Downturn in The Car Business

Sales are down – According to Automotive news latest edition the car sales industry is down -4.7% year over year. Some manufacturers are down -27%.

Even with these numbers our dealership along with plenty of others are still showing an increase for the year or are stable year over year.

How are they doing it? We are sticking to the basics. This month we’re tracking just over 1,000 cars by making sure we take care of our customers, SALES RETENTION is the focus.

Some dealerships are stuck like a deer in the headlights, while some are full steam ahead. It won’t be easy and I imagine it will get worse and you will have to get stronger in your abilities to retain your current customer base. At the end of the day the one who can stay in constant contact with the customer and truly take care of their needs wins the race.

We saw it early last year and decided to focus heavily on getting our team better on the phones. One of the problems we identified was it’s not easy getting call lists to our sales staff. We searched everywhere to see which software company had the best solution. We tried a couple of them AutoAlert, Dealer Wizard. We researched Automotive Mastermind, VinSolutions, Dealer Socket and none of them gave us what we were looking for. So, we created our own, and the results were better than expected.

We now have refined the software for BDC’s and have eliminated down time for floor sales people. We’ve created over 50 different target points and now can track, and create call lists to our sales staff. We use it as a complement to our current CRM and it works spectacularly. I never set out to have a software company designed for call lists and BDC management, but it’s working very well for our dealership.

Quick disclaimer, you must make it a mantra at your store or like all software it’s only as good as what you put into it.

“If you’re not with a customer you’re prospecting.”

The phone is your friend and as a top sales professional I can assure you it’s a must. Get your team better on the phones and watch the numbers grow. It’s a daily topic and a constant push. The ones that get it ring the bell like a slot machine and the ones who don’t, well they don’t quite make it in this industry.

Get your team better on the phones and avoid being one of the statistics!