Handling Inbound Phone Calls at Your
Dealership
By: Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy, a nationally
recognized Internet Sales Trainer.
There is no right or wrong solution to this challenge, and the
right answer depends on your situation, budget and location. It
goes without saying that training is essential for your call
center and all employees who handle your inbound phone calls.
While some dealerships have chosen to use third party companies
for this function, I am not a big fan of outsourcing your call
center for several reasons.
* I view it as a short term solution
* The team that you outsource to may not have the same
commitment as a traditional in-house solution.
* Outsource teams do not understand and appreciate the true
value of your dealership. Therefore it is not realistic for them
to convey your unique value proposition to a prospect.
An outsourcing solution may make sense if there were an internal
crisis or business was so good your in-house staff could not
handle the volume. Then it might be a necessity. Or, you wanted
assistance with your long term follow-up, leads and or "aged"
prospects. Outsourcing is a great way of gaining incremental
business without tying up your front line people with long term
(lower closing) opportunities.
I truly believe that you will create greater value and do much
better with a trained in-house team. Remember your internal
folks have more skin in the game. Investing in your own people
almost always pays big dividends in the long run for your store.
Many stores are very busy and dealerships just don't invest
time, energy or money into training. The average dealership
spends about $50,000 in advertising a month and the average
store has 10 sales consultants. That's $5,000 a piece in
advertising with little or no training what so ever. Does that
make sense to you? On behalf of our dealer clients, our company
conducts thousands of mystery shopper calls and performs call
monitoring for inbound calls. Here are some highlights of what
we have observed:
* The phone call goes to multiple places before
it reaches the right person... Receptionist answers (sometimes
after way too many rings) then it goes to this person, then that
person. Especially if a floor sales person gets the call from
the receptionist, then it has to go the Special Finance manager
or Internet manager. If a prospect phones in and is excited
about buying a car or improving their credit we need to make it
extremely easy for that person to get in touch with someone that
can fulfill their needs immediately and keep that excitement
alive.
* The initial greeting is often botched. Most
of the phone calls start off horribly wrong and guess what; they
end the same way. Often times sales consultants, BDC reps, or
call center staff answer the phone or make the outgoing call
without any level of enthusiasm.
It sometimes sounds like they are tired, angry, bored and
sometimes like they are being inconvenienced. You don't get a
second chance to make a first impression. Remember sound &
inflection is only 38 percent of communication. The strongest
form of communication is visual perception / body language. You
don't have that luxury over the phone. So, you must maximize
what you have. Your voice, your energy, your passion.
* There seems to be no strategy, no process, and no
control. Too often the prospect dictates the pace and
direction of the call. The problem is that for the most part the
people within the call center or dealership are all working off
different scripts. If you have a dealership that has 10
different sales consultants or a BDC/Call center with 10
representatives, you are going to have 10 different ways the
phones are being answered and 10 different ways prospects are
going to be called.
Inconsistency is not good. You need one standard operating
procedure for incoming and outgoing calls. This will ensure
integrity to your process and bring you closer to your goal of
building value in your dealership. The sole purpose of
the phone call is to sell the appointment not the car!
* Don't qualify the prospect the right way (if
they qualify at all). Some reps ask the prospect what kind of
car are they looking for; and that is the extent of their
qualifying tactics.
There are a lot of important questions you can ask the prospect
like, what is important to them in deciding where they are going
to decide to buy a vehicle. Most people on the phones try to
sell the vehicle. The sole goal of your team should be to sell
the appointment. Building value in the appointment. To do that
the consultant or call center rep must qualify the prospect
thoroughly and identify their wants wishes and expectation. Once
they have identified them, they can meet their expectations and
then exceed them. And how do you know what the prospect wants?
You simply ask.
* A major flaw in call handling is not obtaining the
customer's information! many people on the phones at
dealerships do not ask for or get the
prospect's information; basic stuff like their name or phone
number. So what happens is that they have a conversation on the
phone and then simply hang up and hope the prospect comes into
the dealership.
If you think the odds are in your favor that the prospect will
waltz into your dealership, then I'd like to talk to you about a
trip to Las Vegas and a visit to the craps table. Your team must
always ask for their name, phone number and any other
information you can obtain like email address, Instant Messenger
address, and preferred method to be contacted. Get the picture?
To paraphrase one of my favorite books, "You don't ask, you
don't get."
That's right
* Sales consultants aren't building value in your
dealership. Again it comes to conveying that level of
enthusiasm people love to hear on the phone. Sales are about
transference of energy! If you are excited
about your dealership, a particular vehicle or a particular
sale, then let your prospect feel that genuine excitement.
You need to be able to articulate why your dealership is
the best on the planet and why they really need to come in for
an appointment!
* Lack of preparation. It often seems too many
reps / consultants are playing checkers not chess. You need to
have a complete library of objections and rebuttals. Your team
needs to have a clear understanding of how the
phone call needs to go.
Typically for example, the prospect might throw out several
objections to coming in for an appointment. If you are not
prepared how to respond and overcome these objections, they are
never going to come in.
* Many folks we listen to never ask for the appointment.
They go through the entire phone call process and never
even ask for the appointment. Or even worse, if they ask for the
appointment and the prospect objects or says "No" most people
will succumb to the "No" and let the prospect
go and move on to the next phone call.
* Always ask for the appointment. Sometimes you
might have to ask for it three or four times throughout the
conversation. Identify why they are objecting and then handle
that objection and try again for the appointment and if another
objection, isolate that one, meet that expectation and go for
the appointment again.
Let me leave you with the bottom line. We live in a McDonald's
world with drive through liquor stores. People are always
looking for the easy way to do things. The reason why people
don't lift weights is because they are heavy.
Just remember that if you want the things most people do not
have you must do the things most people aren't willing to do to
get them.
Train your people to be professionals.
Sean V. Bradley is the CEO and founder of Dealer Synergy. He can
be contacted at 888-379-6374 or by e-mail at
seanb@dealersynergy.com. |
