Steve,

Thanks again for sending the email to Jeff, and BIG thanks for sticking it out in this thread. I hope you don't mind, but I sent your email to all the executives and general managers around Checkered Flag. Your email doesn't just help to open "old" eyes, it helps to keep "new" eyes on track.

This industry will not accept the fact that control belongs to the customer now. To me, your email says "I want to reward the dealer who acknowledges my control", and I think that is the statement we are failing to understand.

This industry is in the midst of a tough transition, and this economic crunch we're in will either help it or hinder it - it is too early to tell. I don't think your next car purchase will be much better than your last one Steve, but I think 5-10 years from now you'll hear a different tune....I hope!

Earl,
The in the days of old, you had "Much Better Loyalty". That age you refer to was born in an age of ZERO INFORMATION.

Days of old had the dealer holding all of the cards (read:information)
Days of old had 3 major domestic brands (read: profits)
Days of old taught shoppers their best shopping tool was a dealer that would take care of them (read: relationship building).

The market place has totally changed from Days of old. The information between buyer and seller is now nearly equal. The consumer's drive for loyalty -natually- moves to price (not information). Reps are paid to grind and grind and grind some more. Reps DONT WANT THIS, management does.

So.... the pay plan was born from "days of old" and until management realizes that the pay plan is hurting the business's ability to survive, nothing will change. Can someone tell me how to build relationships with this tension? NOT EASY.

Joe
p.s. this all is connected to too much inventory and too many outlets. One good old fashioned multi-year soup line depression would take care of this part of the equation! hahaha... ahem, sorry.

Yea, and I bet that sales guy didn't make a dime off of you either steve. Brand loyalty? What about dealer loyalty..that's out the door too since the internet.

ooo... I don't know about you guys, but with mr.Steve in here I feel, kinda.... violated hahah, kinda like someone let a girl in the HeManWomanhatersClub*.

Who let the fox in the hen house?!?!!!
hahaha

* Our Gang - Wikipedia

Something to consider here is that 'steve' represents one type of customer, or persona that visits our website. The 'persona' concept and having a system that appeals to each persona is the main takeaway from the Eisenbergs, IMO.

Alex--

Yes I like your thinking, and your website. Whoever is in charge of decisions for the Web has good instincts. Sadly, I am not up on whether it will wind up in more sales. But you would have my "respect" as a consumer by not putting up some shlock site. I think that there are lots of speedbumps in sales. And anything that gives a potential customer reason to stop, and notice something that does NOT further the sales process? It needs to go!

Short story, I buy the Lexus, go in to pick it up, and its near end of day. I notice they have bottled water for free with dealership logo on bottle... so far so good. But its warm?? Warm bottled water in Texas? So I ask the guy who sells me the car, as he is showing me around? "Oh, yeah, no problem, there is a cup with ice right there!" I point out that Lexus is a pretty nice car, and I would not want to drive over a pothole with a styrofoam cup spilling water. Why not just refridgerate it? He takes me to the service counter, smiling. He has anticipated this he tells me. So he opens up the cooler, sees the 7 remaining bottles,and frowns. "Didn't they used to put these on ice?" he asks the tech. " Yup, but they haven't in a long time."

I went back in 4 months later. Still warm.

Not a big thing, but if you do it, think it through, right?

steve

Brian--

Funny, but it seems that the smaller badges are better at trying new things. Not saying its true everywhere. But I saw an article in the Dallas Morning News about a car dealer in a poor part of town selling "lights out" at his dealership ("his" being sexist of course, and by the way when will women start becoming a critical mass?)

I think it Don Herring Mitsu..... but not positive.

As for the questions: Hmm, I do not know. I think price is important. I think a guarantee is somewhat suspect tho. Here is my thinking about price matches.

Every been to Frye's? They guarantee to match prices, as do most electronic dealers. So you see a TV, and the model number is almost but not quite exactly the same. Each retailer has a separate model number that they use to show that the exact same tv is actually NOT. In the car business I would not trust my neighbor to tell me exactly what he paid, and even if he was willing, its private. Also, my understanding is that there are lots of techniques the dealer uses between finance options, trade in value, and add on packages that are then renegotiated down. So, if I am a consumer who hates shopping for cars, why would I want to do it twice? First to buy, then to compare?

