Leadership & ManagementBest Practices

In preparation for our meeting with Sarah Vantine of Quantum5 , we spent time researching the company and reviewing her profile. Anything but ordinary comes to mind. Clear messaging about who she is, what she does, and most importantly, why she does it, sets the tone for a very people-centric conversation; the synergy between Sarah and Quantum5 exceeded our expectations. As Sarah sits in front of an elegant bookshelf, decorated in accolades, she boldly smiles and tells me that she assembled it herself when she was eight months pregnant. What would follow would be two people interacting, truly engaged. By the end of our conversation, I would understand the power of forward-thinking approaches to the BDC, vision boards, and how a dolphin toy on the desk of an employee was the game changer that made it all connect. Balance, Success, Courage and Seeking The word balance, to me, has always kind of been misleading because it implies that you always hold everything in equal measure. The reality of it is that at different points in time, you need to let go of one thing in order to focus on another. You can't physically hold on to all of your work and personal responsibilities equally and at the same time. What allows you to achieve your goals, personal and professional, is having the courage to seek out opportunities in which you can build a support network. There are companies out there where the mission statement is cookie-cutter and may not actually be reflective of the core culture, something you will notice when you consider things like retention of employees. I have sought opportunities that have allowed me to have a level of support and understanding, which has really been the secret to my success. “This was the best thing to happen to me so far in my career.” I am so thankful to be a part of the team that I am with now. Finding Your True North “It's not personal, it's just business.” Ken Herfurth sums it up really well, "it's always personal." In every business, there are always people. There is a person at every single interaction. It is never just business, there are always elements of personal experience woven into the very core of business. When Dave O’Brien and Ken Herfurth, the Founders of Quantum5, approached me, I had, up till this point, really made an effort to create a future within the BDC departments. We really focused on the individuals within the BDC itself. The term BDC is such a loose term for a variety of departments. You may find a dealership that says that they have a BDC department and in reality, they have two people answering calls and transferring them to somebody else; they have no authority, there is no empowerment and their job is quite limited. This leads to people within the dealership viewing them as an expense and someone who will never have the opportunity to move up in the organization. And so, one of the challenges that I always encountered throughout my career was challenging the perception that existed in terms of the BDC and what the BDC was capable of. I focused on putting the human aspect first and by focusing on how I developed my people allowed for the development of better customer relationship and management skills. When Quantum5 came along and I asked them about their reason for building the company, some of the pain points that they highlighted were things I had experienced in my own career and their values really impacted me because my heart was fully aligned. I had the opportunity to do something I really believed in on a larger scale, impacting hundreds of dealers, based on values that really represented my true north. Oftentimes in automotive, training is an event and it is done in a vacuum. And so what often happens is you go to a training seminar or a trainer comes in and you're pulled off the sales floor, you're pulled off the phones, and you're stuck in a room with this person. And then at the end of the training session, you go back to reality. Whatever was covered in that session slowly fades away. So, having the opportunity to take what I was doing in the BDC, like daily check-ins with all of my staff, is also really important to me. Although incredibly time-consuming and at times quite difficult when you're talking COVID and some of the restrictions that happened with face-to-face interactions, we still made an effort to have those one-on-one conversations. We used those sessions to understand what the challenges were and what we needed to adapt and adjust. How could we better serve our clients and build on that culture of creating and nurturing mutual trust? One on one human development directly impacts culture, skills development, and creates a better learning environment. What can we expect at CXAUTO2022? There are three strategies that we are going to unpack in the work session. We are going to talk about enabling multi-channel communication strategies within the BDC and what that really means at the end of the day. There is a lot of technology out there, and there are a lot of conversations around removing the human element by introducing chatbots or a predetermined response menu where the customer selects buttons and that becomes the full engagement experience. The reality is that people