dealership spotlight / bdc Kimberly Long
BDC Spells Success at Mike Anderson Chevrolet Driving Internet Sales from 40 to 95 Per Month
A
s many dealerships have learned through experience, simply
purchasing third-party leads does not necessarily result in increased Internet sales. Rather, it is the people and processes involved that contribute to a dealership's success with online leads.
In establishing a business development center (BDC) and overhauling lead management processes, Mike Anderson Chevrolet, located
in Merrillville, Ind., has been able to take its Internet sales from between 30 and 40 per month to between 85 and 95 per month, with several months topping the 100-mark.
When Internet Director Sandra Kukolja started at Mike Anderson Chevrolet a little more than three years ago, the dealership's Internet leads were being overseen by a salesperson who was splitting his time between online leads and the sales floor. The
dealership hired another person in addition to Kukolja to handle the online leads, and the two essentially became the Internet department for several months, handling not only those leads but also photography of vehicles for online listings.
Around December 2010, Kukolja said the dealership's general manager found con- sultant Sean Bradley and his company, Dealer Synergy, and decided to enlist their help to
overhaul the dealership's Internet lead management processes and institute a BDC. "They actually did all of the prescreening for the employ- ees [and] brought them in. Our HR department interviewed them," said Kukolja. There were four or five new hires at the time, she recalled, and their first two weeks were spent doing noth- ing but daily training on things like different types of scripts and how to handle objections.
In establishing a business development center (BDC) and overhauling lead management processes, Mike Anderson Chevrolet, located in Merrillville, Ind., has been able to increase Internet sales from 40 per month to 95 per month.
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