Every department at a dealership needs training, but your BDC can benefit the most from regular coaching to maximize the results they get for your business. They rely on their phone scripts and skills to set appointments for your salespeople, and the tiny details they get from training can be the difference between hitting your monthly goals and the entire dealership falling flat. 

Of course, every business is different. There are many types of automotive dealership BDC training available for a variety of budgets, but how do you find the most effective strategy for your business model?

In many cases, a professional consulting agency that specializes in long-term active coaching is the best way to go and will deliver the biggest return on your training investment by far. However, we’ll cover all the training options—from single written materials to a full-blown partnership—so you can choose the right balance for your BDC team. 

BOOKS/WRITTEN MATERIALS

There’s no shortage of printed content to keep your BDC sharp, and this time-tested strategy offers a number of benefits. You can put expert tips into your people’s hands quickly, and they can review them whenever they need a touchup. Almost any automotive dealership BDC training program will include some of these resources.

Pros:

• Inexpensive 
• Content is typically in-depth. 
• Employees can refer back to the text whenever they need to.

Cons:

• No trainer on hand to explain the material when, inevitably, someone needs help.
• Not ideal for the (up to) 75% of your team who are tactile, visual, or auditory learners.
• Only 10% of the information is retained long-term on average.

PRE-RECORDED VIDEO PRESENTATIONS

Video presentations can be extremely beneficial, and these run the gamut from professionally produced instruction to amateur how-tos. As long as the information is solid and presented effectively, the production values aren’t terribly important.

Pros: 

• Will likely appeal to a wider range of learning styles, depending on how the video is put together.
• Retention rates are 2.5x better than only reading the content.
• Costs will range from free to moderate. A few of the best trainers in the country offer excellent content for free as an introduction to their full active coaching program. These resources give you excellent tips and help you find the consultant who’s right for you. 

Cons:  

• Without follow-up training and mid-video breaks for interactive group activities, retention rates are still on the lower side (about 20%)
• No one is available to answer questions and clear up misunderstandings. 
• Any repetition of training videos to re-train staff can quickly become very tedious, limiting long-term program effectiveness.

REMOTE/IN-PERSON PRESENTATIONS

Live training presentations with an industry expert—whether remote or in-person—are often more effective than printed materials and videos in most cases. These options allow your people to ask questions and engage in role-playing scenarios that mimic common customer interactions. 

Pros: 

• Deeply interactive and engaging presentations with multiple audio/visual elements and group activities can boost retention rates as high as 75%. Engagement is also vastly improved.
• The opportunity to ask questions and get real-time answers is finally on the table, and it’s a crucial tool in this process.

Cons: 

• If you’ve opted for a one-time presentation, once it’s over… it’s over. 
• Expensive, especially when you’re covering the presenter’s flights and hotel.
• Inefficient in terms of individual learning, as some team members inevitably fall behind. Others get bored and zone out.
• Presenters who spend more time talking and very little time interacting can produce retention rates of as low as 5%. That’s an extremely poor return on your investment. 

ACTIVE COACHING WITH PHONE NINJAS

The automotive dealership BDC training resources we’ve talked about are actually just individual components of an ideal training model. They can produce decent results on their own, but will never be anywhere near as effective as hiring a training partner who has built a complete program utilizing these tools in addition to active coaching that supports your team’s development over time. 

Phone Ninjas has combined the best of these teaching methods to produce our time-tested training program that consistently brings in three to four times more appointments every month from your phone traffic than the average dealership. How do we do it?

• Our VP of Training, Mike Hoyser, conducts an initial group training session, either in person or remotely as you prefer.
• Written training materials like our free scripts have been perfected through years of fine-tuning in the field, and serve as a foundation for the scripts we fine-tune for your business. We’ve also got an extensive resource library available on demand.
• Our professional training videos are available 24/7 and serve as support resources for your internal BDC training. 
• We’ve got a roster of amazing coaches who work with your people individually in weekly sessions until your BDC team has everything down. These individual sessions focus on real calls taken from their daily work and often serve as helpful examples for your entire team.
• Our mystery shopping team confirms that new skills translate to the real world—where they result in higher sales numbers for your dealership. 

GET YOUR BDC FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS TODAY WITH PHONE NINJAS

At Phone Ninjas, our reputation as one of the best automotive consultants in the country is backed up by decades of industry experience in the business. We can’t wait to show you how we’ll turbocharge key BDC metrics several times over, increasing your appointment set and show rates and driving business to every aspect of your dealership.

Contact us today for two free mystery shops and a free demo of our program and find out what a difference the best automotive dealership BDC training on the market can make.