Follow up, follow up, and follow up has been the mantra of Managers and Owners since the horse and buggy years. The though being if you follow up you will sell more cars. Follow up alone will not close more deals, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Relationship building in conjunction with smart follow up is what will increase your closing percentage. Greet and listen to the customer and find his needs and interests as you follow the steps of the sales process. The information that you gather in the first couple minutes will increase your odds of winning the deal. Knowledge is king and the use of technology to record data will give you an edge when you reach for the sale.
Dealers overthink the basics and forget about the sales relationship between a sales person and the potential customer. The concern is more about the steps of the sale than the sale. Steps of the sale and structure are important in the process but building a common ground with the customer will close more deals than just following a restrictive sales process.
Dealers should think of today’s Smartphone, IPod, IPad and the new way to communicate and empower the sales person, it would be a novel idea. I ran a sales floor for over 35 years and empowering does work. All that it needs to work well is a team effort with a strong champion, simple technology and structure. Sales persons will embrace technology and see the benefits of data management as they sell more cars. Empowered sales people do not give away the store; they increase profitability by keeping strong business relations with their customers. Empowerment helps retain sales people, which in turn help retain your customer base. It is a WIN, WIN for all.
AutoRaptor approaches the idea of a CRM with a different philosophy than its competitors. Our mission is to provide a SALES SOLUTION that can easily be adapted and used by any user with tech skills or not.Why complicate the follow up process with multiple screens and restrictions to the natural sales flow. Without the initial sale the rest does not matter, whether it is fresh leads or your customer base why make it difficult for the end user to follow up.
Many dealers and managers want a system that will control the sales process without human involvement. If a sales person fails in the process they want the system to send a flag that they can react too. I believe that managers need to be pro active in the sales process and correct bad behavior as it happens. With AutoRaptor Managers see real time data entries by their sales persons. It is more effective than alerts of bad behavior. When a sales person enters data to an up sheet, the Manager can see and react to help make a deal. I have seen dealers with other systems make sales persons print an up sheet so they can treat the digital world as their old paper world. The present and future is digital, leave paper in the past and stop the back and forth between the sales person and the customer. Everyone knows that the biggest complaint by the consumers is the back and forth. It is not needed in today’s world, change your though process and you will be surprised how many more cars you can sell.
As Dealers and Managers you need to take charge and a condition of employment for your sales staffs is use the system you’re committed to. Listen to what I hear from some dealers.
*If my sales persons like it I will buy it.
*I do not want to force my Manager to change they way he works.
*We do not sell enough cars to warrant the expense.
*Why change I am making money.
There is more but I think you get the idea, lack of commitment and responsibility by the Dealer for any process or system means failure. AutoRaptor does make it simple and yet powerful as you enter the digital world. Make the move forward and succeed.
All comments welcome
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.
Tradition dictates that families gather to pay thanks for the good things in their life on this day. For many of our citizens the day is just one more day of hunger and pain. CNN just announced that there are 16.7 million American children that are classified as persons who go hungry every day. There are groups and services all over the country trying to feed and take care of the have nots. Most of us are just trying to get by and care for our families while a small group of people defend our shores and feed our homeless.
This should be a day of thought for all Americans to get involved in their communities and their local services.They should get their local government and business to think of the whole and not their vested interests. Thanksgiving should be everyday in America, we just need to pull together as a society.