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Posts with phone tag.
Let’s Remember Who It’s About: Not You!

Have you ever listened to a profressional salesperson? No, no, really. Have you ever listened to a proferssional salesperson? Those skilled in the trade are fantastic about doing one thing extremely well: allowing the customer to understand that it's about them, what's in it for them and how important they are. Those with truly exceptional skill allow people to talk themselves into buying.

So why in the heck have trainers and consultants been ruining it for customers walking into dealerships by knocking some of the following word tracks and customer approaches into salespeople's heads:

"I will do whatever it takes to earn your business"

"I've received your information, I've checked that the car is still here, I've spoken with my manager about the price and I only need to know right now if you have a trade in"

"I need to know what it will take to get you down here right now"

"I will answer all of your quesitons and I hope to meet you soon"…

In visiting and mystery shopping dealerships all over the country, it is more apparent than ever that salespeople not only like to talk about themselves, they're trained to. The less skilled they are, the more it happens. That's got to be worth everything from the OEM-paid local course, to the $1,500 conference, to the $5,000-10,000 per-day in-house super-duper-trainer with 30 years experience.

Folks, who is everything about? The customer. You will never make it about the customer talking about yourself. Ever! And that is what 3-month newbies to 25+ years veterans do all day long. And if the communication is over the phone or email versus face-to-face, add even more to the irritating factor. Can we all agree that, for the most part, the person that a prospect is talking to is assumed to be their salesperson or at least a sales contact? OK, now that we are passed that, move the focus from you to them…

For the past seven years, the education we bring to dealers and the coaching we bring to sales teams is consistent:

!. Eliminate "I" and change your word tracks to "you"

2. Make everything about the customer, first.

3. Change the delivery to talk about what the cusotmer receives, how it benefits them, when they'll get it, how they'll get it and, absolutely last, who they'll get it from.

Nothing turns people off more than hearing about someone they don't know or care about tallking about themselves, what they're doing, what they need, what they can do and can't do, and how much they want to sell a car. #yawn

Changing communication and contact practices will increase contact, ppointment and how rates. Oh, and that sell more cars. Period.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

September 5, 2014 by Gary May 0
Floor Traffic Down? Invite Them In! (Including 5 Ideas That Work If You Do)

Reading a number of great posts recently (while trying to ignore the blatant self-promotion via a popularity contest glorified by a number of industry members last week), all focused on getting dealers to make the shift to digital or social media, it hit me once again what we're all trying to do: get people in the door.

While a number of dealers (maybe 5% in the country) are seeing growth many are seeing flat or declining numbers. Others are experiencing unit lifts while dealing with large drop in gross or back end. And everyone is dealing with selling fewer vehicles in the past 18 months than in the previous 4-6 years.

So in this online world, what aside from actually selling a vehicle to a customer or servicing their car drives traffic? One thing that can be looked at, especially in a world of smaller budgets, staffs and sales is events. With rare exception over the past two years, the factories (and therefore the dealers) have spent less and less on driving valuable traffic via new-owner events, clinics, ride-and-drives, sponsorships, meet-and-greets and the like. While the quantity of tire kickers may be down, real purchase intention is down significantly less (we'll leave the statistics and "pent up demand" gibberish talk to others).

Fewer and fewer dealers are doing what it takes to being people in: WIIFM. Yes, the most popular radio station in the world. What's In It For Me! More and more consumers are out there, looking for answers on how to program their seat memory, sync their bluetooth, update their navigation system, find out the difference in maintaining their car at the dealership versus aftermarket besides price and a whole lot more. So…they're left with going to a discussion group/blog/forum/portal, relying on word of mouth or not knowing at all. And you believe you 'had them at hello' when you sold the car.