want the best of both, a combination of human interaction and technological implements. The customer does not want technology in a vacuum; they want a personal touch and they want to feel like they matter as an individual to the business. One of the biggest opportunities is including the BDC in developing communication skills to deal with a variety of clients. For the client, it feels familiar when a business really takes time to listen to them and facilitate human communication, allowing for their receptiveness to be elevated. The conversation becomes something of value for the client as well as the business. It is important that the BDC is equipped with the skills necessary to understand strategies that are going to lead to success. The second component of our work session will be focused on step-by-step instructions for a dealership to adjust their processes to best suit their customers' needs. An example that I can share comes from one of our case studies. Noises in vehicles are often one of the hardest things for a technician to diagnose. If you don’t have a good strategy to help the customer communicate the issue, it becomes very difficult for the technician to replicate the problem and without the information, they are unable to diagnose it. This creates frustration as the customer ends up having to return multiple times, a clear indication of a pain point within the dealership which is reflective of an existing process not being beneficial to the customer experience. The case study that we will be sharing is that of the Scott Clark Auto Group, who is a brilliant example of what can happen when you truly understand and adjust your process to the customer's needs. Lastly, we will be talking about strategies that really engage and retain the best professionals for your organization. Everyone talks about employee retention. We will be focusing on the human element and understanding what drives employee attrition. The BDC Representative oftentimes feels unappreciated and undervalued, and this is sometimes linked to a lack of training and development, essentially a lack of opportunity to grow within the organization. People are seeking companies that put people first and invest in them individually through teaching them how to interact with people, and how to become a successful person not just at work, but in life. We have some amazing strategies that we will be sharing with dealerships that focus on how to truly gauge employee satisfaction and how to adjust processes in order to retain talent. We dig deep into figuring out and understanding the people on your team. What makes them unique, what are their challenges? How do we best integrate this alongside the department and dealership goals? In BDC specifically, oftentimes we get hyper-focused on how many phone calls are being made. How many customers we are talking to, and how many appointments we are booking. But really, at the end of the day the person behind the scenes has a very complex life and they have their own goals and challenges that may not be obvious or mirror the same as the department’s. And so, the key strategy is to understand and then align the goals to the business. Sarah will be joined by Elizabeth Martin, the Service BDC Manager at the Scott Clarke Auto Group , as they discuss The New BDC: Best Practices to Capture and Upsell Service Business at the upcoming CXAUTO2022 . You can expect great insights based on case studies that illustrate concrete steps implemented to improve retention and continue to build value for customers. The new BDC is driven by innovative management and leadership practices that focus on honoring the individual through training and development and, ultimately, aligning the complexity within people, teams, and departments to achieve business goals. We would highly recommend that you see Sarah live! You can read more about her here

Disruption. One of the buzz words lately over-used and misunderstood. The standard business definition is “radical change to an existing industry or market due to technological innovation.”  I would argue is not always technological. And is that radical change good or bad? Is disruption good or bad?   The fact of the matter is,  DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL.   Whether we like it or not, as business owners, as consumers, as social citizens, we better embrace it. It is the new norm and will only continually cycle and accelerate.   If it is self-disruption, or at least a state of managed or accepted disruption, it can benefit our enterprise.  