Any dealer or GM will say it's easy to determine if your sales process is being followed on the showroom; you stand in the showroom and watch the whole process all the way from the greeting to the SM/closer TO, write up or exit. You know the status by watching and seeing the result; TO'd, write up or exit and so does your SM. But can you stand and watch the internet process? You can see the lead response times, the email responses, the calls made, the responses to the emails, even listen to the outging calls made, appointments set and showed and a lot of other metrics, but does this really tell you what you need to know? You need to see your process is being followed, that the SM/ISM knows the status of each prospect/lead and is controlling the future action on this lead. You expect your SM/ISM to have full control of the showroom traffic, follow the process, know the status and then dictate future action for the salesperson to follow. Do the SM/ISM have full control of the internet sales process; follow the process, know the status of every lead and dictate future action based on the status of the lead? Or is this all left up to the BDC team member responding to the lead? Even more important, how do you know, as the GM/DP, your SM/ISM have full control, are following the process, know the status of every internet lead and are dictating the proper future action?

The answer may be in the following questions;

1. What is the percentage of internet leads the BDC Team member get on the phone that are TO'd  to a Sales Manager, if the caller can not/will not commit to an appointment, before the call ends? (I expect your manager would have a sit down with a salesperson if they exited a showroom prospect without giving them an opportunity to talk to the prospect)

2. How many leads contacted are;

TO'd at time of call contact

Set up for a manager return call TO

Set up for a future action

Have no future action schedule

Overdue for future actions scheduled

3. How many internet call contact TO's has each manager done and what is the percent of conversion to appointment for each SM/ISM?

If you have this information independant of your managers you know the degree of control your managers have of the internet sales process and you can hold them accountable for the internet sales process you want.

The same questions can be asked regarding incoming phone opportunities as well.