Pub. 15 2016-2017 Issue 1

N E W J E R S E Y C O A L I T I O N O F A U T O M O T I V E R E T A I L E R S 23 new jersey auto retailer W W W . N J C A R . O R G Then after the dealership has their leads and people… what are all of the standard operating procedures? That has to be mapped out. There needs to be a com- plete, mapped-out plan with a beginning, middle and an end to your desired goal. It needs to be precise. Most dealers do not have that. One of the main reasons why BDCs are broken and not profitable is that dealer- ships are doing way too many things in their BDC at once. They are a jack of all trades and a master of none! For example, here are some of the activities a dealer- ship’s BDC does: • Internet Sales; • Phone Sales; • Data Mining; • Lease Retention; • Special Finance; • Service; • Cross Promotional Marketing; • Autotrader TIM; • OEM Campaigns; • Email Marketing; • Unsold Showroom Traffic; and • Much More. Dealers mistakenly think just because they have people in the department or they have a “call center” they can use them to do everything. What is worse is that they have the same reps handle multiple responsibilities, not realizing that they have to constantly switch hats throughout the day. They never have an opportunity to specialize in one script, one process, or one strategy. They are torn from one priority to another. This means none of the prospects truly get the right amount of attention and the right amount of follow up because the rep’s time is diluted too much. Most dealerships have the wrong BDC staff. They expect their BDC to sell 100+ units a month but have staffed it with an IT person or a Digital Marketing person, or a Sales Person they were about to blow out of the showroom. The average dealer- ship sells 96 units with 10 sales people, 2 Sales Managers, a GM and /or GSM and an F&I Manager. Most BDCs have the wrong people that do not have the skill set, experience or ability to build and run a real BDC. Dealers that want to sell 60-80 units from their BDC need a REAL Sales Manager running the depart- ment. Dealers that want to deliver 100+ units out of their BDC need a GSM-level person. What do you expect is going to happen if you don’t even have someone running the show that has sales experi- ence or sales management experience? That scenario bleeds into the next prob- lem. Dealers, for the most part, do NOT have the right amount of people in their BDC. If a store receives 500 fresh leads in one month and delivers 10%, that is 50 units. That means 450 didn’t sell. Out of that 450, about 250 will carry over to the first day of the next month. So if you start the month with 250 leads and receive an additional 500 fresh leads that month. That is 750 total opportunities for that month! This is called the residual f low factor. Most dealerships in the country are terrible at intermediate and long-term follow up. The average buying cycle is 45- 90 days, but a dealership’s average selling cycle is only 7-11 days! Try to imagine if there were 1,000 or 2,000 fresh leads. The residual f low factor would be even crazier to handle properly. Dealers need the right amount of people (scheduled at the prime time to connect with prospects- between 6-8 PM) to handle current leads AND all of the residual f low factor. It’s amazing, but some dealers STILL have an “us versus them” mentality be- tween the showroom and the BDC. There is a serious lack or respect, cooperation and synergy. You would think that if everyone knows that 92-99 percent of people go online before they set foot in the dealership, they would appreciate the de- partment and try to work with each other. BDCS  continued on page 24 Dealers mistakenly think just because they have people in the department or they have a “call center” they can use them to do everything. What is worse is that they have the same reps handle multiple responsibilities, not realizing that they have to constantly switch hats throughout the day.