This agility and flexibility to take on disruption and capitalize through it and because of it, should even be a capability or culture that is driven in an organization. It will change the way customers expect products/services and experiences, it will change the way workers produce, and it will change the way we must manage our business models. In automotive, we could highlight a lot of major and recent disruptions. There is the pandemic effect amplified by home delivery and mobile service. There is the new mobility ecosystem accelerating around access to transportation on-demand. There is the new wave of EVs coming on due to many factors including gas and oil prices and a drive to a sustainable economy. Many technologies are disruptive to our previous industry and business models such as Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality, 5G and more. These technologies enable new experiences, real-time information, constant connectivity, and an overall overhaul of traditional, sequential, and transactional engagements. The customer experience with a brand is now always on, anywhere, anytime, and anyhow they choose. An illustrative landscape of some of the disruptive forces, effects and outcomes is pictured below. In the automotive retailer world, what have we seen in terms of disruption, again not just technological impacts but all kinds of disruptions or “disturbances”. There are quite a few, including but not limited to: Supply chain issues and inventory shortages Even more demanding customer expectations  New EV models and companies with direct-to-consumer models Ever increasing technology in vehicles including over-the-air updates Uncertain future of the “as is “dealer profit model  Ability to work with customers in a multi-channel format Some brands and vehicles getting more flexible financial access and even subscription models …and much more. The real question is, what do we do about it?  How do we handle these disruptions?  How do we survive and capitalize on disruption and build our business into future-proof models? The hard part, even though I asked the questions, is that there is no easy answer. There is no one solution, one technology, or even one way to ensure that your business can survive and thrive in the future.  I have heard before, “we cannot predict the future, but we must plan for multiple futures.” Good advice.  Meaning nobody knows what exactly the world, our industry or our business may look like in 5 years, 10 years and certainly not beyond. Anybody see the supply chain shortage coming 3 years ago? Anybody think Tesla would be on of the Top 10 market cap companies 10 years ago?   52% of the Fortune 500 companies from 2000 are extinct. That is not a typo. Read that again. So, there is no 100% prediction, and there is no one easy answer. But the recipe for success in an ongoing continuous cycle through any disruption must include some basic core operating principles and capabilities.   Some critical components and general principles include: Do not have a rigid business model, be willing to change Build a business model enabled by flexible business processes and enabling technologies aimed at delivering experiences and fulfilling needs (not transactional simple mundane tasks) Equip your people with training, knowledge, culture, and power to deliver customer experience (no barriers) Data and Insight. Understand what shifts and movements there are in your customers and your business.   You may think you are in the car business, but you are I the customer experience business. Focus on needs management over leads management. Take Action. Early, often and always. Do not wait for change to come to you, change what needs to be ahead of the curve. Consider your business as a platform (not a static and rigid set of transactional processes), with dynamic capabilities that can flex and pivot to meet demands and needs. These may sound high-level and unachievable for a dealership. But they are not, and they can’t be. They must be driven into the culture of your business .   In more tactical terms, your business must consider, deal with and optimize the ability to: Sell and service different (online, offline, omni-channel, mobile, and anyway the customer wants it.) Assess and determine new business models that can be viable for your customers and market: Subscription models Rental / car sharing models Other access and financial models to enable customers to access mobility Charging stations  The dealership as an experience center not as an inventory hub or “sales office” EV versus ICE customers service and overall needs More personalized build-to-order to overcome shortages Service as a service (more of a Geek Squad model) than a service bay model Be flexible to accommodate all different kinds of customers and their needs A tall order indeed. But if we think of and build our dealership business model more as a dynamic platform of capabilities and assets to accomplish the above and more, we can succeed in multiple paths of revenue streams.   It is not easy to accept that our business must be under a constant state of transformation.   But in order to continually survive, thrive and innovate we must always be in that continuous state of transformation. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because one thing is certain, the future is exactly what we think it will be. The key take-away again, DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL.   Get used to it and realize we have to deal with it continuously and forever. Capitalize on the fact that if done right, we can enable our business to dynamically flex in new directions and new models to support and thrive in multiple paths. Put focus and effort on the notion that are business is a platform of capabilities, not a rigid set of workflows.   With the focus on the North Star of customer experience driving your business, the capabilities can be dynamically developed to withstand all change and disruption.

