Phone Sales

"The phone is one of the most misused opportunities in a dealership". I was actually told that years and years ago when I went through my first phone sales training class almost a decade ago. The sad truth is that it is still true today in the year 2007. As a national training company we have done countless studies, mystery shopping and call monitoring over the years and the result is still staggering. no matter if it is an independent dealer or even a highline dealer. In major markets or in rural markets; receptionists, sales people, Internet departments and so called business development centers abuse the phones.

Sometimes it takes forever for someone to even answer the phone and then from there it gets bounced from the receptionist then to the salesman and finally to a manger. In most cases like that, the prospect abandons the call out of exasperation. To make matters even worst, when a sales person or Internet / BDC rep gets them on the phone they never even give their name, ask the prospect for his name or build value in themselves and the dealership. If they are even bold enough to ask for the appointment and get shot down, they give up. It blows my mind.

Let me give you a great example. I was just in Kentucky for a week of training on business development and I was reviewing the dealerships phone process through role playing. I was literally stunned when we engaged our role play because the manager of the department that I was role playing with actually was ignoring my questions, was being vague and personifying the stigma of an old school car salesman. I corrected her and started to teach her the proper methods and she further surprised me by explaining to me that she felt that what she was doing was wrong but was trained to do so. I was floored again. I said "excuse me.?" "Please explain." She went on to tell me that the previous training company had told them to follow the scripts and IGNORE the prospects. I said please go on. She said that the trainer actually sat in class and said no matter what the customer asks, ignore them and keep going on with your script. I was appalled to find out that the trainer actually demonstrated this skill with a live prospect. He took a live call and the prospect was talking and the trainer held out the phone and was demonstrating how to "ignore" someone, then every so often he would put the phone back to his ear and go on with his script. I didn't bother to ask if it worked or not because it did not matter. Even if worked that time so what. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I am not going to go all over my home and break my clocks. This was wrong on so many levels here because you should not be treating prospects like that. Or better yet, I should say simply we shouldn't treat people like that period. Further more to teach this skill to impressionable students is disturbing. I want to clear some things up and give you all some very powerful information about phone sales and some statistics based on Dealer Synergy's research as well as experience in the field:

• More than 80% of the time Internet or sales consultants don't ask for the name and number of the caller
  
• 78% of the time they never even attempted to make the appointment
  
• More than 70% of the time the sales consultant didn't qualify the prospect properly. Some might have asked questions about the vehicle but very rarely asked the prospect about wants, wishes and expectations other than the vehicle
  
• More than 85% of the time the Internet or sales consultant made NO attempt to create excitement, urgency. Remember we are in SALES people.
  
• More than 85% of the time the Internet or sales consultant made NO attempt to present the dealership's value package proposition (Sell the dealership).
  
• More than 85% of the time the Internet or sales consultant did not properly identify themselves or ask the customer to write down who they should ask for when they get into the dealership.
  
• More than 70% of phone ups are NOT logged into an ILM or CRM properly or even logged in at all. Which means they are NEVER able to be followed up on.
• 96% of customers will shop you if given a price.

Bottom line.

There are 3 steps to a sale, ANY sale.

• You need an opportunity to do business to do business
• If can get someone to like you, trust you and believe you.
• They will buy from you. (Or at the very least come in for an appointment).
  

If you want to be successful at selling cars you need to master your phone skills. And if you want to maximize your Internet department, Special Finance department or business development center then you absolutely need to not only get control over your phones you need to master them.

Where do you start? Lets for the rest of this article simply focus on Incoming sales calls to the dealership. Doesn't matter from what advertising initiative. conventional, Internet, Special Finance or BDC. You should either have ALL of your incoming calls going to "phone sales specialist", call center reps, BDC reps, a group of trained floor sales personal or train the entire floor on phone sales and make them get certified. There is way too much money at stake to just throw money out the window. NADA states that the average dealer in the United States spends approximately $50,000 per month in advertising, the average store has 10 sales reps on the showroom floor. that means that the dealership spends about $5,000 per salesmen a month in advertising. That is an awful lot of money to have your phones answered 10 different ways and not logged properly or followed up with properly. So, lets say you have trained sales reps or designated "phone specialist / BDC reps". Now what?

You need to remember a several things:

• There is a science of communication. 55% of communication is visual perception and body language. 38% of communication is auditory stimulation and inflection of tone. Finally, only 7% of communication is convey through text. the words we use. Furthermore, when you are on the phones you only have 38% of communication at hand. ONLY 50% of the information you articulate will remain after you get off of that phone, then after 48 hours ONLY 25% of that 50% remains.


• That means you need to have a solid plan of how you are going to engage your prospect. You need to have an escalation protocol. Meaning if there is ONLY 45% (meaning 38% inflection of tone and 7% in words that we use) of communication on the phone, your main focus is to escalate that relationship as fast as possible to the next stage.the appointment. So, you should not be focused on selling the vehicle over the phone. You should focus on selling the appointment. The vehicle "selling" should be done in your environment, when you can conduct a full product presentation, demo drive. Have the opportunity for the prospect to meet you and build a bond or common ground. comfort etc.


• You should have a solid incoming phone call process. I will give you an example.

Incoming call script: **Ring

Dealership rep: "Thank you for calling ABC motors, Sean speaking. are you calling about our sale?"

*We want to properly greet the prospect on the phone, set the stage. Remember you only have one chance to make a first impression. Right from the door we are setting the tone for the call. Plus in the very beginning we are doing two other things. We are qualifying the prospect. By asking that question "Are you calling about the sale? We are finding out why the prospect is calling us, or from where they are calling.

Prospect: No I am not. why is there a sale going on?