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.
Issue link: http://autodealermonthly.epubxp.com/i/79640
dealership spotlight / bdc Today, the department handles all the dealership's incoming calls and Internet leads, sets sales appointments (but not service appointments), follows up on no-shows and handles the photographing of all new and used vehicles for the website. To ensure the most lead coverage possible each day, part of the BDC represen- tatives start their shifts in the morning and others start in the afternoons and work into the evening. All BDC reps are required to work at least two nights each week. Kukolja stated that the dealer- ship also hired an additional person about a year ago for the purpose of managing the store's social media presence. That employee recently began tending to some follow-up duties on unsold showroom customers as well. "We hired her full-time for social media, and then she came to me a few months ago and asked if she could start doing some customer follow-up as well," said Kukolja, who now prints out a report for this individual every Monday reflecting customers who have visited the dealership but did not buy. She added that although they've only been doing this for around three months, it seems to be working out very well. In June, that individual was able to set 34 appointments from the list25 of which showed up, with 15 purchasing a vehicle. She mentioned that follow-up on sold customers remains the responsibility of the individual salesperson, while a part-time employee who is not part of the BDC takes care of contacting sales and service customers for CSI follow-up. Having an established BDC and additional staff in place enabled the dealership to 30 "Through our CRM, I have all the parameters set so it will notify me if a lead's been assigned to one of our reps and it hasn't been reached within 15 minutes." – Sandra Kukolja, Internet Director increase the number of leads it purchased. Kukolja said that before the BDC was estab- lished, she and the other Internet department employee handled a combined total of about 150 leads. "I average between 500 and 700, de- pending on the month, now," she said, and added that the dealership is purchasing leads from about seven or eight sources, including AutoUSA, AutoTrader, Cars.com, Autobytel, Autos.com and Craigslist. The rest of their Internet leads come from General Motors Co. and from the dealership's website. Kukolja mentioned that since establishing the BDC and taking on leads from more third-party providers, the dealership has been utilizing the services of CallBright. "Because we were starting with all the new providers, we wanted to see what was working and see what wasn't," she noted. They have specific phone numbers to track differ- ent sources, including a little TV advertising and some print advertising. CallBright has not only helped them weed out the lead sources that were not working well for them but has also proved useful for training since she is able to monitor BDC employees' performance in handling customer calls. "It's actually integrated with our customer relationship management (CRM) software ," she said. "I can actually click from there and listen to all the girls' calls." With the increased lead volume has come an increased focus on accountability and daily goals for the BDC representatives. Fresh leads are distributed on a round- robin basis among those on duty, and each coordinator is required to make 125 out- bound calls per day, whether those are for fresh leads or for follow-up on previously-re- ceived leads. "If they do not make the 125, they don't get [fresh] leads the following day," she said. Daily reports allow each BDC coordinator to track her own progress and manage her schedule and workload to ensure the individual goal of 125 calls per day is met. Of course, Kukolja also runs regular reports to watch the number of fresh and follow-up calls made, appointments set, confirma- tions, no-shows and sales; and she holds weekly meetings with the BDC staff to review their numbers. The BDC connects with roughly 14 percent of the leads they attempt to contact and converts between 13 and 15 total appointments per day. The average show rate on appointments is more than 50 percent, Kukolja stated, and the closing ratio on shown appointments is "usually between 35 and 45 percent, on average." In June, the BDC set 353 appointments, of which 207 showed up and 102 resulted in sales. The dealership's CRM tool, Reynolds Power Tool, helps her further monitor the BDC's activity. "It tracks all phone calls. You click one little button [and] it'll show you all the calls the girls have made, what times they've made them … how long they were on the phone, if an e-mail was sent— everything," she said. Using a CRM tool that integrates with the dealership management system is extremely beneficial, she mentioned. "Everything [the BDC representatives] put in their system up here for the CRM automatically is in the salesperson's file when the customer comes in," she said. "That definitely helps." Prompt and consistent follow- up of each lead is also a high priority and one of the aspects of customer relationship management that Kukolja feels is most important. Taking too long to respond to a customer interested in a specific vehicle can be costly. "We could potentially lose a sale because of that," she stated. The CRM tool helps her combat this problem. "Through our CRM, I have all the specs set up. It'll notify me if a lead's been assigned to one of our reps and hasn't been reached within 15 minutes," she said.