If I wanted to build trust........ hmm, a hard question.... I think I would start with a website put up by my own guys. That is if you can find someone like Alex, who believes in the NET and has the shared costs multi badges can bring. The reason I want my own guys, is I want control. I would put up a forum. No holds barred, true honest consumer stuff. I would knock off Edmunds, ClubLexus, etc. I would even ask ClubLexus if I could open a special topic with only my dealership on the topic. That way I would be seen as having less control of the message. Then I would post any and all comments. The good and the bad. I think every bad comment has MORE potential t help you than the good ones.

Folks believe bad stuff much more readily than good news. Especially when they know good comments can be fed in, and bad comments NEVER would be. Then I would have a special guy who answers each and every comment and tries to help. SHOW that yo make mistakes, but that you take your customers best interests to heart and you have perhaps paid some money out short term. How many of those guys, unless you totally tick them off even bother to shop next time?

Anyone read Car Sewell's "Customers for Life"? I did, and then moved to Dallas, and bought a Lexus. Did I buy from Carl? hmmm one guess..... correctomundo! NO I did not.

Long story, but one bad experience made the difference for me.

Sorry Carl, but I did buy your book

steve

"why do some car dealer think the public is stupid, that we really believe some multi millionaire employs some nitwit who bought TOO MUCH inventory! "

Matt--here is the exact quote.... please tell me where I "call all... nitwits"? I think the quote is actually implying the exact opposite That multi millionaire owners are NOT dumb enough to hire ANYONE not smart enough to NOT order too much inventory.

But your response, I have to admit, I think it might be a "joke" response, seems to show your lack of attention.

"The comment about the girl ... was most likely true as dealers need to make sure the sales people are doing their job."

This is YOUR exact quote, and I have to say, this is the part where I thought ur post was joking........ If you truly think having sales folks feel so much pressure and pain that they are sobbing when the customer does not behave as the dealer mandates... that is truly sad.

Here is an idea, pay enough to get qualified help that can afford to support a family. And then pay a manager to manage well enough that that same group performs. And then see if fear is the best LONG TERM motivator. Yes fear can perform miracles every single day. But I will never buy a single car from a R-thal dealership in the VirMar area. EVER.

steve

Steve,

I'll declare up front I am not a neutral blog participant in asking this question:

"How would you feel about buying online if you could actually do all of the shopping online from a dealer?"

No salesperson would call except to help with your understanding of the process or to see if you had questions the "shopping cart" didn't answer?

Price, credit, interest rates, rebates, trade-in, accessories, extended warranties, protections, tax, title, fees, and accurate monthly payments. I know you weren't financing, and didn't have a trade, but what if?

Thought you may enjoy this story too:

The Non-Conversion Experience

Over on the DealerRefresh blog, Jeff has posted An Email from Your Customer. The email was submitted to him by a customer and Jeff posts it along with several questions. After reading the email - yes, you really should - here are some takeaways: Give y...

Steve - I'm glad someone likes my thinking! Thanks for sending the email, and I hope you decide to stick around Dealer Refresh longer - your incite is invaluable!

Well it's obvious that customers still feel slighted by the car sales process. Unfortunately based on some of the preceding comments many consumers still have a hard time separating their pre conceived notions from reality. Dealers get inventory forced down their throats from manufacturers and often have way too many cars.. Many dealers are land locked and have no choice but to offer lower prices to make room for the 10 truckloads of vehicles that will be dropped off by the manufacturer over the next week. Also to call all car sales people and managers nit wits shows that people assume just because you sell cars you are stupid or uneducated. Many car sales people are far more educated than the customers that are sitting in front of them, and many of us are in this business because we enjoy it. While dealers work hard to make consumers happy many consumers come in assuming they know and understand the dynamics of the auto business and they really haven’t got a clue. That’s not to say they are not smart, as many of them continue to play one dealer against another to get the best price they can. The comment about the girl that told the customer she would be fined if she did not give the manager the opportunity to introduce himself was most likely true as dealers need to make sure the sales people are doing their job.

Good Feedback! Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with us!

Hi

Dudes & Dudettes,

Just thought i would say Hi i hope to contribute more in future

cheers

T

Tragaperras gratis
Apuestamaniatico

I would love to hear about any systems people have to compare data like that or just share idea's - [email protected]

Mike - that sounds really familiar. Importing various things into Excel is a great idea though! I never thought about getting the call history from a cell phone for comparison purposes.

I am currently working with Dealer.com to do some database-meshing strictly for reporting purposes. This month-end-customer-comparing-waste-of-time has been the worst part of my job for about 8 years now (try it for an entire auto group). If we can pull off what DDC and I are trying to do, this report could reduce a lot of that wasted time and probably open some eyes on various reporting metrics. I think it will take us a few months to get it to a point where it is as robust and accurate as I'd like, and when it gets there I will definitely be talking about it on Dealer Refresh.

