Do you Protect your Internet Sales Staff from the floor?

[danoneil]

If you change your internet department to dedicated internet managers who do not sell the vehicles, you will not have problems.

 

[mikeelmore]

What about protecting the floor from the internet staff?

If someone walks in as a brand new lead does a test drive and then goes home and submits a lead on your website or somewhere on the internet, what happens?

What brought that person in to begin with?

In today's, plugged in world , everyone is an Internet Customer. Even a long term customer that may have been doing business with the store for 40 years, should....could....is an Internet Customer, whether it's Sales, Service, Parts or Body Shop.

When this truth is accepted, all will be fine and dandy!

 

[Alex Snyder]

What about protecting the floor from the internet staff?

What brought that person in to begin with?

The floor gets "skated" by the Internet department almost as much as the Internet department gets "skated" by the floor. I have never believed that someone is outright going to skate another co-worker; with the exception of a very few. I think most people just don't understand what putting a duplicate prospect into the CRM really means. But, the customers are the reason most of the duplication/"skating" happens. Here are a few we deal with daily:

Situation 1 (two buyers): John Smith had a great time buying his car 8 months ago and now needs to buy a car for his wife Jane Smith. John has been in contact with his sales agent, but Jane is excited about her new car and has been looking at what's available on the dealership website. She got caught up in the moment one day and decided to submit a price quote lead. Because the Internet staff is so good, they're talking to her within 10 minutes. Over the next day a lot of back and forth goes on and ends in an appointment. At the same time John is talking to the sales agent on the floor. John and Jane have different email addresses, different cell phone numbers, and we will all discover what happened after they buy the car. Who "skated" who?

Situation 2 (spelling): Raquel Juntos visits with a sales agent Monday evening. The sales agent does not test drive the customer, but does everything else right. Unfortunately the sale agent is too embarrassed to ask Raquel how to spell her name but knows Raquel typically translates to be "Rachael". He enters her as Rachael Juntos into the CRM. That same night, hours after the dealership closed, Raquel's husband gets home and they discuss her next car. They go online so she can show it to him, and the husband asks a question she can't answer. She fills out the "Contact Us" form and begins communicating with the Internet department. Who "skated" who?

I can keep going and going and going. I see and hear about this stuff daily. And holy crap do I see it at month-end (which I just finished). There is just no formula of protection, so that's why I remain an advocate of making the whole thing a team effort. Then it boils down to the person behind the CRM processes knowing when to bring what player in the team's lineup to bat in each situation.

 

[Craig]

Here's my split deal saga......the person in my role as GSM and our past eComerce Director would spend hours during the day fighting out split deals between our seperated showroom/ internet department. So the first task all the salepeople wanted to hand me when I took over was to be the "split deal judge".....fights between me and the world wide web were daily for about 2 weeks. This was ridiculous and a waste of time for me, however important to the salespeople.

Solution: We set up about 5 or 6 representatives from the showroom and the web (no managers, not our money) and we had 2 meetings to create, review and then finalize in print the complete set of written in stone "split rules". We have had these rules in place for over 3 years and I have yet to judge another split deal.(no more fighting with the eCommerce Mgr made my career fly) Sure the management all had doubts and thought the rules should be adjusted to fit our agenda, but like Alex said you should never mess with someone's pay....so I remind everyone "whether the deal is split 1 way or 7, my percentage remains the same."

Let your people create your split rules and your customers create your sales process.....you'll thank me for this advice.
Craig

 

[Alex Snyder]

I am curious to see how other dealers handle protecting/skating of the internet sales department.

Gregg

Gregg - just wanted to say thanks: Dealership Internet Department vs. Sales Floor Staff

I gave your dealership a little SEO link juice for providing the inspiration :thumbup:

 

[tripdad]

At my dealership, we have a simple rule. If my department sets the appointment, we get paid. If we don't, we are out of luck. It affects both the floor salespeople and us fairly equally, as sometimes we get inbound calls from someone who has recently visited the showroom. We set, we get.

 

[4rdguy_Barrie]

I have mentioned this a few times in different threads. Our store moved to a 2 internet manager system in March of last year. When a internet customer comes in ,who ever greets them, gets them and both of us ( ISM'S) are paid the same amount. We do not deliver, test drive or do any paperwork. We let salespeople do all of that. Sales jumped 40% in 12 months. We set a new record last month with 102 sales.