“The purpose of habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it.” - Kevin Kelly, '68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice' You may have never thought of it this way, but problems at dealerships usually walk through your office door on two (2) legs: Either with customers or with employees. It’s always best to tackle these two-legged issues promptly, as otherwise, they can quickly escalate to regulatory challenges or, worse yet, lawsuits. I’ve seen it happen again and again. There are two main ways to confront problems as the dealer principle: You can personally manage the issue itself, or  You can manage the problems through well-trained employees who are empowered to fix them Your operations will be smoother for you if you choose to embrace your employees’ ability to handle the day-to-day concerns.   One of the most powerful tools you can teach your employees to deploy is effective and strategic emotional intelligence, i.e. the ability to understand, use, and manage emotions through communicating in a positive way. Your managers should understand this skill so they can effectively convey even difficult information to your customers.   The best way to change the communication style within your team is for you, as the leader, to model the use of your own emotional intelligence, whenever possible.  Here’s an example from last week. I was at a dealership group that wants to empower its managers to resolve customer problems through improved emotional intelligence. Together, the owners and I dug in with an action plan and dedicated a day to one-on-one sessions with all key stakeholders. We trained and practiced to ensure the managers understood the concepts and opportunities and could employ emotional intelligence tools effectively.   In this intimate training, we focused on a top-tier issue:  How to De-Escalate Customer Problems and Build Trust (To prevent problems at a dealership, this is step one and is the most important training for employees.) During one memorable session, with just the three of us in the room, one of the managers seemed particularly fidgety, wouldn’t make eye contact with me, despite being only three feet in front of me. He looked at his watch, then looked at the floor, and then looked at his watch again...then, stared at the floor.  Clearly, something was bothering him. (Let’s call him “Anthony.”) Me: Anthony, you look like something’s bothering you. Are you okay? Anthony: Yea, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Me: You look uncomfortable. (When you label the emotion of what someone is feeling, it is disarming.) Anthony: Naw. Sorry, let’s continue. Me: Anthony, I can tell something’s wrong. Please let me what it is so I can help you. Anthony: I apologize (looks at his watch)… let’s keep going. Me: Do you need to be somewhere else? Is that why you keep looking at your watch? Anthony: It’s not about work. Don’t worry about it. Me: Where do you need to be? Anthony, I fix problems; it’s what I do! So please tell me what’s up so I can help. It turns out Anthony had an appointment at the post office to have his passport interview. I asked how long he had been waiting for the meeting (knowing everything is still backed up because of COVID) and he indicated he waited about six (6) to seven (7) weeks for the meeting.  I asked the other manager in the room if Anthony could go to his appointment and I could train him later. And, that’s exactly what ended up happening.  There I was, training about using emotional intelligence, and in that moment, I needed to deploy the very same tool, so Anthony could learn about emotional intelligence! Yes, Anthony should have told his boss about the appointment weeks in advance, days in advance, and the morning of his appointment so we (all) could have avoided the herky-jerky start-stop. When someone is feeling boxed in, they quite often don’t think clearly, as Anthony displayed. (I’m certain he had pressures at home and was told, “you’d better not miss this appointment.” At least, his face indicated that conversation had taken place.)  So the moral of the story is: Use emotional intelligence when managing your employees and deploy these tactics to resolve customer and employee problems. Train on specifics and remind everyone to recognize the emotions at play under all situations. Then, you won’t have to remind yourself of this. Happily, it will be habit. You will just do it!

Another article about COVID-19?  Ugh! Snap! And oh, my! Employers everywhere are tired with having to handle this additional burden to running their business. But, now, more than ever, it’s important to mitigate your risk by being consistent and current in how you handle COVID. Don’t let your guard down now.    In this article, we will limit our discussion to the federal perspective on COVID as each state may have its own rules or requirements.  FACT: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says you can mandate employee vaccinations for employees physically entering the workplace based on business necessity subject to reasonable accommodation requirements. In essence, if it is a threat to the safety and well-being of employees and customers, you can require vaccinates. Very few jobs at the dealership may be completed by being isolated by plexiglass or office walls. Most require daily face-to-face customer contact that cannot be eliminated. FACT: If vaccines are required, employees may claim two (2) accommodations: Because of their sincerely held religious beliefs (i.e., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act), or Because of their disability (i.e. the Americans with Disabilities Act) If an employee asserts an accommodation request, call your employment lawyer for more specifics on how to handle the situation. Each case is different based on the facts. FACT:  To protect your employees and customers, ensure you have the latest signage from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and your state safety and health departments. For example, current CDC guidance has different masking requirements depending on whether you are in a low or medium to high-risk transmission area. Click here for more information. FACT:  As the employer, you are still required to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitizing stations. Outbreaks at the dealership? If you are having frequent positive COVID situations at the store, you may need to revisit your policies and their efficacy. If you make changes, document what you are doing. Are you required to keep a log of positive cases, or report to your state? Make sure you are doing so if required. If OSHA, or any agency, visits you, they want to know what you are doing to protect everyone. Be diligent here.  FACT:  If you sell fleet vehicles to the government, or have a federal contract, then you may be a federal contractor. If so, you must follow federal COVID mandates required by Executive Order. You may also be subject to mandatory vaccine requirements if you have 100 or more employees.  FACT:  On September 9th, President Biden signed an Executive Order requiring employees of contractors doing business with the federal government to be vaccinated which builds off a previously issued Executive Order from July. President Biden also mandated that OSHA is developing a rule requiring all businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or require workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. This mandate also requires employers to provide paid time off for the time it takes workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they are under the weather post-vaccination. It is unknown if employers will have to pay for the cost of testing and/or the time associated with testing.   This situation continues to evolve. Don’t “take on” risk by being lackadaisical when it comes to COVID. Author's note: The above article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.

