savings = vehicle pulled out of inventory, cleaned, gassed and pulled up front, vehicle history report and product/consumer reviews in a folder for appointment.

1. Know the buyer The buyer is someone who has researched up to 15 different websites, and 90% would say they have had a bad experience buying a car in the past. This tells us we have an educated buyer who wants to feel like they are in control and at the same time, has a negative feeling about car salespeople and dealerships. This can be a challenge for most salespeople. By knowing the buyer and their expectations, you can turn complaints or obstacles into positive elements in a great car buying experience. Dealership Innovation Guide

Professional = making sure all the players are available, present and ready to assist the prospect upon arriving for their appointment. No pressure = focus time on the phone building a relationship, offer to meet the prospect at their car when they arrive, and explain expectations in detail. When you do this, you can construct phone call guides that keep the focus away from obstacles like “price” and “availability” and more towards a customer centered experience. This is important because you will be able to character sell in a way that gives the prospect reasons to feel confident, believe in you, respect your time, as

Your

CUSTOMERS are rating

YOU!

Are YOU rating your

Vendors? DrivingSales.com/Ratings DrivingSales, LLC • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • 43

Today’s online buyer wants to come into contact with a professional who can provide a time-saving car buying experience. They want to avoid the typical games and hassles that dealerships and salespeople alike are known for. This buyer has many choices and options when selecting the right dealership and salesperson. Be sure your phone call guides focus on the time-savings a prospect can expect when working with your dealership. The prospect should have a detailed and accurate picture of how your dealership experience works and what’s in it for them. When you are selling time-savings in a way that is strategic, well-written, practiced and being delivered like a pro, you know you are winning! You will know you are meeting today’s buyer’s expectations when your appointments are showing up ON TIME.

well as trust. All important factors for showing up on time for a scheduled appointment and to buy a car from you.

3. Know the players The players are the people in your organization that can make your buying experience come to fruition! The players might be, the dealer, salespeople, BDC representatives, and managers. Everyone must be in sync, operating from the same game plan, meeting regularly to work out setbacks. Each player must know their roles and responsibilities as well as know exactly what to say on the phone so that prospects’ expectations are met and surpassed. Every person counts and every player’s contact with a prospect must be in sync with the overall goals of the buying experience. The more contact a prospect has with all of your players, the clearer it will be that you are providing exactly what the buyer was hoping to experience. Define each player’s roles and responsibilities. 44 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Examples: Dealer = Listen to recorded phone calls and use them to praise and coach, ensure phone call guides are in place and used, hold players accountable to the buying experience. BDC and Salespeople = Use phone call guides for each scenario, qualify, build rapport, identify hot buttons and deal breakers, set clear expectations of the visit and who they will meet with, set appointments.

About The Author:

Jennifer Suzuki has worked in the auto industry for 17 years. In January 2002 Jennifer founded e-Dealer Solutions, Inc. Their focus is implementing proprietary based training solutions for automotive retailers. The company is comprised of training solutions for Internet Sales, Phone Sales, BDC Sales as well as coaching on Internet Marketing Strategies.

Salespeople = Pull vehicles out of inventory, clean, gas, plate and have up front 30 minutes before appointment time, prepare appointment folder, confirm appointments, text business card to prospect with picture, meet prospect at car. Managers = Read CRM notes before appointments show up, greet prospect and use CRM notes to personalize introduction, explain what professional services were completed prior to showing up that are designed to save them time. Dealership Innovation Guide

Training is Built on

o we all have some form of developed training programs within our dealerships. Whether it is outside trainers hired to come in and pep up our entire sales team, third-party companies monitoring our in-store processes, or a store manager with the delegated responsibility to keep everyone on target. It always begs the question, “How do we continuously motivate our departmental teams (sales consultants) to get more buy-in?” We battle with motivated employees and buying-in to our processes each and every day in order to get the best possible results. There is no perfect blueprint to dealership training simply because each dealership environment operates with different people along with different processes. There is, however, one method that can better assist in developing your team — build trust. 45 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

Your dealership’s structure, process, and marketing goals will prove to be more effective if this can be accurately represented. Building trust assists in developing buy-in and improved motivation among sales consultants, service writers, technicians, HR employees, and management teams. The understanding is there has to be a shared experience and common goal. The truth is you can provide all the very best tools and training, but attitude rests on the individual. It has to be explained in such a manner that the benefits of improved performance can be directly represented by achieving specific results. We have to be patient and understand the individual’s various situations. This holds true for sales and service regarding the challenges we face daily. We have to know how to speak to sales consultants as if they were guests

entering our store, ready to select and purchase a vehicle. We need to expose and better understand their individual personalities first — their strengths, weaknesses, interests, and fears. This uncovers significant layers of information and ways to better improve and develop their individual skill sets. It becomes your training strategy foundation. Dealership processes are put in place to guide consistency and motivate staff — everything from competitive pay plans to requiring Internet sales training curriculums before handling online customer inquiries. Our walk-in, phone up, and internet processes are in place so can we can monitor the specific activities that achieve the necessary results for success. The success of the sales process activities will certainly vary among sales people, but hold the key areas of opportunity and possible Dealership Innovation Guide

room for improvement. One-on-one personalized coaching will certainly prove to be more effective than that of entire staffing groups since we all possess different skill sets. Identifying the need for improvement in specific areas and focusing this on an individual basis helps start the trust building process. We can develop trust by coaching continuously as we see the opportunity and, more importantly, performing this in their workspace. This offers up a more comfortable and more conversational training environment. Isolate the challenge and get straight to the point while keeping it casual. As you make an improvement point, the environment will make it more positive for the sales consultant, service writer, technician or department employee. More importantly — sitting down and talking with your team as a friend can humanize your relationship with them. Connecting with your team in a one-on-one setting is your key to formalizing a successful personalized coaching strategy. Group training offers some key advantages if the setting is right. Ideally, group training sessions should be broken out into smaller “team” sessions for better discussion and participation among these tighter groups. Most of us despise talking in large groups much less sitting in on any large group settings or meetings. Divide your training sessions into smaller teams so it is less pressurized with more buy-in and group participation. Focus on 2-3 key areas where your dealership needs specific improvement and cover these individual topics for no more than 15-20 minutes. If you speak on one subject for an extended period of time, you will certainly lose interest and focus. Ask for individual opinions and feedback continuously during the session. Don’t let anyone (sales consultants or management) monopolize the session. Dedicate a moderator for your session or coaching and training sessions can be painful. A group discussion with the right moderator will focus on the key areas for improvement and dealership goals. Be sure to give accolades in these sessions to individual employees (sales consultants) that especially deserve recognition such, as any “textbook” sales performance examples. They should walk 46 • 3rd Quarter - 2013 • DrivingSales, LLC

out energized with a new understanding, not drained and confused! By developing a personal connection within your team and having clearly written processes in place that hold people accountable, your message, coaching, and training tactics will be more effective and better received at the end of the day. Your team will appreciate encouragement that helps them and the dealership achieve success.

About The Author:

Chris Curry is the Internet Sales Manager at Rice Toyota in Greensboro, NC. Much of Chris’ youth was spent as a top ranking amateur surfer turned professional. He later graduated from UNCW with a Business Administration degree concentrated in Marketing. During that time, he married his lovely wife of 4 years - Mary Catherine. They decided to move closer to his wife’s hometown to work at her family’s Toyota dealership. Rice Toyota is one of the longest standing family owned & operated Toyota dealership in the southeastern United States started by her grandfather in the early 60’s.

Dealership Innovation Guide

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