customer service agents at an automotive BDC

How To Improve Dealership Customer Service

admin | Automotive BDC, Customer Service |

As a manager at an automotive dealership, you probably value customer service above nearly everything else. After all, providing the best customer service allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition, keep customers satisfied, and ultimately sell and service more vehicles.

In this article, we discuss four important tips for improving your dealership’s customer service, followed by how Customer Traac can help you provide the ideal customer experience.

Research Your Target Audience

One of the most important first steps in increasing customer satisfaction is conducting thorough research on your target audience. To provide the best service for your customers, you must fully understand their wants, needs, and how they operate.

There are many ways you can research your target audience to gain a better understanding of your customers. For example, you could interview a group of customers and ask them about their habits, what they are looking for in a dealership, how they want to be treated, and more. Or, you could send out surveys to a list of people you believe best represent your target audience to learn about their wants and needs. You could also study market trends and make decisions on your customer service based on relevant trends. The bottom line is that it is crucial to thoroughly research your target audience so you can better understand the people with whom you interact every day.

Always Answer the Phone

As a customer, one of the most annoying aspects of any buying experience is having to wait on hold or not being able to speak to anyone when you need. Just think about any time you’ve had to wait on hold; it always starts the customer experience off on the wrong foot. In fact, dealerships lose tons of current and prospective customers every day by not being able to answer the phone or by putting customers on hold for too long.

So, we recommend prioritizing a high phone answer rate so your customers never have to wait on hold. Partnering with an outside automotive BDC or contact center is one of the best ways to ensure your customers get through to customer service representatives quickly, and we’ll talk more about this below.

Seek Customer Reviews

Figuring out how to improve your customer service can sometimes be as simple as just asking your current customers how you are doing and what you can improve on. After all, who will give you better advice on how to treat your customers than your customers themselves? Plus, seeking reviews from your customers will show your customers that you care about their experience, which in itself is a good customer service practice.

Moreover, compiling customer reviews can help you obtain testimonials you can use for other marketing efforts. And it will help with your SEO as well.

Partner with an Automotive BDC or Contact Center

If you want to ensure you optimize your customer service, we recommend partnering with an outside automotive BDC or contact center, both of which employ trained and experienced customer service representatives that specialize in providing an exceptional customer experience in the automotive industry. BDCs and contact centers specialize in the following elements that help enhance dealerships’ customer service:

  • Answering nearly all inbound phone calls, so customers do not wait on hold or have trouble getting in touch with you
  • Interacting with customers in a friendly and professional manner
  • Communicating with customers on a variety of platforms, including phone, email, SMS, chat, and more.
  • Going above and beyond to make sure your customers are happy

Enhance Your Customer Service by Partnering with Customer Traac

If you would like to improve your dealership’s customer service and overall customer experience, or if you would like to speak with an expert in the field to learn more, please reach out to us to see how we can help. At Customer Traac, we work with you to understand your specific goals and needs, so we can provide a personalized service that optimizes your dealership’s marketing and communication efforts. We offer a full range of automotive marketing services, including a full-charge contact center, appointment scheduling, outbound calling campaigns, and a full-service automotive BDC. Our agents go through extensive training to make sure they provide the best customer service and help your business grow.

We partner with dealerships across the United States. Please call us at 763-553-2989 or fill out our contact form to learn more.

employee at a dealership service BDC

How To Find The Right Dealership Service BDC

admin | Automotive BDC | , , ,

As a service manager or general manager of a dealership, you are always looking to streamline various aspects of your business and increase ROI. One of the best ways to enhance your service department is to partner with an automotive service BDC to handle your customer service and various marketing efforts.

Choosing the right service BDC can be tricky, but we’re here to give you a few tips to get you started. In this article, we discuss what an automotive service BDC is, what to look for while searching for the right partner, and how Customer Traac can help you.

What is an Automotive Service BDC?

An automotive service BDC is a development center that specializes in optimizing the service departments of dealerships. BDCs schedule service appointments, send out satisfaction surveys, and focus on customer retention, all while handling high call volume and follow-ups. They remove certain tasks out of the hands of service departments so these departments have more time and energy to service their customers and provide a superior customer experience.

