Good morning automotive dealers, Internet Sales Managers and Marketing Guru's,

First of all thank you for taking the time to take a look at my post this morning I appreciate it. The BDC experts work with a large number of dealerships all over the world and when I see something that works well I like to share it with the automotive community. I will be doing a more comprehensive post later this week. Here are some tips, which will help you Crush It on Craigslist, or other…

What is Different?

10 years ago customers had fewer brands, fewer models and less information than they do these days. I don't need to tell you how competitive the automotive market is today. Based on this fact if you think monthly programs and product are enough to sell cars you would be wrong.

Things have changed in the automotive market…

We have worked with thousands of dealerships all over the world at Proactive dealer solutions. More and more dealerships tell us that the market has changed and that customers are more informed than ever. We agree customers have more access to information then they ever have.

The problem is that having access to information about cars does not mean customers know how to buy cars. Customers have information, but all that means is that they need a more informed salesperson or dealership…

Before the Internet, automotive dealers had more control of the customer. The only place customers could go for pricing information was the dealership. Now of course they could ask their automotive expert friend or uncle, but they really had no idea how pricing really worked in the automotive industry.

Today with the Internet, and sites that provide invoice pricing customers are more informed then they have ever been. The carmakers also have sites to provide customers will all kinds…

It is always frustrating when you call a customer and all you get is an answering machine. Proactive Dealer Solutions has been working with BDC's all over North America for years and we have found that a phone blitz is a great solution to this problem.

What is a…

Fran Milbower http://www.bdcexperts.com our Director of Fixed Operations has developed a great tool that will help you and your team become more productive, more organized and reduce the service status update calls as well. We all know that customers who have a vehicle in your shop right now call your dealership for updates several times during the day. This fact makes our service BDC team and your service advisors very…

Fran Milbower Director of Fixed Operations for Proactive Dealer Solutions has some great thoughts on "texting" for the dealer body. If your store needs a list of email addresses for the different cell phone companies we can help.

As director of Fixed Operations, Fran has helped hundreds of dealers grow their service department. If your store has a service BDC already and wants to take it to the next level or you have your service advisor team taking the calls, we can help.

Your…

Dealerships everywhere are looking for ways to cut themselves to a profit. Let me save you and your accounting team some time. The only way to change things is to start capturing more of the business you are loosing and generate traffic and sales for your dealership.

Sales

Even the best automotive salespeople close only 15% to 20% of the people they speak to in a given day or month. In addition most stores don't have a…

Mobile phones are everywhere, be it a regular phone or a smart phone. It's almost like people have them attached to them. Based on this fact it's no surprise that your team should be collecting multiple numbers from customers and potential customers.

We have found in most dealerships that we work with that in most cases only one maybe two numbers at best are in your database or CRM. Now if you staff has asked correctly one of these numbers should be a cell phone. This information is…

Years ago in dealerships all over the world, the dealers were to only way to get pricing. Customers did not have access to invoice pricing, shipping cost, etc. The simple fact is that today this is just not the case any more. I hear dealers all the time talk about the "good old" days when customers did not know so it was easy to make money.

I also hear a great deal of blame as well being tossed around. It's the manufacturers fault, it's my competitions fault, it's the salespeople etc.…

As a automotive industry professional with lots of years under my belt, I must say I have heard a lot of tactics, techniques and the spin of course. I have been hearing Sales Managers, trainers and others for years talk about taking control of the customer.

Talk is cheap and just saying “take control” of your customers does not make it happen.

Here are a few tactics that not only make logical sense they actually help you “take control” and sell more cars….

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How to leave Messages that generate business for your dealership?

We have found that most dealerships get one phone number when speaking to customers. In addition to this fact they usually have only the home number. Due to this fact our BDC’s need to make a large volume of calls in order to speak to a small volume of customers.

What this means is we need to leave a large volume of messages for customers. Due to this fact we have also developed a number of tactics to improve…

Mike overy of the BDC experts will show your sales, service and BDC team how to reach more customers. After over 20 years teaching dealers we have found that contact ratios are as follow.

100 Calls 20-30 contacts and 4-8 appointments with one contact number.

These numbers are of course based on a trained BDC staff member calling sales, service or internet customers.

We are asked by customers, clients, owners and sales and…

We have been working with salespeople, managers, service staff, and business development representatives for many years now. All of the people we work with including sales and service managers at dealerships understand the importance of multiple phone numbers.



If you had multiple phone numbers for every customer, could you reach more customers in a day?



Would you sell more cars and set more service appointments?



Then why is it that when you get a customer on the…

How to uncover the real objection in a car deal?

That’s the question isn’t it! You have done the road to the sale; you have taken a look at their old car. Your customer loves the new car and just won’t sign. You have followed them up and the customer isn’t calling you back. Now what should you do?

You take it to the next level, you have the manager speak to them, and you even call them every day for a week, still nothing. What is the next step?

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The biggest mistake salespeople, sales managers and BDC staff make is they forget to thank the customer after they leave the dealership. It always amazes me that when customers take time from their busy life to visit their local dealership, the dealership staff forget to follow up that customer and tank them.

How many times in your life have you been to an open house, a car dealership, an electronics store or another retailer to make a big purchase and that salesperson, manager or…

The biggest mistake salespeople, sales managers and BDC staff make is that they let notes in their CRM or on paper convince them not to call customers back. As I always say you need to get the consumer out of you before you make the call. Someone is going to be sold and the question is who. How can you expect to re-motivate customers to visit the dealership if you are not convinced when you call them. The question is are you selling them or are they selling you?…

The customer has been in your dealership; as usual your team could not for whatever reason sell them a vehicle. In 80% of cases this is the reality right?

The next step for most Salespeople, Sales Manager and BDC representatives is to offer the customer a better deal, a better trade in value etc. The problem with this game plan is in most cases it's not enough to motivate the customer to come back to the store. In addition if it is you and I both know the discount is a starting point…