Still dealers that think this way? I really don't appreciate the condescending attitude. Over the last four decades, I have held every position in the front end of the store from a salesperson to the General Manager. Though I have never held the Controller position, I have a degree in accounting and can read a financial statement with the best of them.
I don't mean to sound condescending. It's not my intent to. With that said, and at the risk of sounding condescending again, it's actually irrelevant which roles you have held in the past. All it takes is common sense. If it takes an employee 6 minutes to dial a number, speak to a customer, send an email, and then update the CRM he/she is only capable of making 10 calls per hour or 80 calls per 8 hours with no break. If you have a "cradle to the grave" Internet Manager handling your leads he won't even be able to produce 80 calls a day between all of the breaks he must take (greeting, qualifying, demos, paperwork, detail, working deals, ..., etc). An employee with such a work load cannot effectively work leads... only recent leads. This is why a BDC works when ran correctly.
At my last store, here in Dallas, I had a dozen cradle to grave ISMs that averaged over 10 years of experience. You couldn't keep your desk, in my department, if your 90 day running average was less than 16 vehicles.
So as long as you sold 1.3 cars a week you had a desk in your department?
A dealership is lucky if the "average" salesperson actually accomplishes a full hour of work in a given day. Today, dealerships don't want superstar salespeople. They prefer green peas that are easy to control. They would prefer two 9 car performers to one that sells 20. Why? They don't have quality managers that can motivate and control them.
This is far from the truth. Times are different. The majority (not all) of your old school car guys love to sit around and reminisce about the old days of crushing customers and bitch about how there's no more money in the business unless you are "being fed". They simply don't understand or accept change. This is why green peas are becoming the "preference". Quality managers can only motivate and control those who WANT to be motivated.
That sounds like Obama math. My ISMs hammered the phones. I officed in the same room with my ISMs. You are lucky if you get a live person 10% of the time. How is that 5 minutes?
With every phone call placed requires at least a voicemail, an update in the CRM, and a sent email. Between calls that go nowhere and calls where you make contact you will probably average anywhere between 4min to 8min per call (averaged out). In an 8 hour shift this is 60-120 phone calls (I didn't even factor in a Lunch break). Some will do more and some will do less. If you have a "cradle to the grave" ISM he/she most certainly will do MUCH LESS because he/she has the extra responsibility of taking on the salesperson role. Meet and Greet, Qualifying, Walk Around, Demo, Negotiate, Detail, ..., etc. these are all tasks that take away from the time spent reaching out to your customers. It's flawed.
First off, I would never give my ISMs 100 leads. I was alarmed if it reached 75. It is not about (contact) volume. It is about quality of contact.
It is about both quality and volume. When you mix quality voicemails, quality emails, and quality conversations WITH volume that is when you push the needle in a BDC.
Your clerks could not hold a candle to one of my ISMs.
I wouldn't know that. Neither would you. We know nothing about each other. We know nothing about our operations.
Yes, they did daily lot walks and they could describe any car on the lot in detail. They didn't piss off the customers with endless messages. This is something that experience teaches.
Don't assume just because an employee is a BDC Rep and not a salesperson they are p^ssing off customers.
Dealership have gone this route because they can't attract, train, motivate and retain enough quality people.
Not true in all cases. Every marketer should also be a salesperson and every salesperson should also be a marketer. However, your sales department should be different from your marketing department. It's all about having relational departments to effectively and successfully track your ROI.
Every market leader has one thing in common, a better sales organization. These dealerships will have salespeople that were managers at other dealerships.
I don't agree with your philosophy here at all. In my opinion, declining in the rankings is unattractive. What is the reasoning? Lack of modern skills? Lack of job availability? I don't know...I disagree that "better sales organizations" will have former sales managers selling. The beautiful thing about this business is you can have a salesman of 25+ years lose to a kid with motivation and 0 experience.
BDCs become necessary because of poor salespeople and marginal managers.
Ignorant statement. Or actually, ignorant view. BDC's are becoming popular because it's a dedicated department solely responsible for one task. More and more dealers are starting to see the importance of having reps designated and dedicated to solely marketing and generating business. It's very easy to hold accountability with a dedicated department but near impossible with a sales floor where everyones day and tasks differ so greatly.
How can you hold a Salesperson accountable for only making 20 phone calls if he spent the whole day "upping" customers and going on test drives? You can't.
Take away the leads and the phone calls, does the BDC actually develop business? Are they soliciting business on their own? My guys did get a lot of repeat and referral business
I can tell you are an old school car guy and there's nothing wrong with that. You just don't "get it". The BDC develops business from working leads, previous customers, maturity lists etc. They work at the dealership. Are they going around passing out flyers and holding up signs? No. Neither are your salespeople. Everything you are saying looks great on paper. However, in the real world it doesn't exist. Your sales people surely are not working 60+ hours at the dealership and THEN working full time at home marketing. They don't. Entirely unlikely and unrealistic.
I have BDC reps who IN ADDITION to their jobs brought in friends/family to buy no different than sales people (because they are....people). I have BDC reps who have had previous customers call THEM and not the saleperson because of the rapport that was built before they walked in to the dealership (again..because they are people. Just like everyone else.)
The customers came in and my guys would close them in about half the normal time. They did print up their own deal packets (checked by the desk) and turn to F&I. They did take the car to clean-up but we had delivery specialists.
Why would you have delivery "specialists"? Isn't this kind of similar to the whole BDC vs No BDC debate? I mean...I would like to see a Salesperson deliver a car to his/her own customer. You should have hired better salespeople...... (That was condescending. I apologize a head of time.)
I'm not going to go into statistics because I don't think you would believe me. I will say that I haven't seen any on this thread that impressed me. You have a BDC that you consider productive. Tell me, how much productivity is the store getting out of the salespeople on an hour to hour basis? If they are like most stores they are in "dope rings" pissing in each others pockets waiting for the up bus.
In a perfect world your sales people do EVERYTHING. Even you have found that having a "delivery specialist" is convenient because it frees up the time for the sales people so they can move on to the next customer. There are dealerships that have BDC's for that sole purpose. Then there are dealerships that have BDC's for that purpose AND for the simple fact that they can reach out to far MORE customers without the interruption of taking test drives, doing paperwork, and everything else the salesperson is responsible for.