What to Look for in a Service BDC

When seeking a service BDC for your dealership, we recommend looking for a company that prioritizes the following values and services:

  • Customer Service Above All Else: Customer Service should be one of the top priorities of any service BDC, so we recommend choosing a partner that prioritizes providing an excellent customer experience above all else. The service BDC you choose should live and breathe customer service. It should also be able to prove its experience and skills in the field before signing on with you.
  • Rigorous Agent Training: One of the best ways to judge the level of customer service a BDC provides is by examining its agent training program. To ensure optimal levels of customer service, make sure the BDC trains its agents appropriately and that it prioritizes agent development and expertise.
  • Diversified Communication Abilities: A quality Service BDC should be able to communicate with customers via a variety of modes of communication. Examples of such modes of communication include phone, SMS, chat, email, and more.
  • Automotive Industry Experts: The automotive industry is unique in many ways, especially when it comes to servicing customers and running marketing campaigns. So, while seeking a service BDC for your dealership, we recommend choosing a company that focuses on the automotive industry, instead of a broad BDC covering numerous fields. This way, you can ensure you are hiring experts in your field who are experienced at dealing with your type of customers.
  • Excellent Client Communication: Communication is key for anything, especially something as important as your customer service. As a dealership, you probably prioritize your customer service above nearly everything else. So, you will want a service BDC that excels at communicating with you so you always know what’s going on. Moreover, the level of communication skills your BDC presents to you as its client will most likely reflect the level of communication skills it has with your customers.

Find the Right Service BDC with Customer Traac

If you are in need of an automotive service BDC for your dealership, or if you would like to speak with an expert in the field to learn more, please reach out to us to see how we can help. At Customer Traac, we work with you to understand your specific goals and needs, so we can provide a personalized service that optimizes your dealership’s marketing and communication efforts. We offer a full range of automotive marketing services, including a full-charge contact center, appointment scheduling, outbound calling campaigns, and a full-service automotive BDC. Our agents go through extensive training to make sure they provide the best customer service and help your business grow.

We partner with dealerships across the United States. Please call us at 763-553-2989 or fill out our contact form to learn more.

dealership customer service outsourcing example

Dealership Customer Service Outsourcing: Increase Customer Satisfaction Without Sacrificing Call Flow

admin | Automotive BDC, Customer Service | , , , , , , , , , ,

Many of our success stories begin with a dealership reaching out because they are overwhelmed with answering calls and emails. Customers reaching out for appointment scheduling and services often falls to the sales or service team. Without a proper dealership customer service team, the rest of your business will have to pick up the slack. This can disrupt the process of each department, and customer satisfaction can suffer. This is why we always recommend outsourcing your customer service to a professional contact center or business development center.

Feeling Reluctant About Customer Service Outsourcing?

It’s difficult to hand the reins over to someone else, especially when it comes to dealing with your customers. However, when a business outsources their customer service they often find more bandwidth to focus more on important tasks in other departments.

Hiring a professional team means you can get right back to business. Outsourced BDCs already have the staff, tools, and experience to handle anything customers can throw at them. An automotive BDC is able to stay on top of industry trends and service schedules for all makes and models. They will be able to help with customer inquiries regarding past and current models, too.

What’s more, customer service companies should have obtained extensive training on security and fraud prevention. They have tight-knit measures in place to prevent fraud and keep customers’ information secure. In fact, customer data may be more secure with an outsourced dealership customer support team than with internal staff. They are in an outside location, away from onlookers, with highly secure phones and computer systems—so you can rest assured your, and your customers’ information, is safe.

How Can Outsourcing Boost Customer Satisfaction?

Outsourcing can ensure the sales and service teams can devote all of their time and energy to their respective sides of the business. No longer do they need to focus on answering or returning calls—having their time pulled away from customers who are in-house needing assistance. With dealership customer service outsourcing, customers can return to being the focus and marketing efforts can be handed off to the professionals.

Business development centers can also handle outbound marketing campaigns, promotions, and giveaways. They can help affect reviews by offering anonymous surveys, links to leave reviews, and gather customer effort scores (CES). They are a one-stop-shop for inbound and outbound calls.

The team working within a professional customer support company or business development center has probably seen and heard it all. After all, talking to customers is what they do, and they are well-trained to handle any situation, including frustrated and unhappy customers. When you give them the trust and power to do whatever it takes to make sure the customer is happy, you will start to see an uptick in customer satisfaction. An increase in satisfaction can lead to customer retention and more positive word-of-mouth marketing for your dealership, too. So you not only improve current customers’ experiences with your dealership but are more likely to do so for a much longer period of time.

