Jamie Tilley | eCommerce Director
Modern Automotive
Winston Salem, NC
http://modernautomotive.com
AutoUSA: Can you tell us a little bit about your dealership and your background in the industry?
Jamie: We have locations in Greensboro, Boone, Concord and Lake Norman covering franchises for Chevrolet, Toyota, Subaru, Hyundai, Nissan and Infiniti. Each store has their own BDC, and those BDC managers report to the GM at that store. I work with the General Managers to execute on our digital marketing and outbound sales plans. We are lucky to have GMs that understand the value of the Internet and the power of digital marketing
AutoUSA: How is your Internet Department or BDC structured?
Jamie: We have from two to eight or nine staff members in each BDC. Their role is to work the inbound calls, make appointments, place outbound calls and unsold showroom follow up. When the prospect comes in for the appointment they ask for the department manager. At that point the manager assigns a sales person to work with that customer. Our BDC team sets appointments thru the CRM software and assigns a set day and time for the customer. The sales person then works to the end of the transaction with that customer. Some of challenges we face are not setting up the proper expectations for the prospect. We continually request the customer let us know if they are delayed or if they have to cancel and most will contact us if there is a change of plans.
AutoUSA: What are you doing that is a bit different from your competition?
Jamie: We work to go the extra mile every opportunity we get. Often the customer will want to meet the folks they speak with in the BDC to continue the rapport built through our phone calls. If scheduling allows we are happy to accommodate those requests and set things up for a smooth transition to the sales person in the store. We also have our sales people spend time in our BDC departments so they understand the process. New hires sit there during orientation and see that it is not a simple task to set an appointment. These BDC team members get and hourly wage and an incentive for each appointment that shows get an incentive and incentive if they buy. Our sales team has a great appreciation for what we do in the BDC once they see what is involved in the process.
AutoUSA: Tell us about your experience with independent lead providers?
Jamie: Our results vary and we use multiple sources for leads. We want to fill the pipeline and we see anywhere from a 6% to 10% closing ratio on our leads. OEM leads close well, and that might be due to our response time which is within 9 minutes at our Toyota store and overall response are usually under 15 minutes during the business day. We do get consistent results with our AutoUSA leads.
AutoUSA: What types of marketing you doing to drive more web traffic?
Jamie: We are seeing more chat online and an increase in mobile chat too. Most of it is still desktop driven and improving each month. We are also active with Search Engine Marketing, and do some social media which is important but is still a challenging medium to sell cars. Best area for these channels is for posting relevant content, car care tips, and weekly specials for service. I dont think consumers go to Facebook to reaeach cars. From a customer perspective we spend a lot of time during delivery, setting up their bluetooth connections, showing them USB ports and we provide a branded video to them on a USB Flash drive. Naturally we provide refreshments and tout the "Modern" difference in how people respond quickly and professionally to their questions and needs.The Article Jamie Tilley | Modern Automotive appeared first on Automotive Digest.