Mystery Shop Time!

[Brent Palen]

I promise to get you some results later today. Good things come to those who wait.

Thanks Jerry, I do appreciate this opportunity. Although it pains me to say this it is ok if you would like to share your findings with the rest of the community.

[Jerry Thibeau]

Brent,

You must have let slip your team was going to be mystery shopped today. The poor girl I got on the phone was shaking she was so nervous. When I gave her my info she seemed to relax and thought I was a real customer. Then at the end right before she off-lined me I broke the news to her.

I'll have my final mystery shop presentation done shortly. Thanks for giving me permission to share with the community.

[Brent Palen]

Brent,

You must have let slip your team was going to be mystery shopped today. The poor girl I got on the phone was shaking she was so nervous. When I gave her my info she seemed to relax and thought I was a real customer. Then at the end right before she off-lined me I broke the news to her.

I'll have my final mystery shop presentation done shortly. Thanks for giving me permission to share with the community.

Unfortunately our receptionist did let it slip. I had told her to route calls back to the meeting room since we were having a sales mtg. and I wanted to catch the call. She didn't realize what mystery shopping is. But the good news is I was able to make it look like it was only coming by phone. Just so worked out though that Michelle was the only one that knew.

At least this way I know she was doing what she is supposed to rather than being off her game and not. Either way I am sure the info will be helpfull.

[Jerry Thibeau]

First I would like to thank Brent for allowing the community to share with us his mystery shopping experience. Normally I will password protect these shopping results and only share them with the dealer.

Here's the end result: Mystery Shop

I would appreciate any feedback you all have on this process/service. Since doing the first one earlier in the week, I have adapted and learned a few new tricks for streamlining the process. I want to make them even better and I am looking forward to the feedback.

Until the end of the year I am going to be doing these for free (1-2 per day). At some point I might add this as a paid service to my bag of tricks. How much do you think one could charge for a service like this? My goal is not to make this a large revenue stream for my company, but as a means for helping dealers realize that training is a key component that will help any dealership maximize the revenues spent on advertising. As many of you already know, my specialty is the phone and it's one area of the dealership that is not given very much attention. Internet and the phone are one in the same to me. Get the Internet customer on the phone and it becomes a phone-up. Enough of me rambling on, go watch the presentation! Don't forget the popcorn.
I've got a couple more to finish later this afternoon and then I'll be looking for another volunteer. Who's next? Your choice on public or private.

Oh and by the way, you don't find stuff like this over at ADM. Dealer Refresh is the place to be! Jeff, this is an awesome place and I am glad to be part of it.

[Jerry Thibeau]

Brent,

Poor Michelle just called me asking for my alias. She was following up on the Internet lead I sent this morning. I did not have the heart to yank her chain again, so I told her who I was. She laughed and then we went discussed her template. When I originally looked at it in the video, I forgot to "show pictures." I now see there was a lot more there and I do like that. A lot of the of e-mail providers block all that stuff, and like myself I am sure customers forget to activate that part of the e-mail. I do think she should have called sooner.

[Brent Palen]

Well...I wish I could say we did better. I did mess the process up by letting the receptionist know. Here's what I think our areas for improvement are.

Chevrolet Lead - I need to make sure that the salespeople are following up on leads. In this case the address Jerry used matched up with a client already in our CRM so I assigned the lead to that salesperson and told him to investigate. That salesperson is not tied to the internet dept. and is a veteran. Well, he didn't act like a veteran and I'm still waiting on him to email Jerry back.

Cars.com Lead - Jerry, the first email my salesperson sent didn't make it to you! It's in our CRM. The second email he sent was not with our templated header, picture, and signature so maybe that's why it made it through and not the other. Can you investigate this for me Jerry?

Our Website - Your right...poor Michelle...so far this week she has gotten into her car to find a bird flying around in it, ran smack into a door, and now she is living out her worst fear of hearing herself on a recording! On the phone call I really think she could benefit from better inventory and product knowledge. You gave some great pointers on taking control of the call. Her email is something I am battling with the downloadable pictures. Basically its set up like a web ad in Autobase and when they attach pictures of vehicles they cut and paste the source into AB's "add picture" tool. Autobase told us this is the best way to add pics since attachements have a hard time getting through spam filters. Michelle is our best Internet Salesperson. She has been closing internet leads at 21% last month and 17% so far this month. She owes a lot of her success to a consistent follow up process.

Thanks for the help Jerry! I think you gave us some good insight and I have some ideas on how to keep us moving forward. I would love to hear anyone elses thoughts too.

[Marc McGurren]

I would love a mystery shop!

[Jerry Thibeau]

I would love a mystery shop!

Public or private? You're next on my "to do" list. Probably will be the first of the week before I can get it done.

[Marc McGurren]

Public or private? You're next on my "to do" list. Probably will be the first of the week before I can get it done.

I have no problem having it public. It was great to see what other dealers are doing and to get an analysis of what someone else thinks. Hopefully your findings will not only help me but the DR community.

[sburges2]

Susan,

Your mystery shop is completed. I just need an e-mail address so I can provide you with the details.

Who's next?

Jerry-
I can post out the email I sent you- yetI've got to be careful what I post out here due to my work's request for privacy. However I can sing the praises of what you gave for me to be able to address:

The AutoTrader mystery shop proves what I lose sleep over a lot- that we lose a lot of customers to the Olive Branch location- we have two Ford stores

You might be a "fan" of the Responselogix template you got back, yet I'm not- changing it to what you referenced- asking open ended, response driving questions is a hassle and not really an option. Also, it's not attached to a sales rep before it goes to the customer, so you get the "no point of contact" dilemma... I've got my work cut out for me in the next couple of weeks to have a smooth start to the New Year with your help.

I really appreciate the mystery shop of the Ford Direct site- I don't understand why that "auto response" template is going out- there's one of those techno glitches I get to work on now. I've also got some coaching on sending emails to customers needing to be done- the sales rep should have checked the template for the name being attached to it- he sent that email.

Now, I did not email you about the outcome of listening to the calls- thank you for the coaching and I really appreciate how you used pieces of the "Cardone" scripts in your coaching comments. My boss recognized your name from the fiasco of that post I had out here Thanksgiving weekend and after listening said thanks for the pointers. He agreed with everything you said- he pointed out that not all customers are as tough as you were- yet I'll vouch that 85% of them are.

The incoming sales calls have been reassigned back to me and the sales desk managers while my BDC rep goes through intense boot camp style script training. I've know heard I don't know how many excuses to not use the script or why it won't work, yet I've not heard much of the script being used either. We are in the three "C's" process now with her- coach, counsel, cut...it's going to be a fun process. I really appreciate the help with the areas that need polishing- some of the emails need a complete overhaul.