Outsourcing Your Customer Service Improves Call Flow

When calls are coming into your business, and you don’t have a receptionist or customer service team to manage to them, they get funneled through other departments less equipped to handle the high call volume. That can mean more callbacks, longer hold times, and dropped calls, which can negatively impact customer satisfaction.

An outsourced team is much more equipped to handle spikes in call volume throughout the year. The dealership may have higher call volume around key holiday sales like Labor Day and Christmas when they do more promotions. Outsourcing call management means the dealership doesn’t need employees to work overtime or hiring temporary workers to handle the massive spike in volume. The outside customer support knows how to prioritize those spikes in volume before they even happen, and track metrics to understand how much coverage they need to have.

Some businesses may be wary of outsourcing part of their business and worrying about the flow of phone calls coming in or out. But sending all contacts to an outside customer support line helps to avoid transfers and holds. It also keeps a streamlined process from an inquiry to an answer and maintains full service appointment calendars. Being able to integrate these outbound marketing efforts into the business means improving your competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Outsourcing your customer service can indeed increase your customer satisfaction without sacrificing call flow. It can improve your call flow by streamlining the entire process. It’s our passion to help dealerships thrive and boost profitability by handling their customer care. Read more about automotive BDCs and what they can do for you here. And contact us today if you have any questions on how to get started.

customer relationship management strategies that work for dealerships

Customer Relationship Management Strategies That Work

admin | Automotive BDC, Contact Center | , ,

Don’t wait any longer! Now’s the time to improve your CRM.

As Bob Dylan famously wrote, “The times they are-a-changin’, and they change faster and faster every year.” Thanks to advances in technology, economic conditions, and environmental concerns, consumer trends change over time. And if your customers are changing, your strategies to reach them should, too. Which is why using the same old customer relationship management strategies year over year can actually hurt your business. CRM, or client relationship management software, is a tool many businesses (including auto dealers) use not only as a database of current or potential customers but also a system to schedule communications and build relationships. These systems need to be on par with what customers expect out of businesses.

Evaluate What’s Working… and What’s Not

When considering changing up business processes, the best place to start is with data. Review everything you can get your hands on from website traffic to incoming phone calls, form submissions, emails, and floor ups. If you think the majority of your business starts as an internet lead, test the hypothesis. Discover the first point of contact for your sales last year, last quarter, and last month. Is it changing? Is that intentional?

Instead of guessing, obtain the data you need to make smart decisions—especially those that affect your team and bottom line. And pay attention to where your strategy could be falling short. It is equally important to identify those campaigns and channels that aren’t producing for your dealership as those that are performing well. Adding more resources to what’s working and taking a closer look at what’s not can help you re-imagine customer relationship management strategies that make an impact faster.

Pro Tip: If you’ve just implemented a new CRM, you may not have enough data to do this but it is worth considering every 6-12 months.

Identify Power Users and Challenge Them

In your review of what’s working, you’ll likely discover several team members who have higher than average usage rates of your CRM that the rest of the team. It’s a safe bet these team members have found their stride when it comes to the technology and the processes in place. Whether they are in your BDC, internet department, or on the floor, a great way to keep them engaged and your system evolving is to challenge them to develop new ideas on how to shorten the sales cycle, improve customer communications, or increase service traffic.

Additionally, these folks are great internal trainers for new hires or team members who are struggling to get up-to-speed with your system or processes. They are also uniquely positioned to identify areas where extra support might be needed. Perhaps they notice the ball gets dropped on important follow up strategies during busy weekends or that they can’t manage all the emails and phone calls for their customers on their own. Listen to their concerns and analyze the data. Should you hire more people? Should you look to outsource? Or do you need a back up plan only on those high-traffic days instead of an ongoing basis?

Pro Tip: These power users should come from every level and department. Their experience and insights will be more helpful than any outside resource.

Talk to Your Customers

What do you think is the highlight of your customer’s car buying experience? What could be improved? Ask your team. Write down the most popular answers. Now, ask your customers.

With customer expectations on the rise, you’re likely to discover “fast response” or a “helpful and courteous staff” to be ranked higher in feedback than the free bottled water or espresso machine in the showroom. Consider how you might be able to further improve response times while keeping team members from feeling overworked or stressed so they can continue to be easy to talk to and work with. What processes should be updated, created, or stopped to further enhance the customer experience?

