- May 10, 2018
- 5
- 2
- First Name
- Andrei
The prospect of the automotive business development center is
appealing, with the promise of an appointment generation machine that will
supercharge your sales floor. That said, building and sustaining a successful
BDC is a difficult process for every car dealership. The processes that need to
be implemented and the staff that need to be hired present unique problems that
dealers have to overcome.
My own experience has been meandering. When I first hired my first BDC rep, I had no idea what I was doing, as I had very little guidance on what to look for. Luckily my first hire turned out to be a superstar, but that was just a roll of the dice. As I scaled the BDC to three members, I started to face new difficulties, and at the same time, I found very few resources available to learn from others.
That’s why I started Car Sales Story, to provide a home for automotive training, with an initial focus on automotive BDC training. Recently I've expanded into providing online courses, with my first one being "Mastering Your Lease Portfolio."
Now, in the last 14 months that I’ve built that site, I’ve
faced a deluge of the same questions over and over again. This article is
designed to address those common questions, as addressed in the recent Refresh Friday.
Question #1: How Should BDC Reps Handle Out-of-State Leads
Out-of-State leads are fantastic opportunities to make
profitable car deals. That said, there is generally not an opportunity to set
an appointment. Since I recommend paying BDC reps both on appointments set and
cars sold, this should not be a problem! The BDC rep should contact the
out-of-state lead, discover the needs, and present the opportunity to a sales
manager. If the customer becomes a deal, then the BDC representative should be
paid on the sale.
Your dealership needs to have a clear out-of-state process.
Customers want to understand what it will take to buy a car over state lines,
and if your reps are not on the same page as management, the store will lose
business.
Out of state business is worth doing. Consider building out
a clear out-of-state guidelines document and share it with your team.
You also need to build a process to protect your dealership
from fraud, especially when dealing with out-of-state transactions. You should
implement background checks and a list of word tracks to look out for. Pattern
recognition will help protect your dealership from fraud.
Question #2: How Do You Work in a BDC without a CRM
Don’t.
In reality, if you are working in a BDC without a CRM, you
are severely handicapped. Luckily, there are some simple and low-cost CRMs that
your dealership can very easily invest in. If they are not willing to spend the
small amount of money to get even a basic CRM, then I implore you to seek work
elsewhere.
Your CRM is almost as essential as your phone.
Jeff
Question #3: How to Handle 60+ Day Old Leads That Haven’t Bought Yet?
First question- how do you know if they are still in the
market?
Alex mentioned that there are tools that you can use to
track if a customer is still in the market. By sending emails with tracked
links, you can see when a customer clicks links you send them. If they are
still clinking links, they are probably still in the market.
When a customer tells you that they are not interested in a specific period of time (“I’ll be back in the market in 2 months”), make sure to take a little bit off of their estimate. In the case of “back in two months,” I recommend following up in six weeks. The logic is that customers will always give themselves a little cushion of time when setting expectations. If you follow up using their guidance, you will often find out that they had bought a car before you called them back.
If you are in a military town, you will often have exact
dates on their deployments. In the same vein of advice, follow up with the
customers a few weeks before they get back.
Question #4: Best BDC Pay Plans?
BDC pay plans need to be motivational and sustainable. I
recommend paying BDC reps on a tiered structure that includes payment for
appointments shown and appointments sold. As the manager, you need to keep an
eye on the ratio of shown to sold so that you can make sure there is no funny
business.
The sustainability needs to scale with sales. I recommend
two ways of building sustainability. First off, I think that the monthly tiers
for their shown and sold appointments commissions should shift up over time.
BDC reps will naturally learn how to “work” the system, and by slowly
increasing their quotas, you will keep them on their toes. If your reps hit
their top tier every month, it’s time to make a shift.
Secondly, I recommend charging deals a BDC pack, equal to
the average commission per deal paid to the BDC. If you do not build this into
your accounting, your BDC will quickly become the first thing to be cut at your
dealer in a down market. Sales support staff are hard to protect without
building their pay into the car deals.
Question #5: What Should You Do if a Customer Puts in Lead, Then Hangs up
Immediately When You Call Them?
Don’t take it personally. You just called them at a bad
time. Don’t overanalyze this! Often I will hear salespeople say, “well I called
the guy, but he hung up on me, so I marked him lost!” Just because they hung up
on you, it doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk to you.
My advice?
Send them a text or an email saying “sorry I interrupted
what you were doing, let me know when you can talk” and move on. Try calling
the customer again at a different time, or on a different day.
