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How do you fund your BDC?

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Dean

Dean

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Apr 15, 2009
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Dean
#1
A question for those of you who have a BDC.
We have 28 dealerships (1 of which is a service and parts centre) spread out in Sydney (Australia) and the Gold Coast (Aust). Our BDC is centralised and we have 6 people including myself who handle approximately 1000 leads a month.
Right now we run at a loss because as a department, we have little income. At the moment it is a small fee paid by the sales departments of the individual dealerships we own. We are considering charging our parts and service departments per enquiry as we do get hundreds of calls and website enquiries for them and they pay nothing!

Can anyone please share how they do it and any pitfalls to look out for?

Looking forward to the resonses!

Dean
 
#2
We're of the same structuring and have played with different scenarios:

1. Put the BDC into one big team and pay into a pool that is split by each team member (this was very effective for us)
2. Pay each member individually based on appointments that show
3. Split the BDC up and have them work deal cradle to grave (paying them as sales agents) - this has been disastrous

So....you're asking how to fund this sucker and a lot of that question is made up in your payplans. That part is probably not the best thing to discuss publicly. You should design your payplans to focus on better performance beyond what you're doing now. This will always create more money if you don't go too far with it.

A very smart eCommerce Director in Canada is trying a different approach. He is charging each store a per lead fee and a separate fee when a car is sold. He has created his budget so that it not only pays for the BDC, but the online advertising, and software & hardware for the entire dealer group. It is a very interesting concept and I will be passing him our numbers at year-end to see if we fit within his model.

Not sure if any of this helps you. If not, please ask some more specific questions.
 
#3
Funny you mention the eCommerce Director in Canada. We had a similar approach where we charged a sale figure. It was viewed in a very negative way, and some salespeople would say they had spoken to the customer before they were an internet lead etc.

At the moment we are paid a set fee from each brand. We take alot of service and parts enquiries, but do no more than pass them on. We are thinking of charging them a per lead fee.

Ultimately I am asking you guys how your BDC opperations are funded. I am not sure if our method is the best.
 
#5
Alex Snyder said:
We pay it out of the advertising budget.
Click to expand...

Alex's way makes the most sense. You wouldn't charge $30 per sale (for example) or $5 per customer who walks into the showroom, to the sales department. Honestly PACK on used should
more than cover your department and any internet department (among other sources of advertising). Just because its about a million percent more measurable than the newspaper or TV doesn't mean you should use that as a club to drive the point home to your sales department.

Just MHO.
 
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