Pro Tip: If your customers like your fast response or indicate it’s difficult to reach someone at the dealership, consider adding a partner into the mix who can always be available, even when your team is busy so the customer feels taken care of and appreciated.

Before venturing out and implementing improvements to your customer relationship management strategies, make sure employees fully grasp the concept of the improvements and why it’s important. The more specific you can be and the more employees understand how an improved CRM can positively improve their daily work and KPIs, the more successful they can be as employees, and the overall business. 

Customer Traac has a very clear vision of what it takes to be successful, and what it takes to implement a customer relationship management strategy that works. We stay up to date on industry trends and news, and love helping dealerships get or stay on track. If you would like to learn how we can partner with your team to improve the customer experience, reach out today. 

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A rep displaying how an automotive business development center can help dealerships grow

Outbound Campaigns: The Secret to Increasing Dealership Revenue

admin | Automotive BDC | , , ,

Continuing the conversation with existing customers is key to maintaining that relationship and customer retention.

Outbound campaigns can be highly effective for improving sales and service revenue in that it puts the power back in the hands of the dealership. Online and print advertisements promoting special offers leaves the decision making to the customer, who may not take the initiative to call the dealership to schedule. That’s why it’s so important for dealership business development centers to proactively engage with customers to drive business.  

Start at the beginning

Leads that come in through your website are the best gift you can receive. These leads are customers who are actually interested in working with you and need to be captured or converted. Many salespeople may follow up on these leads via email or phone, but if they play phone tag or don’t get a response in a week or two, they end up forgotten. Chances are, customers who are reaching out via your website are early in their search for a vehicle, and they aren’t in a hurry to make a decision. But by being a resource for them during their car search can put you above the rest. 

Pro Tip: If a customer leaves a voicemail or a phone number, call them back around the time they initially called you. That may be the time of day when they are free at work or are available to accept calls. If you don’t reach them the first time, try a call just outside of work hours between 4 and 5 pm, or around the lunch hour. Chances are, if someone reached out recently they are expecting the call and will be to hear from you! It can sometimes be forgotten how much people want a warm voice over the phone. It gives a personal touch in a world that is so much online and impersonal. 

Those with vehicle equity

A good business development center will have a vehicle equity calculator that can effectively track timelines of vehicles purchased within their dealership, and pair that with ones that have left the lot. The amount of years owned, miles driven, and the make or model all determine a vehicle’s equity. Following up with these customers can sometimes lead to an upgraded purchase or a service appointment.

If the customer’s car is worth considering as a trade-in towards a new vehicle, you can help guide them through the process and get them into an upgraded vehicle faster. If that is not what they want, you can offer service incentives and, when the time comes, incentives for when they do want to purchase a new vehicle, to do it through your dealership. 

Customers who bought but never came back

According to Snapcell, 76% of car buyers bought their next vehicle from the dealership that performed their regular maintenance. But only 13% of those car buyers had maintenance performed at the same dealership they bought the car from. Yikes! That’s why, after a customer buys a car, the sales team should follow up quickly to ensure satisfaction and answer any questions or concerns the customer may have after their purchase.

Setting a schedule to follow-up one, three, and six months after the vehicle purchase with customers can be some of the most effective outbound campaigns your dealership can run. Because we know there is one thing they will absolutely need with their new car—service maintenance. Reaching out to customers who bought a car through your dealership but haven’t utilized your service bay is an incredible opportunity. It’s possible these customers aren’t aware of the service incentives through the dealership and just need a helping hand to get there and get their car taken care of by the team who already knows them.

Customers who visited over six months ago

Run an inquiry of all your customers you saw six months ago or longer and begin an outbound campaign offering a percentage off service if they come in during the next six months. Chances are they either haven’t serviced their vehicle at all or they went to a different shop.

Pro Tip: Run these outbound campaigns right before winter, when people want to winterize their cars, and again before summer when people are planning road trips and vacations. These incentives can reignite a desire to come back to your dealership and they are great for customer retention! 

Customer who recently received service

Customers who were just in for service should also get a follow-up call within seven days. Be sure to ask if they were satisfied with the service and how their car is running overall. This can be a good opportunity to schedule their next service appointment, like oil changes and tire rotations. This also presents an opportunity to catalog the mileage of their vehicle and discuss their plans for when it comes time to trade-in. Pro Tip: Create incentives based on future resale value if customers continue to get service through your dealership. 

