The Appointment Culture Light – PART 7

The Appointment Culture Light – PART 7

TRANSCRIPT: Remember step two – we’re going to make some cosmetic changes. Dealers have found that making just a few cosmetic changes actually gets much of the team off the fence and into the ‘appointment culture’. First we’re going to create that attractive full color VIP appointment folder. It may seem silly but it has a tremendous effect when customers see their name and VIP in large red letters.

We are going to add a folder holder to the sales desks in our dealership. This is something that is going to hold the folders for all of the future appointments so they remain top of mind for our managers, right? At our used car desk we have all of our used car appointments. At our new car desk we have all of our new car appointments.

We are going to add a ‘sold vehicles only’ parking area with these ‘sold vehicles only’ signs near both buildings if we have separate new and used car buildings.

We’re going to change anyone who works in a BDC environment. Anybody who talks to customers on the phone and their main job is setting appointments, their new titles are ‘appointment coordinator’s. “Steve, why does it matter?’ you ask. Because when you tell someone “I’m the appointment coordinator”, guess what they know you do. You set appointments; you coordinate appointments. It makes it easier for them to set appointments that will show.

Step three – we’re going to align the internet efforts. Remember the greatest opportunity for most stores where the low-hanging fruit raps with the appointment culture is internet sales and owner marketing efforts. We want to align those together. See, the store, basically, needs some group to begin setting strong appointments that show on time. For most dealers a strong BDC represents their best chance to successfully execute this.

So, you want to create a BDC, you want to align their efforts and you want them to set strong appointments that show. Once people in the rest of the store see that, they will start to jump on board.