Savvy auto dealers understand that people skills count. Customer service before, during and after the sales or service process has a tremendous impact on the bottom line and CSI score for any dealership. These best practices can help you hire employees with top-of-the-line service acumen to help ensure your customers keep driving back.

It all starts with selecting service employees who excel in interacting with customers. How can you identify these individuals? Look for characteristics of empathy and confidence during the hiring process, which can be determined with a pre-employment assessment, references, and behavioral interview questions designed to focus on empathy and confidence competencies.

Employees with high levels of empathy have the ability to understand the thoughts and emotions of customers. Having confidence, in addition to empathy, further allows these service pros to anticipate customer needs—and shine at upselling.

 Because of the connection they are able to make with customers, this type of employee builds trust and develop a rapport with ease, making customers feel comfortable with and sure of their service experience.

Since you probably won’t find the attributes of empathy and confidence typed out on a resume, behavioral-based interview questions are the best way of identifyin... S.T.A.R. behavioral interview approach provides valuable insight in... and potential job performance by organizing questions in such a way to prompt the most informative answers. Below are examples of behavioral based interview questions you can incorporate into your S.T.A.R. interviews.

Questions specific to empathy include:

  •  “Can you think of a time when you received positive feedback about a customer interaction you had? Tell me about the situation, what you did, and the outcome.”
  •  “Describe a time when you were very successful in building rapport with a customer.”
  •  “Give me an example of when you had to deal with a difficult customer... and what you did to engage the customer and improve the situation?”

Questions specific to confidence include:

  • “Describe a situation in which you had to change your approach because your first attempts to persuade a customer didn’t work.”
  • “Describe a time in the past when confidence and the ability to communicate confidence to a customer worked for you. Additionally, has there been a time when you came across too confident? If so, please explain the situation.”
  • “Describe a time when you were able to convince a skeptical or resistant customer to purchase a product or utilize your services.”

Responses to these questions will give you a better idea of a potential hire’s degree of empathy and confidence—offering insight into the individual’s customer service aptitude.

From the standpoint of a customer, think of your own negative experiences with service employees. More than likely, those unfortunate interactions affected your opinion of the business—and probably influenced your purchasing power. Your customers are no different. In an industry with no shortage of competition—from other dealerships to independent mechanics—customers can easily go elsewhere for their vehicle needs. However, if you hire employees who are capable of offering a quality customer service experience to every guest of your dealership, you will reap the benefits of having satisfied, loyal customers.

 

Mike Poskey is President of ZERORISK HR, a Dallas-based human resources consulting firm that focuses on hiring, developing, and retention programs for the auto dealer industry and is the exclusive provider of the ZERORISK Hiring System.

 

For more information, visit www.ZERORISKHR.com.

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Comment by steven chessin on February 15, 2017 at 5:32pm

Mike - One of my former BDC "reps" --- who I had trained extensively - recently became the CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MANAGER - for a high-line store.  Last October (before her) their retention was 32%.Last month it was 51%.

* If  your store doesn't have that position --- what's the big deal with 2X better retention ??  Just another 25% of sales for the cost of one right person. "I'm sorry but we do not have an available job opening for that. How about floor sales ?"

Mike ... Even  you might not even realize how valuable your people are !

When I saw her at Starbucks she said to me --- that  I had told her her worth if she was in the right environment and she didn't believe me. Her income now is tripled. .

Dealers are by their DNA in the "NOW" business  .... "C-4-L"is against their grain --- until it becomes time for a new vehicle upgrade and it becomes a NOW issue. You cannot train a greyhound to be a bloodhound. They are built differently. Dealers do not know how to MAINTAIN the relationship over the years.

So --- if you cry about 1/2 the retention ---- go back and read this again --- and  again.

Oh  ---  by-the-way -- the number of elements  a CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MANAGER  does  ---is  far more than any one that came-up through the sales ladder knows. I hand-picked my "reps" for this skill. Making  more appointments were what they were hired for  -- but this role requires the same type of personality and training  - and technology.    ----  Although you seem to focus more on those that have sold --- and I don't care if they sold as long as they are extremelylikeable and caring.          

“Describe a time when you were able to convince a skeptical or resistant customer to purchase a product or utilize your services.   

Comment by DealerELITE on February 12, 2017 at 2:27pm
Love it

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