Outbound campaigns for potential and existing customers are one of the most important tools at your disposal in increasing sales and improving customer satisfaction. Customers want to feel important and cared for, and maintaining that relationship throughout the weeks, months, and years after they’ve worked with you can significantly improve your sales and service revenue as well as your dealership’s reputation. 

Outsourced business development centers like Customer Traac can help ensure your customers never go without a follow-up call, email, or a pre-scheduled service. On top of service appointments and sales equity mining, our team can work with your dealership to create custom outbound campaigns based on current or future sales trends, and continual efforts to retain customers. It’s what we’ve been doing for over 30 years!

Contact a member of the Customer Traac team to how we can help your dealership reach profit goals today.

A rep displaying how an automotive business development center can help dealerships grow

How an Automotive Business Development Center Can Help Support Your Sales Team

admin | Automotive BDC, Customer Service | , , , ,

The sales team at a car dealership is comprised of multiple positions with multiple responsibilities throughout the company. Some positions you may find at a dealership that play a role in the sales process include sales associates, sales managers, and the general manager. And while these positions are primarily focused on driving dealership success, they are still responsible for elements of the customer service strategy. This might include answering the phone when they aren’t with an active customer, greeting customers on the lot, or even grabbing a bottle of water for a service customer waiting for their vehicle. And while all of these tasks certainly keep team members busy throughout the day, not all of them are actively generating revenue for the dealership. That’s why moving customer service activities away from the sales team is a great way to create more bandwidth for those employees to tend to the sales process and develop a truly seamless transition between the sales and customer service teams. Let’s dig into a few of the ways in which an automotive business development center can help support your sales team. 

What is a Business Development Center?

In the automotive industry, Business Development Centers (or BDCs) work alongside sales and service teams to manage incoming calls, schedule sales and service appointments, and perform outbound campaigns that generate sales and service leads. Additionally, BDCs can help improve customer retention, conduct satisfaction surveys, and handle general or overflow call volume. By removing these tasks from other teams, sales and service staff can focus on what they do best and dealers can rest assured that no ball is being dropped in the process. 

Answering Calls and Managing High Call Volume

An automotive business development center can help alleviate heavy call volume by answering calls that otherwise could pull salespeople and sales managers away from customers. BDCs, like Customer Traac, become masters on the subject of your dealership so they can answer questions, resolve inquiries, and even relay specific details regarding car service needs and timelines. This removes a lot of the time spent by sales teams on customer service issues that can pull focus away from the selling of cars, which in-turn opens up availability to make more sales and keep moving inventory.

When your dealership sales or service teams are getting a high volume of calls for questions on top of inquiries, it can get messy. Additionally, consider the times of year when you typically experience an increase in people purchasing cars as well as servicing them. These increased call volumes can be a lot to handle, and outsourcing them to a team that is equipped to manage these seasonal shifts can aid your dealership in its busy season. A BDC can take those calls and turn them into schedules for the sales and service teams that keeps everyone busy but not overloaded. 

Follow-up Calls

Following up with customers about their purchase, their vehicle’s maintenance schedule, returning calls with issues, and other customer service tasks can be left for the BDC to handle in a timely, and efficient manner. This way, salespeople won’t have to worry about keeping track of customer voicemails, emails, or disrupting sales efforts to make these follow-up calls. Additionally, follow-up calls can bring a lot of recurring business to the dealership. It’s a tactic that can easily fall by the wayside if salespeople aren’t getting responses or calls back after a week or two. A BDC that remains diligent in reaching out to existing or potential customers have a very high chance of turning calls into appointments, future trade-ins, or even a good review. 

Scheduling Service Appointments

BDCs will know a car’s suggested service maintenance schedule based on the make, model, year, and when the customer purchased the vehicle. This means they can make and maintain a full schedule of service appointments that improves customer retention and creates a full schedule for the service team. 

An automotive business development center can help create a ripple effect from the initial sale, and takes care of all the supporting activities associated with it. Customer Traac starts at once after a sale and can start outbound campaigns, pre-schedule service appointments, and alleviate call volume from the dealership. 

For over 30 years, Customer Traac has provided outsourced business development center solutions for dealerships across the country. We know that when your teams have more time to focus on what they do best, your dealership grows. Reach out today to learn how we can help your sales team sell more cars and create lasting customer relationships. 

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