The Value Of Internet Coordinator's Making 120 Calls Per Day

I was talking with a GSM today and he had no idea how many calls his coordinators were making per day. Equally relevant, is that I talk with people that have positions of authority in the dealership all the time and it's unfortunate to see the majority have no clue when it comes to their E-Commerce Dept. The E-Commerce Dept is the heart of your sales dept and the sales staff are the body i.e. without a heart the body will die. We also talked about a store that they have a few miles away and the GSM mentioned that at that store the leads are given to sales people. WOW!!! As we know the sales staff are not going to consistently follow up with the leads and unless the consumer buys within 5-7 days most salespeople are never going to call again.

Now the purpose of this blog is to spend some time talking about the importance of your coordinators making 120 calls per day. As you know you have a 11-14% connection ratio when making phone calls. In other words per day if you make or take 120 calls you will get 13 to 16 people on the phone per day. The thing that blows my mind is that I know of stores that have coordinators that make 50 calls per day. When you look at your connection ratio that's only 5-7 people per day!! I speak from experience in regard to coordinators making every excuse for why they can't make 120 calls per day. I've been told "I don't have anybody else to call" and when you check their leads in the ILM they have people that haven't been contacted in days. Even better I've been told that "I don't want want to bug the customer."

The key to success in your E-Commerce Dept boils down to the coordinator's pounding the phones!! 50 calls per coordinator is not got going to get the results that the owners/GM/GSM are wanting to see. Demand excellence and put spiffs in place for the coordinator's like you have for the sales staff and watch your E-Commerce dept grow to the point where it's generating a major percentage of total sales.

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Comment by J.R. Batchelor on May 1, 2013 at 11:54pm: Doug you hit the nail on the head!!

Comment by Doug Davis on May 1, 2013 at 7:57pm: That was never a problem in my case. Because we sold the majority of the cars, with a third of the salesforce, many of the other managers were jealous of our success.

At too many dealerships, they promote an ASM to the Internet Director position because nobody else wants the job. They are glorified CRM watchers with very poor marketing and internet process skills. Like everything else, you get what you pay for.

Comment by J.R. Batchelor on May 1, 2013 at 3:09pm: Very true DougBuy-in from the Owner/GM/GSM is a must for any E-Commerce Dept to truly be successful. I know from first hand experience the tension that can be created when there is no synergy within all the depts. If the E-Commerce Director is not considered a true manager like your GSM there will no respect from the other sales managers and/or salespeople and the Director begins to look like a glorified salesperson.

Comment by Doug Davis on May 1, 2013 at 11:29am: J.R., my internet department was 70% of the dealerships business which is hard to ignore. You don't get that level of success without total buy-in from the GM. The only place that success and money come before work is in the dictionary.

Surprising, all of these dealers are experts, on the internet, when you are talking with them ....clueless!

Comment by J.R. Batchelor on May 1, 2013 at 9:51am: Equally relevant is the sad factor is that most dealers have no clue when it comes to their Internet dept.

Comment by Doug Davis on May 1, 2013 at 9:29am: J.R., absolutely true. I had a sales board which I updated daily. It listed my 12 ISMs. It documented the leads, phone ups, response time, appointments, sales, sales as a % of leads, phone calls yesterday, phone calls MTD, etc.. My GM never failed to visit that board on his way into the dealership. It was the last thing that I did before I left in the evening. It was time consuming but it made a huge difference.

I represent a company that provides a call tracking and monitoring system. Managers can look at the number of calls being made by individual dealerships, within a group, down to individuals within each dealership ...from a smartphone or tablet. They can listen to the calls and use them as a teaching exercise. At a glance, they can tell how many calls are being made and who's making them (or who's not). At $699/month per rooftop with unlimited incoming call minutes, there is no excuse for not knowing how many calls are being made. For dealerships that actually track and monitor their calls, the savings in minutes can easily cut the cost in half.