From sales and marketing to customer service to hiring and retention of employees, auto dealership owners need to balance dozens of tasks effectively to ensure the overall success and growth of their business. It’s crucial to delegate responsibilities when necessary and foster a collaborative and efficient work environment across all locations. But delegation relies on hiring a great supporting staff that they can trust and who are proficient.
Two issues that have a huge impact on success are staff management and customer service.
Staff management
Over the years working with auto dealerships, GM’s and Controllers tend to leave one dealership and move on to another. Why is that? Leadership starts at the top. People do not want to work in a toxic environment. There is way too much negativity in our daily lives. If the boss is negative, it tends to trickle (or flood) down into the entire organization. If you feel you are positive, but there are issues farther down, negativity in middle managers might need to be rooted out. Listen to your employees. Are they positive and upbeat about their work, or do you get a sense they are only there for the paycheck? If the latter, have HR take some time to ask no consequence questions, or run an anonymous survey or do 360 reviews that include the employees rating their managers (anonymously), and you.
Open lines of communication and effective leadership skills are essential. Owners need to have an open-door policy and not micro-manage their staff. Management and staff members do not want to work in an environment of micromanagement. Micromanagement conveys a lack of trust in the employees, making them feel devalued. Rather than micromanaging employees, train them better instead.
Customer Service Issues
COVID-19 staffing shortages are still in play. Finding the right people to handle customer’s issues is critical. If customers are having issues, they want their issues resolved immediately. Otherwise, they will either escalate to the owner or provide negative reviews on social media. Since it’s more economical to maintain current customers than to acquire new customers, keeping them happy keeps them as customers. Look at your sales process from the customer’s perspective. What would he or she like that they currently are not receiving? Where are the snags in their sales journey with your dealership? What recurrent complaints or issues are you aware of? What can be done to improve those issues.
Owners cannot take their customers for granted. Rewarding your customers with something small will bring them back. Rewarding a test drive with a $25.00 gift card for coming into your dealership(s) can leave a prospective customer with a good taste in their mouth (literally). You can also give these gift cards to buyers. For a $25.00 gift card from Restaurant.com your cost is only $4.25. I would be happy to introduce you to Evan, a manager with Restaurant.com.
Michael Herman and PayJunction take customer service very seriously. For more information please contact us or call us at 847-231-0231
