Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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By Greg Wells BU SINE S S DE V E LOPME NT 5 WAYS TO MAXIMIZE BDC LEADS Is your website designed with BDC leads in mind? Expert lists the fve features that produce the most appointments. ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/CLAUDIOBABA Your business development cenur busin busine n (BDC D ter (BDC) is the staf of your virtual dealership. Tey're the t l virtual dea helpfu cheerful people on the helpful, che p other other side o that "Get ePrice" e of butto button. Tey type the answers in t live chat sessions. Tey answer se the phone when a car buyer calls the dealership phone number. If your website isn't optimized for that frst, crucial interaction, you may not get a second chance. If a customer has a bad experience on your site, are they likely to come back? If you have to choose between "Maybe" or "Probably not," you're probably not liking your choices. Let's start with your home page. Did you really have to buy every widget known to the industry and put it on your home page? Pop-ups, pop-outs, sliders, videos, toolbars, talking video apps and links to social media are circling your customers like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Te most popular website on the planet is Google. Check out Google's home page and what do you see? A search bar, and that's pretty much it. Google ofers hundreds of other features and products, but they don't blast you with everything on the home-page. Higher quality interactions lead to more appointments and more walk-ins. Guide customers to the calls to action that have the highest conversion rate. From the BDC's perspective, there are fve types of website leads that are going to outperform all the rest. Some should appear on your home page, others deeper in the site. Wherever they're placed, they will outperform any other feature you've tried. 1. YOUR PHONE NUMBER Have you called the number list- Greg Wells is president of AllCall Automotive Contact Center. He has spent almost 25 years working in automotive retail, with specific expertise in business development centers and Internet sales. His work has been recognized nationally by the NADA, and his in-dealership sales training experience has launched many successful selling careers for his students. GWells@AutoDealerMonthly.com 24 AUTO DE ALE R MONTHLY • AUGUST 2013 ed on your home page lately? If the call went straight to a trained appointment setter with excellent communication skills, positive energy, vehicle expertise and the resources to guide the customer toward a test drive, good for you. (I don't mean that sarcastically; I'm proud of you. You are leading the way in transforming our industry, one customer at a time.) I see every ring of the phone as a chance to "Wow" a customer. With the right people, training and accountability, you can do exactly that. You have two choices for mapping your home-page number: Te number can ring an operator who screens the caller and only sends bona fde sales calls to the BDC, or the BDC can be your main switchboard. I prefer the latter. Even if it means locating your operator in the BDC, the smooth fow and handof of website phone trafc may be the single most important interaction for your business. 2. LIVE CHAT Live chat is a powerful communication tool that can drastically improve website conversion. A properly stafed BDC is perfect for chat conversions. Again, you have two choices: Train your BDC agents to operate live chat or outsource it to the chat provider. At least one chat provider accurately boasts an 80 percent name, phone number and e-mail capture. If your agents can't beat that rate, this decision is easy. 3. ePRICE I love to see a "Get ePrice" button on vehicle detail pages. But to