If anyone has any idea's on how to convert from my current pay plan to this new one it would be appreciated. I want to get paid for my efforts but I don't want the owner to think hes getting ripped either!

Talk about feeling right at home! I am ripping my hair out just trying to figure out who I got in the door! We have a CRM in place, but the salesman never log their leads and the GM will not enforce it. I am the ISM at a dealership with on avg about 300 used cars in inventory. I take the pictures ( about 2o per car), I am responsible for comments on all of them. I answer all of the incoming Internet phone leads, and Email leads. I am building a new secondary website from the ground up- meaning I taught myself web design, and how to use Photoshop for the graphics. I set up a facebook page that is driving more click thru's to our website than Cars.com. Also I brought the amount of "trackable" deals from 5-10 a month to 50+! With all this in order to find out how many deals I got I have developed the most insane process.

First: I take pictures of our desk logs for the previous week.

second: I record all customer info into an excel file.

Third: I download my incoming call history from my cell phone provider into another excel file.

Fourth: I export my inbound internet leads (customer names and phone #'s) into another excel file.

Fifth: I then use a formula in excel to cross refrence all of this data to find out who ive communicated with.

Once I have a list of all the names I then stare at the sales board to find out if they sold.

This takes hours even now when I have it down to a science. Not to mention all the customers whos names are not recorded on the logs correctly (one letter off and they fall through the cracks), End up buying under a different name than the original lead name, or call me from a different phone than they record in F&I - if they give one at all! I am not complaining about how much I make because I do better than the other ISM's in my autogroup with similar pay plans, but how much time is wasted on this when I could be working on simply driving in more floor traffic?

Jason's pay structure just blew my mind! I am going to appoarch the GM tomorrow morning with this idea!

sofitel reef casino cairns sloan iowa casino royale casino .song at the beginning of casino royale red earth casino california la posta casino blue chips casino .online casino roulette cheat slotocash casino .cuba casino chips lion slots casino review oklahoma cherokee casino harrah's casino san diego .And oceans casino oceanside .The best of .in the attached .it called sometime hotel casino conrad silver casino krugersdorp should For point edward casino or recreational lone butte casino map high roller casino pinball More information on holland casino scheveningen because as for me or recreational tulalip casino transportation hollywood casino pennsylvania outside How hammond casino hotel when crown casino garden room full hand casino for 7710 san bernardino indian casino Usualy capone casino ii caledon casino x26 spa daniel craig workout for casino royale finger lakes casino If class casino wathc
tulsa ok cherokee casino man dies in fall from atlantic city casino garage .You search here in the attached black bear resort and casino is the same as majestic star casino poker tournaments sometime turning stone casino map .The .or again .Before As so tusk umfolozi casino lina la sin casino Usualy This is sun vegas casino because nevada casino chips providenciales casino sandia casino weddings jewel soaring eagle casino What is wrest point casino map see when .

Same for me brothers!!! I have been in Internet Sales for almost 4 years now and I have always been paid as a typical salesperson. I have always been lured into the position with promotion statements, etc, only to find out I am just another floor-guy. Oh well, what are you going to do???

Warning: mysql_connect() a href='function.mysql-connect'>function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10048) in C:\AppServ\www\megadorgen\config.php on line 5
Can't Connect

JOE:
lol - too funny because I have that exact problem! Particularly with a new sales rep. Ive learned to recognize eash sales person writing/style The first clue for me is when someone has a lot of local drive by's.

Jason,
Be sure the sales reps don't fill out the forms "on behalf" of the customer. I had some reps whos customers always had the same answers and funny as it sounds, all his customers were from cold calling or referals! hahaha...

alex: I like your "make my deal"

reis: I guarantee you more then 50% of your true internet sales are going under the radar as drive-ups... simply having the customer themself fill out a simple multiple chioce survey in finance will reveal the truth (it did for us). Last month we sold 10 cars from autotrader - and 8 of them never called or emailed, they saw us online and just drove out. I had some initial resistance to the survey from the staff, but I simply asked "why are we afraid to know what marketing actually works"

Amazing - when we no longer relied on the sales staff to identify what was driving our floor traffic, but simply asked the customer, we went from 70% 'local - drive by', to just 5%!! LOL Oh, and the internet went from 5% to 70% of our prospects