Automotive dealers and their staff should set goals and expectations regarding customer conversations. They must ensure that customer interactions go smoothly both on the phone and the sales floor. Dealers should connect with their teams and establish the following guidelines:
- Each staff member understands their area of specialty
- Inexperienced salespeople are matched with senior staff members for training and coaching
- Sales staff are informed on call handling best practices
Is Your Team Informed?
The most important point for dealers to address is whether their staff is adequately informed to speak to potential customers. Each staff member must know their area of specialty intimately. If that is sales, then the salesperson should have baseline product knowledge, be aware of current inventory, and should be able to recommend a similar model if the vehicle in question is not in stock. Similarly, a service staff member should know basic information like the business’s hours of service, transportation options, and anticipated repair times. It is essential that a customer can get a good answer for any standard question asked.
The Power of Cross-Training
Dealership sales teams should practice matching newer team members with more experienced staff members for training and coaching. The new employees will learn from the senior staff’s expertise and will be able to develop their skills faster with closer 1-on-1 training. Experienced staff will also be able to hold junior staff members accountable and remind them of what is expected even when a manager isn’t present.
Understand Best Practices
Dealers should make sure that their sales teams understand call handling best practices. For instance, dealerships should not use an interactive voice response (IVR) system, and if they do, they should make sure customers can get what they want in a reasonable amount of time. Dealerships often lose potential customers when they use an IVR system. Callers often cannot get to who or what they want quickly enough. Staff members should also make sure all voicemails have a proper greeting and point callers to an appropriate destination. Lastly, salespeople should be trained to always take messages.
Get Started
To learn more about how your dealership can boost agent performance and perfect its call handling methods, watch our webinar: Improve Call Handling Performance and Outcomes. If you’d like to learn more about Engage for Automotive, Marchex’ auto-focused conversation intelligence platform, speak with us today.
