By Sally Whitesell Founder and CEO of sw Service Solutions and Fixed Ops University
for AutoSuccess Magazine September 2024
Would you ever consider letting a member of your sales team on the floor without any training? Could they sell cars without knowing the features and benefits, as well as your road to the sale?
I think we can agree with a resounding “no!” Yet most of the time, we do just that when we hire a new advisor or service BDC rep.
We put them through an orientation, throw them out on the drive and hope they learn good habits from others instead of making sure they are prepared.
Most dealerships invest time and money into consistently training their sales departments. They impose strict guidelines, teach detailed processes and usually require role-plays to make sure everyone has strong communication and sales skills. These same habits would develop your service sales team into a sales powerhouse!
Taking a haphazard approach to onboarding and training new recruits won’t put you on the road to success. You may get lucky occasionally and find someone who was trained by their last company, but most of your team will become order takers because it is comfortable and easy.
Let’s look at the impact service advisors and BDC reps have on your store.
Your average salesperson is lucky to see five potential clients a day. By contrast, your service advisors can see 30 or more, and one BDC rep can speak with many more! This makes your service advisors and BDC team the most important customer relations representatives in your dealership. Why wouldn’t you make training them just as high of a priority as training your sales team? With profit margins on new and used car sales waning, your service department controls a significant percentage of your profitability.
Are you ready to start training? Here’s a list of questions to help you prepare.
- Does your staff have professional training resources? Your service managers don’t have the time or skills to develop training programs. They usually haven’t participated in much sales training, so they need an outside party to supply training material, courses and on-site implementation. This is even more important for them than for your sales managers, who have attended these types of meetings regularly.
- How are you teaching your team effective communication skills? With the impact of email, texting and social media, face-to-face communication skills are sorely lacking. This training is imperative for customer retention and higher sales.
- Do you have weekly training sessions, morning huddles, daily/weekly challenges and role-plays with incentives for outstanding performance? As leaders it is our responsibility to coach daily while teaching new skills.
- Is your shop staffed according to your current levels of production so they can get the work done in a timely manner? This is the foundation of your customer and employee retention. Even the best advisor will not stay if they do not have a strong team behind them.
- Do you have strong leaders and management staff that can deliver consistent messages, motivate your team, keep morale up and develop long-term employees? Nothing is more important than having leaders that lead by example with an open mind to learn and improve.
- Have you ever held personal and professional goal meetings with your advisors one on one? This personal touch will mean the world to your team and inspire them to live up to your standards.
- Finally, have you ever thought of having an incentive program that involves goals for everyone? Joint dealership goals, meetings and special events are effective ways to build relationships between departments. Many dealerships have a “separate department” mentality, which can make everyone feel like they’re working against each other instead of working together. Your sales team, service advisors, BDC and parts departments should work together like a well-oiled machine.
Be creative and make training fun and interesting. Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn and improve so they can have a long, successful career. Training is an investment in your people, and it comes with an immediate pay off!