It's a great system, allows salespeople to be on the floor. Internet leads get a quick response and better follow up. Not to mention no fights with salespeople.

Great System, Problem is how do they pay you and pay the salesperson?... Our internet Sales reps get paid the same as one on the floor... Sell, and deliver etc... Do they salary the Internet people and pay the salesperson a lower commission on internet deals?

I like you idea though. Just not sure how to convert my system/pay plan.

 

[tripdad]

Great System, Problem is how do they pay you and pay the salesperson?... Our internet Sales reps get paid the same as one on the floor... Sell, and deliver etc... Do they salary the Internet people and pay the salesperson a lower commission on internet deals?

I like you idea though. Just not sure how to convert my system/pay plan.

At my dealership, my internet salespeople get a salary, plus a flat fee if they set an appointment that eventually sells. The floor salespeople are paid commission on half of the commissionable gross profit, but get credit for a full unit sale (we have a unit bonus).

One of the worries when we first started this was that the floor salespeople would not want to deal with these customers because of the reduced pay. At first, that was the case, especially with the "old dogs". After 4 full months, though, the salespeople are fighting for these leads, because they close at a much higher percentage than the regular lot up, and they see the value in that.

For what it is worth, this pay plan actually costs the dealer more money, but it isn't much, and having a well trained staff who captures more sales from the internet/phones pays for the difference and then some.

Regards,
Tripdad

 

[danoneil]

Great System, Problem is how do they pay you and pay the salesperson?... Our internet Sales reps get paid the same as one on the floor... Sell, and deliver etc... Do they salary the Internet people and pay the salesperson a lower commission on internet deals?

I like you idea though. Just not sure how to convert my system/pay plan.

Sorry for the long wait for a reply. I had not been following the thread, but thought I would peek in.


There is no deduction. Salespeople get normal commission structure. Sometimes internet deals are what is referred to as a minnie deal. But most of our salespeople hold money on the trade and go for extra bucks on the back end. If they don't hold money,salespeople need the strokes.

Our store has a very high front end average overall.

Internet sales have been very strong since this system was put in place.

 

[JoeBrouillette]

My dealership group has 6 locations and a centralized BDC at one of our locations. While one of our locations does not currently utilize the BDC, that's not really here nor there.

Our internet department runs on a seperate budget which is included in the marketing/advertising budget (afaik, I'm not well versed on the exact financials). We do not spend money on traditional advertising, we run internet only by purchasing leads and driving traffic to the websites. We get paid a salary + commission.

We have a team of Internet Sales Coordinators (of which I am one, among my other duties managing email communications) who are dedicated to only setting appointments. We do not sell cars, greet customers or delve very deep into vehicle specifics. It's appointment driven and our BDC members get paid for set appointments, appointment shows, prospects that entered our dealership without an appointment, be backs and delivered vehicles. Our internet director has spent a lot of time working with the sales staff and the ISMs of the stores to stress that we aren't there to take commissions and the bulk of our pay comes from appointment shows. We do split appointments/be backs/deliveries inside the BDC. The goal is to promote equity and getting everyone paid.

Having the pay plan be separate for the sales floor and the internet dept has enabled us to establish a very good relationship with the sales floor. They understand our sole purpose is to get them viable leads that they can convert. Our internet dept has also become very experienced with our CRM (Dealersocket) and does act as sort of an in house tech support (at least I do), which has been extremely beneficial in fostering a positive relationship with the staff.

Our BDC does also handle duplicate entries in our system and handles the merging of those duplicate entries. Within our BDC we merge and reassign as required, outside of the BDC we double check with the ISM as to who he wants to have primary/secondary on the leads. We give family members to the original internet person that had the lead. For example, John comes in and buys a Mazda3, and his wife comes in a week later to buy another. The original BDC sales person would get credit for John and his wife. I am not certain how they handle that on the sales floor.

Overall it's a great system for both parties and keeps production high, our BDC accounted for 360 of the 590 something sales for one of our dealerships.

I'd be happy to clarify anything, it's a bit late so I have said something poorly.

And, Hello, first time on DealerRefresh.