"The leader is one who, out of the clutter, brings simplicity …" - Albert Einstein We humans complicate things, and it’s no surprise in dealerships it manifests in grandiose form, especially noticeable when it comes to how teams, training, and advertising relate to technology. These four areas, when not in harmony, work against each other. I have found the most successful stores don’t have the most cutting-edge technology or the newest tools, the most successful stores are the ones that have mastered the balance between team, training, advertising, and tech. Why these four areas? Each one directly affects the other, when you understand how one can affect another you avoid the chain reaction domino effect preventing you from streamlining and propelling your team forward. Recent technology is often marketed as a trade-off for training, the proverbial easy button, which is attractive when you’re focused on growth. Unfortunately, band-aids like this won’t last and we’re left with a glut of tech solutions that aren’t streamlined and overlap. You know what happens next, a collision course with chaos, with wasted budget, time, and we didn’t improve our customer’s experience. Connecting Training, Advertising and Technology I use the four questions below with my clients to ensure the team, training, advertising and technology don’t become disjointed, bloated and to address weak links. Does it already exist in any of our current products or services? Is this something that solves a problem which can’t be solved with training? Is it simple enough to flow seamlessly, support my team, and our processes? Will it benefit our customers and reduce pain points? Sounds simple, right? These four questions provide great touchpoints for inspecting when and where to add new products and services, they also ensure you’re making the most of products and services you already have in place. It’s also beneficial to make a habit of evaluating your outside services and products every month, considering these questions when you do. Like tools in a mechanic’s box, the tools you use in your dealership need fine tuning, maintenance, and at times replacement. Bloat is not exclusive to overindulging on Thanksgiving; it creeps in when dealerships continue to add the “next new thing” without evaluating what is already in place.  Where do my team and training come into this? Let’s hit the hard truth first - if you’re adding tech to overcome lack of training, you're compounding the problem. If you’re working with an outside company to handle your social media because you don’t have someone on your team with the training to manage it, you’re only hurting yourself. Here’s the thing, hiring an outside company to do what should be an inside job is not sustainable, nor is it going to bring healthy growth; you’re selling based on transactional relationships, which do not last. We want your team, tech, and advertising aligned and working together as one; the only way to accomplish this is through training. Adjusting your perspective to view your team’s training as part of your marketing strategy will help you achieve balance. It will also help you to reframe how you view your technology assets, focus on how your tech supports your team, and how to make it easy for your customers to do business with you. Instead of looking at tech as a funnel for leads, try looking for it to support your team in growing relationships that become loyal customers. Your team members are going to be your true sources of long-term, non-transactional business, providing your team training and technology to that end is where your tech investment will be your best investment. Addressing the Elephant in the Room Advertising is always the painful elephant in the room, it doesn’t have to be. When you make your team part of your marketing strategy, incorporating training and goal setting, advertising becomes a daily habit. Now let’s take that one step further. Consider how the diversity in your team represents the diversity in your audience and customers, creating a space and culture where your team members contribute to your advertising allows your message to be presented with a different personality, now reaching everyone in your audience with their preferred “flavor” of marketing. Prioritizing Customer Facing Tech Making it easier for our customers to do business with us where we have the most room for expansion and I believe where we will see the biggest strides in advancement, this is the tech you should be on the lookout for. Customer facing tech has for so long been lacking because we have been focused on driving leads, rather than building relationships - change is coming. How you choose to train your team, and whether you achieve harmony with your team, training, advertising, and technology could mean the difference between growth and exponential growth as that change rolls out.