Jeff mentions in the Refresh Friday recording that at his
dealer, he sends the customer a custom link that directs the customer to a page
where they can see pictures of the car and play around with payments. If the
customer is playing around on that site, you know they are still in-market,
regardless of if they hung up on you.
Question #6: What if a Customer Wants a Car We Don’t Have in Stock?
If it’s an upcoming car, get an excel sheet going. List the
customers that are interested in the model, with phone numbers, so that when
the car gets in, you will have a list to call.
If it’s a car that has been discontinued, you need to have alternative cars available. Have word tracks prepped that sell the customer on the reason that they should want the new car.
In the case of a specific car that has been sold, you need
to find out what about that car interested the customer in the first place.
Once you identify that, work quickly to find a car with the same feature/color
that the customer wants.
When it’s a unique used car that is unlikely to be easily
replaced, do not let the customer come in before telling them it’s sold.
Although this will get the customer in the door, it is a bait and switch tactic
that should be avoided.
There is a hidden benefit to this situation. The customer
that has been “burned once” by having a car sold out from underneath them will
be unlikely to let that happen again. The customer in this situation will be
much more likely to make a quick decision when you find a replacement car.
Question #7: How Do I Get the Salespeople to Update Their Appointments?
Your sales team needs to include your BDC fully. Salespeople
are lazy in their CRM when they are poorly trained and don’t see the value of
their work. If you make sure that your BDC and your sales floor work together
closely, you can easily explain the value of having good notes for the BDC to
work off of.
I tell salespeople that if they don’t update the CRM, the
BDC will not call their people. That’s a heavy price to pay!
Your weekly sales meetings should also include your BDC. The more integral your BDC is to your sales floor, the more likely you will harbor cooperation.
Question #8: Should After-Hours Autoresponder Pretend to be Human
We were in agreement on this one. After normal store hours,
when the store is closed, the dealership still receives internet leads. Rather
than waiting to respond to those leads until the next morning, most dealers
will utilize an auto-responder message that replies directly to the email that
sent in the lead.
As far as the messaging, we agreed that the message should
be short (2-3 sentences) and simply ask the customer how they would like to be
contacted.
Often customers will respond to this email as if a human sent it, which is not a problem. The biggest takeaway is to keep the message short. A long email at 11 pm doesn’t look real.
appealing, with the promise of an appointment generation machine that will
supercharge your sales floor. That said, building and sustaining a successful
BDC is a difficult process for every car dealership. The processes that need to
be implemented and the staff that need to be hired present unique problems that
dealers have to overcome.
My own experience has been meandering. When I first hired my first BDC rep, I had no idea what I was doing, as I had very little guidance on what to look for. Luckily my first hire turned out to be a superstar, but that was just a roll of the dice. As I scaled the BDC to three members, I started to face new difficulties, and at the same time, I found very few resources available to learn from others.
That’s why I started Car Sales Story, to provide a home for automotive training, with an initial focus on automotive BDC training. Recently I've expanded into providing online courses, with my first one being "Mastering Your Lease Portfolio."
Now, in the last 14 months that I’ve built that site, I’ve
faced a deluge of the same questions over and over again. This article is
designed to address those common questions, as addressed in the recent Refresh Friday.
Question #1: How Should BDC Reps Handle Out-of-State Leads
Out-of-State leads are fantastic opportunities to make
profitable car deals. That said, there is generally not an opportunity to set
an appointment. Since I recommend paying BDC reps both on appointments set and
cars sold, this should not be a problem! The BDC rep should contact the
out-of-state lead, discover the needs, and present the opportunity to a sales
manager. If the customer becomes a deal, then the BDC representative should be
paid on the sale.
Your dealership needs to have a clear out-of-state process.
Customers want to understand what it will take to buy a car over state lines,
and if your reps are not on the same page as management, the store will lose
business.
Out of state business is worth doing. Consider building out
a clear out-of-state guidelines document and share it with your team.
You also need to build a process to protect your dealership
from fraud, especially when dealing with out-of-state transactions. You should
implement background checks and a list of word tracks to look out for. Pattern
recognition will help protect your dealership from fraud.
Question #2: How Do You Work in a BDC without a CRM
Don’t.
In reality, if you are working in a BDC without a CRM, you
are severely handicapped. Luckily, there are some simple and low-cost CRMs that
your dealership can very easily invest in. If they are not willing to spend the
small amount of money to get even a basic CRM, then I implore you to seek work
elsewhere.
Your CRM is almost as essential as your phone.