So no new owner clinics. No barbecues. No comparison drives. No meet the staff days. No fundraisers (let alone getting a link from the event website to your website with all of the traffic they're receiving. What's that? What's a link? What does that do?). Boy, that will work! Then tell yourself that the drop in floor traffic is fine since 70-90% of the same-brand stores in your PMA are also down rather than kicking ass. Forget about building a brand, or answering the questions that many customers won't ask you over the phone, or stopping that brand new owner from driving into (fill-in-the-blank)-Lube, let alone even retaining the customers you have and that WANT to come back for a good reason or two.

No. Maybe this whole thing is wrong. The factory is supposed to do and promote events. The factory is supposed to drive floor traffic. The factory is supposed to give you all of the handraisers in the area. The factory has to do all of the advertising so you can copy the ad and put it on your (mediocre) website. The factory is supposed to give you all of the pitter-patter of footsteps so you can just kick back, put your feet up (or in the golf cart), make money and retire in 20 years.

DING, DING, DING. Wake Up!!! (that was your floor traffic meter just hitting zero)

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

August 2, 2010 by Gary May 1
Customer Relationship Management: It’s The Message, Not Software That Sells

Three vendors, multiple pitches, agonizing internal conversations, budget decisions, integration, contract, training and the big fat check (every month). Now: simply turn it on and have it send messages for you and you win! Right? Wrong!

How in the world are we continually convinced that a solution 'in the box' is the right one for our multi-million dollar businesses?  Are most dealers now buying software and technology the same way that we've bought DMS for the past 20 years?  We have Dell build our own laptops down the finest detail, change the covers on our cell phones so they're more 'us', put 20's on our otherwise stock cars, and wear clothes that says 'me'. But we send out messages to everyone that's the same and expect them to respond, let alone come in, buy and refer? What a joke!

Here's a clue: if it takes more work and you don't see the results immediately, you're probably heading in the right direction. Why would you send a message (email, text, direct mail, etc) to someone that has a F-150 XLT from your store an offer for a $29 oil change that has small print disclaiming the offer is for 4-cylinder cars? How about sending someone that just leased a new Lexus IS250 from your dealership three months ago an offer that's $40 less per month or that has $1,000 less drive off for the same payment?

If you want to use CRM, treat it like a CRM tool by segmenting your customers in your database, updating regularly, creating different campaigns (start with something difficult, let's say like whether they're male or female) and start with unique messages and offers. It might even work!

Do you use your CRM, an eNewsletter and a company that markets specifically for declined service follow ups (if not more vendors)? Since you've created your own mess, at least hold each vendor responsible to running consistent (non-concurrent) uniquely-branded content that offers readers something that they won't likely want to ignore. What's meant by ignore? If you statistics show supposedly great open and click rates and you don't see a relative increase in traffic, people are likely ignoring your messages.

Have you started using social media as a CRM avenue? Think about it this way: do you believe that you have more customers opening your newsletter (with the same content as everyone else in your PMA) or using Facebook regularly? Don't answer out loud, but why don't you put your current, and archived, newsletters with a link on your Facebook Fan Page and every time you update, all of your followers get it in their feed and emai?

Instead of spending $10,000 a month on direct mail with a 2-6% open rate, send them via Twitter, Facebook and Plaxo for practically $0 and schedule the offers to be sent on specific dates, specific hours and with exact details. Considering that likely under 5% of direct mail is actually integrated into all marketing, your social media CRM efforts will pay huge dividends with less effort. Remember not to forget the most important part, the message.

If you believe that Customer Relationship Management is still about advertising, be prepared to have your (rear end) handed to you by more dynamic, engaged dealerships that have embraced the digital CRM revolution in addition to their CRM software. If the emails you send out to leads don't even have a link to your favorite reputation management site, links to your social media profiles and at least a 'why to buy' item like an intro video or photos of the car they will likely buy, you need to stop and really think over your CRM plan.

Treat Customer Relationship Management as its name implies rather than the 'other' CRM: customer-regardless mumble-jumble. Oh, and one more point: never stop asking questions. It's what you do when you stop talking and start listening.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

November 1, 2009 by Gary May 1