Category: Dealership Training

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Dealership Training

Is Your Training Investment Paying Off?

Steve Klees Blog HeadshotHow often have you heard the following statement?

“I paid for my people to go through training. While sales were up the first week out of the chute, we’re now back to our previous levels. What a waste of money!”

Structured training can be an effective means of improving sales performance, however just as any investment takes research and planning, so does training.

Before sending your team to any training course, it’s important to evaluate the effectiveness of the training model and whether it pairs well with your current performance culture.

In your research, ask how the instructors measure the success of their program:

  • Do they measure satisfaction and participant reaction?
  • Do their participants retain the stills learned in the classroom?
  • Do they evaluate behavior before and after the program to determine behavioral transformation?
  • Do they provide measurable business improvement metrics, like increased sales or product penetration rates?

Lastly, it’s important to take those business improvement metrics and compare them to the cost of the course to forecast the potential return on investment.

In order to ensure the dollars you spend on training is an actual investment, think of training as a performance culture shift for your dealership. The strongest training courses always include personalized follow-up as well as dealership management buy-in. Before the course begins, discuss the current situation within your dealership, develop goals for measuring success, and discuss how managers can reinforce the lessons learned in the classroom. After the course ends, you should expect you’re a representative from your product provider to visit your dealership to evaluate your team’s success, provide a re-fresh, and even, if necessary, work with your team as they complete sales to provide a refresh on what they’ve learned.

The fact is a training course is only as effective as the dealer who implements it. In order to truly reap the benefits of any training course, be it sales or F&I, the dealership needs to reinforce the skills learned in a classroom setting.

Sending your people to an offsite course and then plopping them back in the same environment as before is a sure way to negate most things they learned. Instead, evaluate how you can evolve the dealership performance environment to foster your team’s growth and success once they get back, as well as other support positions that are also a part of the sales process.

In addition, after you’ve sent your team through a training course and everyone is on the same page, consider putting in place a mentorship model where more seasoned staff continue to provide guidance to new recruits. It is also important to set achievable benchmarks to measure each team member’s success as well as actionable steps to improve performance.

No matter whether you send your team to an offsite course, or have an instructor come to your dealership, the skills learned in the classroom setting need to be reinforced in the dealership in order to generate successful results.

With almost 40 years of working hand-in-hand with dealerships, EFG Companies has perfected a specialized training model that goes far beyond typical sales training events that fuel sales teams temporarily without changing dealership culture or team behaviors and attitudes. Find out how our expert trainers can put your team on the fast-track to profitability.

Categories
Dealership Training

Don’t leave your service drive out of your sales cycle!

Contributing Author: Steve Roennau Vice President Compliance EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Steve Roennau
Vice President
Compliance
EFG Companies

What is synonymous with General Motors and Toyota? Recall, right?

Four years ago, Toyota underwent a recall crisis on par with General Motors today. Now, Chrysler is also under investigation for faulty ignition switches. Are these the only car manufacturers who’ve felt the strain of a recall crisis? No.

In the 70s, Ford issued a staggering 21 million vehicle recall for its infamous “park-to-reverse” automatic transmission defect. In the 80s, Audi dealt with its own unintended acceleration defect with a series of car recalls for its 5000 model that nearly drove it out of the American market.

Do consumers still buy these cars? Yes.

In fact, according to General Motors, the ignition switch recalls have had no significant impact on new model sales. What does this mean for dealerships? Opportunity!

No matter their reason for visiting the service drive, when consumers bring their vehicles back to the dealership, there is an opportunity to convert those customers to a new car buyer. In fact, the more times a customer returns to a dealership for service, the more likely they are to make their next vehicle purchase with that dealership. Between 2010 and 2012, the percent of customers who were converted from used cars to new cars increased from 17 percent to 19.3 percent. As consumer income continues to increase, this rising trend can also be expected to increase.

In order to truly maximize this opportunity, dealerships can make small adjustments that create a big difference in capturing a greater share of wallet from this lucrative audience:

  • First, address your waiting area to ensure cleanliness and its appeal to both men and women. Remember that at least 50 percent of your service drive business is women, so double-check to ensure that available amenities are appealing to both audiences. In addition, outfit the waiting area with information on F&I products and monitors tuned to dealership and OEM videos.
  • Focus on making a good and lasting impression on new service drive customers by ensuring the service managers are adequately trained. Do they have a courteous and professional demeanor while providing efficient service?
  • Keep returning customers coming back by focusing on providing a positive experience each time they return to fortify the relationship.
  • Lastly, keep customer records accurate and up-to-date. Either the service manager can verify the information when first approaching customers, or the receptionist can when processing payments.

It’s that simple. Yet, many dealerships overlook this significant opportunity. With OEMs focusing on customer retention, dealerships need to fortify their service strategies both in sales and in their service drive. But, the customer experience doesn’t have to end when they leave. With accurate information in their CRM, dealerships can establish a contact campaign based on several different criteria including:

  • whether the customer is a recall customer or a regular service customer;
  • whether the customer is new to the dealership or returning; and,
  • if returning, how often they return and the age of their vehicle.

