Hello, and thank you in advance for your responses. In late February we created an Internet Department that would service two Ford stores. The stores each had their own pseudo Internet teams selling about 16 cars combined. With the help of a little consistency we have doubled the sales and sell about 25-30% of the total vehicles of the dealerships. The problem is- I don't have enough resources to help us grow. I answer every lead, make all the calls, follow-up, schedule appointments, meet and greet customers, create e-mail campaigns, micro-sites, etc. -the same stuff every Internet Manager probably does. Anyway, looking toward the future I would like to double or triple our current sales but cannot see how that will be possible due to the lack of manpower. I feel our only alternative is to either hire someone or train a salesperson to assist. Currently, I have two people at each store that help a little with older prospects (30 day out +) but nothing consistent or methodical- how I would like it.
My question is- does anyone have a good solution or best practice in this arena? If we were to hire someone, how would they get paid? By lead? Car sold? If we used an existing salesperson, given there's two locations about 50 miles apart would we sacrifice consistency and possibly sales?
The way it works now is I take the Internet customers as close to the point of sale as possible and then turn it over to a salesperson. The salesperson then gets his/hers commission and I get paid a salary and bonus on quantity. How would someone else fit in while still making a viable business out of this department?
My question is- does anyone have a good solution or best practice in this arena? If we were to hire someone, how would they get paid? By lead? Car sold? If we used an existing salesperson, given there's two locations about 50 miles apart would we sacrifice consistency and possibly sales?
The way it works now is I take the Internet customers as close to the point of sale as possible and then turn it over to a salesperson. The salesperson then gets his/hers commission and I get paid a salary and bonus on quantity. How would someone else fit in while still making a viable business out of this department?
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