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70% Of Calls That Go Unanswered = Lost Customer

    NADA had a study years ago that said 70% of the calls that go unanswered, the customer doesn’t call back, or leave a voicemail.  In Fixed Ops, especially in Service Dept, that happens more than we’d like to admit.  In CarWars’ recent study, the wait time of an average call was 3 minutes, and 5 seconds, and 31.8% of the customers just hung up. 

    I’ve experienced this myself as both a customer of a dealership and also as a Fixed Operations Director, taking over a new store.  This is bad news of course, but it’s also a massive opportunity.

    This is low-hanging fruit for every dealership. But knowing that nearly every dealership has this problem, including your competition, just answering the phone is an easy way to get more new customers, including your competition’s.

    To fix this problem in your Service Dept, here is what you can do:

    Stop The Phones From Ringing On The Service Counter

    We want to have Service Advisors selling, and not skip process.  We also want the phone to ring, and someone to answer it right away. Both the inbound calls, and the customer standing in front of the Advisor, are selling opportunities.  So, we have to remove the ringing phones from the Advisor counter. 

    Switching all the inbound calls to be handled by your Appointment Coordinator, or your Service BDC.  If you don’t have a Service BDC, this is Step 1 to getting there, where you set up a Sales Department with you’re your Service Dept.

    Track Inbound Phone Data

    Start tracking how many inbound calls come in, what gets answered, the number of rings, the number of hang-ups, and the number of voicemails.  Regardless of where your numbers land, this creates a baseline for you to measure where you are, and the success as you move along implementing new policies and processes.

    Policy/Process – Inbound Calls

    When it comes to inbound calls, centralizing it allows you to focus on getting policy/process/measured results easier, let alone the phones answered right away.  It allows you in time, to start to focus on making your inbound calls, a touch-point where you have an opportunity to sell during the booking process.

    Start by building out policies and processes to set expectations, and train your Appointment Coordinators/Service BDC staff.  A starting point would be to;

    • Get every call answered within 2 rings
    • Every email/voicemail/text answered within 15 minutes (starting point)
    • Set up expectations on call forwarding/messaging from calls for other staff members.

    There are additional steps you can take beyond this to start to convert your Appointment Coordinators in a Sales Dept within a Service Dept – effectively a Service BDC that is a department within Service that is a selling and business growth machine.

    Centralizing your phone calls allows someone in particular to be responsible.  We’ve all heard the quote, “If it’s everyone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility”.  We get rid of that problem by centralizing inbound Service calls.

    Knowing that your competition has this problem too, is a huge opportunity for you to grow.  If they are already doing this, then you’re already far behind.

    It may seem hard to set this all up and get from a Service BDC V1.0 to a Service BDC V4.0, but the hardest part is just starting. Get started, even if you don’t have all the answers. To get to a Service BDC 1.0 – start by answering the phones, and following the notes above.