Jeff
Question #3: How to Handle 60+ Day Old Leads That Haven’t Bought Yet?
First question- how do you know if they are still in the
market?
Alex mentioned that there are tools that you can use to
track if a customer is still in the market. By sending emails with tracked
links, you can see when a customer clicks links you send them. If they are
still clinking links, they are probably still in the market.
When a customer tells you that they are not interested in a specific period of time (“I’ll be back in the market in 2 months”), make sure to take a little bit off of their estimate. In the case of “back in two months,” I recommend following up in six weeks. The logic is that customers will always give themselves a little cushion of time when setting expectations. If you follow up using their guidance, you will often find out that they had bought a car before you called them back.
If you are in a military town, you will often have exact
dates on their deployments. In the same vein of advice, follow up with the
customers a few weeks before they get back.
Question #4: Best BDC Pay Plans?
BDC pay plans need to be motivational and sustainable. I
recommend paying BDC reps on a tiered structure that includes payment for
appointments shown and appointments sold. As the manager, you need to keep an
eye on the ratio of shown to sold so that you can make sure there is no funny
business.
The sustainability needs to scale with sales. I recommend
two ways of building sustainability. First off, I think that the monthly tiers
for their shown and sold appointments commissions should shift up over time.
BDC reps will naturally learn how to “work” the system, and by slowly
increasing their quotas, you will keep them on their toes. If your reps hit
their top tier every month, it’s time to make a shift.
Secondly, I recommend charging deals a BDC pack, equal to
the average commission per deal paid to the BDC. If you do not build this into
your accounting, your BDC will quickly become the first thing to be cut at your
dealer in a down market. Sales support staff are hard to protect without
building their pay into the car deals.
Question #5: What Should You Do if a Customer Puts in Lead, Then Hangs up
Immediately When You Call Them?
Don’t take it personally. You just called them at a bad
time. Don’t overanalyze this! Often I will hear salespeople say, “well I called
the guy, but he hung up on me, so I marked him lost!” Just because they hung up
on you, it doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk to you.
My advice?
Send them a text or an email saying “sorry I interrupted
what you were doing, let me know when you can talk” and move on. Try calling
the customer again at a different time, or on a different day.
Jeff mentions in the Refresh Friday recording that at his
dealer, he sends the customer a custom link that directs the customer to a page
where they can see pictures of the car and play around with payments. If the
customer is playing around on that site, you know they are still in-market,
regardless of if they hung up on you.
Question #6: What if a Customer Wants a Car We Don’t Have in Stock?
If it’s an upcoming car, get an excel sheet going. List the
customers that are interested in the model, with phone numbers, so that when
the car gets in, you will have a list to call.
If it’s a car that has been discontinued, you need to have alternative cars available. Have word tracks prepped that sell the customer on the reason that they should want the new car.
In the case of a specific car that has been sold, you need
to find out what about that car interested the customer in the first place.
Once you identify that, work quickly to find a car with the same feature/color
that the customer wants.
When it’s a unique used car that is unlikely to be easily
replaced, do not let the customer come in before telling them it’s sold.
Although this will get the customer in the door, it is a bait and switch tactic
that should be avoided.
There is a hidden benefit to this situation. The customer
that has been “burned once” by having a car sold out from underneath them will
be unlikely to let that happen again. The customer in this situation will be
much more likely to make a quick decision when you find a replacement car.
Question #7: How Do I Get the Salespeople to Update Their Appointments?
Your sales team needs to include your BDC fully. Salespeople
are lazy in their CRM when they are poorly trained and don’t see the value of
their work. If you make sure that your BDC and your sales floor work together
closely, you can easily explain the value of having good notes for the BDC to
work off of.
I tell salespeople that if they don’t update the CRM, the
BDC will not call their people. That’s a heavy price to pay!
Your weekly sales meetings should also include your BDC. The more integral your BDC is to your sales floor, the more likely you will harbor cooperation.
Question #8: Should After-Hours Autoresponder Pretend to be Human
We were in agreement on this one. After normal store hours,
when the store is closed, the dealership still receives internet leads. Rather
than waiting to respond to those leads until the next morning, most dealers
will utilize an auto-responder message that replies directly to the email that
sent in the lead.
As far as the messaging, we agreed that the message should
be short (2-3 sentences) and simply ask the customer how they would like to be
contacted.
Often customers will respond to this email as if a human sent it, which is not a problem. The biggest takeaway is to keep the message short. A long email at 11 pm doesn’t look real.
