• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

What are the modern BDC Benchmarks?

Keeping it simple will always help you. Sometimes being overzealous can confuse teams instead of helping them.

Leads // Appt // Appt Kept or Soft Appt. // Sales is a good framework.

Once you've got control, you can break it down by source if you want to improve your customization to help different metrics.

Then you can go crazy with deeper data analysis for sure. I'm sure other people on here have more to share on that front.
 
It is 2021, and we are slowly surviving this pandemic. But the way we sell cars has changed. What would you consider the benchmarks for internet to appt to sold ratios? How do we measure BDC effectiveness in 2021?
I don't have a BDC but we expect a Internet Lead to Visit of 26.2%. To get that number, taking Unique Visits (with or without Appt and not counting Be-Backs so this is a Unique Count) divided by Good Leads (meaning has a name and one contact method). We expect Visit to Sold of 60% for Internet. If I had a BDC, I would expect the same. We are short of that goal on Lead to Visit and hitting it on Visit to Sold.
 
Keeping it simple will always help you. Sometimes being overzealous can confuse teams instead of helping them.

Leads // Appt // Appt Kept or Soft Appt. // Sales is a good framework.

Once you've got control, you can break it down by source if you want to improve your customization to help different metrics.

Then you can go crazy with deeper data analysis for sure. I'm sure other people on here have more to share on that front.
What would you consider healthy percentages?
 
I'm not sure the benchmarks need to be changed. As @Marc Lavoie - keep it simple AND be consistent in all your tracking and reporting efforts.

If you added Digital Retail into the mix, you may want additional tracking/reporting for this particular segment of traffic and leads so you can establish your own goals and benchmarks.

Lead Source to Contact > Contact to Appt
Lead to Show > Show to Sold

Separate your Appt to Show from Lead to Show. Throughout the years of tracking, I found your quality of follow-up impacts your Lead to Show, even if you never make contact with the customer before they Show.
 
  • :light:
Reactions: Marc Lavoie
Anything that makes sense based on your end profit.

A 8% lead to sale ratio might be good on high margin units, but a 22% lead to sale ratio might be needed for lower profit units.

I hate to throw %s because it's very different from dealer to dealer.
Break that out from Lead to Appointment %, Appointment to Show%, Show to Sold%...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marc Lavoie
@Dan Sayer hahaha I got lost in translation! On the VBDC, I'm not happy with anything under 30% appt ratio in a 60-day span for New, and 40% appt ratio inside 15 days for Used.

Appt to Show 80% because we confirm & we have 4 reminders going out to clients between the booked & time of appt.

Show to sold well that depends on the dealership, I don't have control over this but this will range from 31% to 74% closing on SHOWs from the data I have access to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dan Sayer