There are several ways to use a Business Development Center or (BDC) with the Internet Leads and Chat Leads that come to you auto dealership. Here are some popular strategies.
Let the BDC Call First: This First version is where a BDC agent calls to find the interested customers or customers that want to set an appointment. If they get a hot customer or an appointment, then they contact the Assigned Salesperson or Manager which is often an Internet Manager.
Let the BDC Call Second: The Second version is where a Manager or aSalesperson is the first to call. If they cannot get a hold of the customer, then the BDC will try.
Let The BDC Call Third: The Third way is where the Assigned Salesperson usually will try first, then a Manager and finally the BDC department.
There Are Pros & Cons To Each of These Strategies:
The idea of the BDC calling first is that they will weed out a lot of the bad leads. If the BDC gets an interested customer or an appointment then they will pass it to the Manager or Salesperson who can now just work with hot customers. The downside of this process, is that the person who first talks to the customer, is not going to be involved in any way with the customer when they get to the store.
When I am working in the BDC making calls, I have a real problem: Customers will often say to me, "Which store (of the eight) are you at? I want to buy from you." What has happened is that I was able to connect with the customer, they realised I know what I am talking about and now that customer wants me to help them with their purchase. This is exactly what you want to teach your sales staff, how to listen and connect with each customer. This would not be a problem if I was the salesperson or even the Manager at the store. Unfortunatly I and the BDC staff will never see this person.
We teach the BDC and Internet Managers to getthe customer to their assigned sales person as soon as possible after contact, so that the customer can now connect, with the person who will met them at the store.
Once when I was helping a new Internet Manager acustomer come and ask for the Internet Manager, they were doing great together until he went to get the salesperson. The salesperson knew absolutely nothing about
the customer, not even about the appointment and the car was not pulled up. It completely fell apart at that point, because the customer liked the experience with the Internet Manager but was offended by being switched to some else. The Internet Manager was so excited that he had made an appointment and got the customer in. Unfortunately, he lost the sale by not getting the customer connected to the salesperson before He arrived.
My preference is that the Salesperson (Lets CallHim Joe) is the first contact and the last contact when the customer leave with the car. Everything that the Internet Manager or BDC does is to help the customer along in the process and to continually reinforce that Joe will check the car for you, Joe will get you a SnapCell video of the car, Joe will have the car pulled up etc. So that there is no misunderstanding on who will be helping the customer.
There are many variations of how to use a BDCwith Internet leads. What is your process and how is it working at your dealership? If you have any BDC questions, contact me: Vincent Hoss on LinkedIn