Rather than relying solely on the sales force approaching customers waiting for service, dealers can capitalize on customer retention by focusing on customer service and implementing a communication campaign designed to turn service drive customers into sales prospects.

In today’s market, the road to the sale is rarely a straight line. With almost 40 years of insight into the consumer mindset, EFG Companies knows how to turn your team into Top Performers. Along with our intense training curriculum and client engagement, our expert trainers can provide a full service-drive analysis, focusing on the efficiency of the department and their sales volume. EFG’s consultative approach to marketing equips dealerships with the consumer insights and marketing tools needed to increase store traffic, drive customer loyalty, and differentiate their business. Contact EFG to get started today.

Categories
Dealership Recruiting Dealership Training Economy F&I

Three Steps to Maximizing Dealership Profitability

Contributing Author: John StephensOn the other end of a harsh economic recession, it’s become very clear that Americans of today are drastically different from Americans in 2008. People not only tightened their belts over the past four years, they also completely changed their relationship with retail. And, today’s consumers are focused on keeping their savings intact, companies are concerned with fortifying their business to survive future economic challenges. One way companies like Apple and Google achieved this was through providing more value to their customers through enhanced service offerings such as cloud computing, which made it easier for customers to upgrade mobile technology with a free service which made back-ups and syncing easier and more efficient.

So, let’s stop and think about the retail automotive industry for a second.

Whether the economy is good or bad, consumers will still be in the market for a car. However, their needs for said vehicle may change. For example, with the latest recession, we saw the trend of consumers purchasing cars that last longer with better gas mileage. They didn’t stop buying, they just changed what they bought and how often they bought it. They also became less brand-loyal.

The search for more value now extends beyond the car itself to the dealership experience. With so many dealerships to choose from and less brand loyalty, you actually have a greater chance of increasing foot traffic to your store by focusing on your value proposition.

The first step to fortify your value proposition is to go back to the basics:

  • Hire Top Performers that consistently deliver results on the sales floor and in the F&I office.
  • Place those Top Performers in roles where they will thrive and train them to maximize their strengths.
  • Focus on customer service, not just the sale. The best sales people see themselves as advisers. They listen to the customer and address their needs with courtesy and respect.
  • Position your dealership as providing value beyond low interest rates. This ties back into customer service and bridges into the F&I office. Consumers are paying more attention to their return on investment just like businesses. Provide products and service that reflect their need to keep their savings intact.

Elementary right? Don’t kid yourself. You might be surprised on how little time gets spent on the basics of right people, right position, right training.

Next, re-evaluate the value you provide in the F&I office. You consistently review how many deals your sales team closes in a month, your product penetration, web traffic, etc. When it comes to analyzing your F&I products, are you taking a strategic approach to analyzing their benefits for your dealership?

Strong F&I products do much more than sell. They:

  • differentiate your dealership in the market;
  • help build customer relationships;
  • are designed with the customer experience in mind; and,
  • increase service retention.

When evaluating your mix of F&I products, think beyond product penetration to how your products enhance gross dealership profit by creating a customer experience that fosters lasting relationships and repeat sales.

Lastly, pay attention to your online presence. According to a 2014 DealerTrack study, consumers now visit 1.2 showrooms before making a decision. This represents a paradigm shift in the way today’s consumers shop for a vehicle. Gone are the days of consumers spending their weekends visiting one dealership after another before a final decision is made. Now, the majority of that research is conducted online.

With the majority of customers browsing dealership websites and customer review sites before walking into on average, one showroom, it’s vital that your dealership has a healthy reputation. A good online reputation relies on the active management of customer review sites. While gaining positive reviews is the immediate goal with these sites, the second most important aspect is responding to negative reviews. Negative reviews don’t necessarily have to give dealerships a negative image. By addressing the customer’s concern and taking the conversation offline, dealerships have a great opportunity to turn that negative review into a positive experience. Customers expect to see negative reviews on these sites, but what they pay the most attention to is how the dealership handles them.

Beyond customer review sites, it is also important to optimize your social media assets. Facebook and Twitter have become two of the biggest platforms for consumers to directly interact with companies. Big or small, companies from all industries utilize these sites to inform the public about new products, receive feedback, conduct product promotions, etc. A well-developed social media presence is much more than creating a page and posting content. It involves engaging the audience with content that’s relevant to them, encouraging discussions, and responding to their inquiries or concerns.

Your online presence, F&I product mix, and commitment to customer service each demonstrate a different aspect of how your dealership provides value. Online, you have the chance to provide that excellent customer service to both current and potential customers, further developing lasting relationships and increasing long-term profit. With strategic F&I products, you have better opportunity to maximize unit sales and dealership profitability while offering customers tools to protect their bank account from unforeseen circumstances. Meanwhile, by focusing on the basics of hiring and cultivating top performers, you significantly increase your opportunities to close sales and drive customer retention.