Bolster your dealership’s culture with clarity, consistency and accountability to succeed in a multi-channel world According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Rory Blackwell, the ultimate one-man band, played 108 different musical instruments simultaneously on May 29, 1989 in Devon, England.  Fortunately, a car dealership is the opposite of a one-man-band. A dealership is full of skilled, well-trained and dedicated professionals, all ready to do their part to help the dealership succeed. That said, I believe the most essential instrument required for them to play in harmony is trust.  Yet building trust in a dealership is a lot easier said than done. It can apply (or not) across the board to ownership, managers, employees and customers.  Trust can be earned, of course, but it also can be easily or quickly lost.  Culture Matters I’ve been thinking a lot about trust after listening to a recent podcast hosted by Troy Scheer with Brian Kramer, the General Manager at Germain Toyota of Naples, in which the two discussed the important role played by culture in a dealership. A running theme throughout the podcast was the importance of a culture built on trust.  A dealership must first define its culture, however, and I believe the touchstone for any dealership culture should be the customer experience. The challenge is to bring sales, finance and service together as a team – whether online or in the store -- to seamlessly provide the desired excellent experience to each customer.  This united effort is complicated by the need to balance in-person and digital contacts with customers. An employee who is busy in the showroom meeting and greeting customers is unavailable, at the same time, to respond to digital leads. Yet both types of communication are essential and must be made. You can’t afford to ignore customers or make them wait too long. That’s why the best dealership cultures inspire everybody up and down the line to do whatever it takes to deliver a positive customer experience.  Getting there with a minimum of friction, however, requires management to take three steps: clarify what’s expected, be consistent in its application and hold everyone accountable.  Clarity Means No Surprises When buying a vehicle, I’m always mystified why the salesperson doesn’t walk me over to their service department and personally introduce me to someone in sales to initiate a more long-term relationship. Those of us in the business know that typically parts and service can generate 49 percent of a dealership’s profits.  My guess is that the salesperson is focused on the short-term and is already thinking of his or her next sale, instead of what’s best for the customer or dealership. This particular salesperson may not fully understand or appreciate or trust the store’s culture.  Automotive retail can be a pressure cooker, but clarity actually diffuses the pressure because everyone knows what’s expected.  Consistency Means Everyone Contributes Whether your customer-first motto is in your mission statement, your store, or on your website, you must consistently practice what you preach.  As an owner or manager, you should encourage your employees to take risks and try things without fear of repercussion.  If you tell customers that you want them to be customers for life, you need to prove that by standing behind that statement with products like Lifetime Powertrain Warranties. Many of the dealerships we work with offer lifetime maintenance and customer loyalty programs in the finance office and train their service technicians on how to create a first-rate experience to keep service customers coming back time after time.  Consistency means backing your mission statement up in every department across every experience.  Communication Means Accountability This is the attribute where the rubber hits the road, hard choices are made and, ultimately, trust is built. Make your people accountable for their actions, and allow them the privilege of learning from their mistakes. Nobody wants to be second-guessed or blindsided, of course, especially during the course of a busy day.  Likewise, you don’t want employees running to management to make a decision they could and should make. If they know you have their back, they’ll have yours.  Above all, keep it transparent. Nothing undermines a culture of trust more than a manager who allows a closed-door meeting to talk privately about somebody else. A Culture Where Customers Win Making trust the centerpiece of your dealership’s culture turns former roadblocks into speed lanes.  More importantly, it enables customers to believe in your brand, because they know your entire team is looking out for what’s best for them. Customers are listened to, calls are followed-up, questions are answered. And you can reward their trust by offering them extra benefits for doing business with you, such as lifetime powertrain warranties.  I’d like to finish up with one of my all-time favorite quotes from legendary coach Vince Lombardi, who says, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all of the time.”  There’s no better way I can think of to describe building a lifetime value culture across your dealership that will last the test of time – do it right all of the time.