It was about 7 years back when I first heard of the Business Development Center (BDC) concept, and it made sense to me. Have a dedicated group of individuals who handle incoming leads and phone calls. Fast replies, customers logged in the CRM, and a focus on getting the customer in the door. Since the average salesperson doesn’t do a very good job when it comes to dealing with customers who aren’t in their face, it just made sense. So, why did it go so wrong?
I hear it all the time, “we are so far behind the auto industry”. In some areas of the business I think that the statement is correct, but there are other areas where it’s important to recognize that we are different. The majority of auto dealers are selling a commodity, something people need to have, and there are usually 10 dealers in a market fighting to give those vehicles away. In the powersports industry, we are selling a want, not a need. Customers want our products because they are cool, fun, thrilling, and they bring people with similar interests together. Yes, I know that there are some cars and trucks that do this, but that’s a small percentage of the auto market.
Over the internet, I’ve been shopping dealers for the last 5 years. As a general rule, when it comes to any metric you can rate these responses on, the average reply (if you get one) sucks. Owners , GM’s and Sales Managers are really the ones to blame. Most dealerships still train their staff for walk-in customers, even though that now represents less than 50% of where leads come from. Very few dealers do any training for responding to emails or text messages. And, we expect that a salesperson who is good with customers who come through the door will also be good at working digital leads, and yet that is rarely the case.
We’ve seen many dealerships build out and install their BDCs. Very few of them lasted, and even less have achieved the expected results. What are the failure points?
- Communication (i’ll let you finish this sentence, it’s a wide-ranging topic in most dealerships)
- Dealers didn’t have the right technology. Phones, software, CRM, email, etc.
- Dealers weren’t committed. Afraid to lose top sales members, the BDC didn’t control all of the incoming leads, and long term employees were carved out and left to do their own thing.
- BDCs were staffed with salespeople who didn’t understand what their role was. Is it to sell vehicles, or set appointments?
- The switch was just flipped, no training or forethought was put into the process. In many cases it wasn’t clear on how the BDC personnel would transfer customers over to the sales team.
- Pay plans weren’t adjusted to account for the BDC employees, and the BDC just became an additional expense to the dealership. In reality it should be funded through a portion of the sales department profits: part of, not in addition to.
BDC or no BDC, not much has changed over the last 5 years, the average dealer response to a digital lead is bad at best. Having seen the trail of carnage in the wake of failed BDCs, my thought process is evolving. The recognition that we are not selling a commodity is a key part of my thinking. The purchase of a new motorcycle, ATV, or personal watercraft can be an intense and emotional process for a customer. Done right, the purchase of a new motorcycle can change someone’s life. Done wrong, that same customer might walk out of the dealership with a bad taste in their mouth, and forever be lost to the industry. We can’t treat our customers like they are just a number, we need to appeal to their thoughts and emotions, we have to let them know that we truly care about them.
So if a BDC isn’t the answer then what is the solution? There are 3 that I like:
Beyond Creative – Managed BDC
- Joe over at Beyond Creative is helping dealers to respond to incoming leads. He’s got a dedicated team of employees who work with the sales teams at some of their dealers, and they work in tandem to move customers through the process. Joe is firing on all the cylinders. Helping dealers to generate more leads, and then when the team at the dealership is busy Joe’s team is working with the customers until the dealership can take over. Working out of the same CRM, everyone can see what’s been said and done with each lead, and the transition from BC to the dealership is transparent to the customer.
Go Rollick – Lead Nurturing
- The team at Rollick are delivering thousands of daily leads to powersports, Marine, and RV dealers. The Rollick lead management team monitors incoming leads, and if there is a delay in the dealer’s response, Rollick will step in to assist the customer. Answering basic questions, setting appointments, and assisting their dealers will lead to improved customer satisfaction. Rollick’s goal is to offer the customer a transparent and streamlined sales process, and they are making it happen one lead at a time.
Victory Solutions – Customer Follow Up System
- Jose and Rick over at Victory Solutions are on point. Their CRM has been built from the ground up based on adding features that dealers ask for. Victory has also has a top notch customer call center. On they day after a customer is entered into Victory’s CRM, Jose and his team will follow up with those customers. They ask some basic questions about the customer’s experience and then work to find what it will take to keep moving the process forward. Feedback is provided back to the dealer through the CRM, and critical issues are conveyed to the dealership through emails or phone calls. To top it off, every morning, the Victory team listens to calls from the prior day and then works on improving their skills.
I don’t profess to know what the future of lead management looks like for our industry. While I no longer think that it’s the BDC, I do know that we have lots of room for improvement. If we don’t give our customers what they are looking for, someone else will. As I often tell dealers, “you only need to be bad to better than most of your competition”. But being bad shouldn’t be the goal.
What’s your goal?
#BDC #Sales #Powersports #RV #Marine #BeyondCreative #GoRollick #VictorySolutions #Rollick