Last night at dinner a good friend related a customer service story that just happened. It had been snowing so he and his wife chose to stay home and just watch the local team play ball on TV. Drinks, popcorn warm clothes and they were ready. Clicked the remote and nothing, the television turns on but no picture or sound. Well like all of us we think it is something we are doing, so he repeated the process. Guess what the same results. Okay so he then decided to call customer service for his dish satellite service and see if they can help. A pleasant representative answers the phone and listens to his problem; she asks if it is snowing? Yes he replies, does that manner is his response. She then explains that snow on the dish will inhibit the signal and told him to go clean the snow off.
My friend lives in a three-story condo, the dish is on the roof and he is in good heath at the age of 79. What would you do? He asked for a supervisor that explained they could install a heater for the dish or they could send a technician out but would have to charge for the service. The other choice is wait for warm weather.
Everyone at dinner laughed at the absurdity of the story. How would you handle this customer service scenario?
America is changing; India, China and the rest of the world are buying up the latest automotive technology from what was the dominant player in the world, the USA. What caused American run companies to lose their way? “Arrogance” To survive they took government bailouts and in that process had to sell off assets. That in essence, transfers current American technology to countries all over the globe with nothing in return except possible survival. A new GM now would compete against foreign companies who have GM technologies plus whatever they can purchase from other sources. GM purchased Saab years ago and never succeeded in building a strong brand. So now they give up and sell the technology that they paid and nurtured to a Chinese company. You can’t make this up, Hummer technology to China; Land Rover technology to India and the list just keeps going on.
The Midwest and Northeast have empty factories that produced American cars and trucks that are now malls, condos and many that are just empty. The worlds manufactures have built plants in the South and are making it work effectively. Only one American Company, Ford who has a chance to survive because they pawned the companies assets and saw the future in smart products and services. Arrogance at GM and Chrysler stopped them from making any real changes to their structure or the way they see the world. Think what China will able to accomplish in the next five, ten years. The world market shares that they could potential grab, when will China build cars in the USA? Just think of that thought for a moment.
We need to run our business better than anyone, develop new methods, technologies that are ahead of the competition. American must think as Americans, innovating, educated, out of the box or we will be the country that is left behind. Imagine not having the best technologies, transferring technologies would not be an issue.
Managers must hold sales persons accountable for their performance or lack of it. Owners must hold management to the same standards. Why can’t they commit the time and energy to maximize the sales effort of their staff?
One of the reasons is that in the last 20 years administrative tasks have tied the sales managers to their desks for the majority of their working time. Little time is left for the art of deal making. The manufacturers decided that they could have the dealer process claims, report sales plus assorted processes that they handled prior to computers and the web.
A second reason is that Managers expect a sales person to sell without any help from management. If I took a poll of owners and managers about what bothers them the most, I bet you it is the poor quality of their sales staff. Sales staffs reflect management’s standards; if they are low then guess what happens. When I hear a manager say he can’t get a sales person to change their bad habits I just shake my head. If you think by complaining about an issue, it will change the outcome it will not. Management must have structure, a sales process and technology. Structure means standards of accountability. Sales process means the steps of the sale to be followed by all sales persons. Technology is the means to process and manage accountability of your staff. As management you cannot sit in your office and wait for something to happen, you must create what happens. If you sit and wait for the next sales activity you are no different than the sales person who sits and stares out the window. Put the paper shuffling to a clerical and get involved in making deals.
Use technology to measure quickly how you are really performing with the purpose of improving the outcome. Train, teach and set the tone of what is expected, break the old culture and you will sell more cars.
Most dealers are reviewing their expense structure, looking for ways to reduce their operating expense. Some of the most expensive support systems in the operation of a dealership is the their DMS and CRM software applications. To operate efficiently one must have these applications, but they do not have to break the dealers bank account. Many dealers have spent the time reviewing each feature in the hope that they find a reason to eliminate unused features to cut cost. When the economy was stronger signing long-term contracts with all the features was an easy choice Getting rid of unused features and expense is not that easy depending on the vendor and the contract. As a dealer I found that long-term contracts locked me into old technology with little chance to adjust if the business economy changed dramatically.
So when we started AutoRaptor we made a decision that we would not need contracts to succeed. Build a better solution for a CRM and charge by the month. We committed to keep the application on the cutting edge and evolve by listening to the end users. Build features that get used, lean mean and effective. AutoRaptor is designed to simply help convert the lead to a sale with the use of technology. AutoRaptor is one solution, a CRM, BDC and ILM and we only charge an affordable monthly fee. Click the contact link for a free web demonstration and see for yourselves.