-BDC (Business Development Center)-
This department creates and manages the business opportunities that come in and proactively go out from the dealership.

Business Development can exist in the Sales and Service Opportunities of the dealership. While so much is always emphasized on the Sales BDC side of the dealership world, the Service BDC has been existing quietly in the background of some stores with minimal attention while many other stores have yet to enter into the Service BDC arena.

As I have had tremendous experience and success in the Sales Showroom & Sales BDC side of the dealership world, 2 years ago I reunited back together with the Penske Automotive Group in Jersey City New Jersey as the Director of Business Development for both the Sales and Service BDC Departments of Hudson Toyota, Hudson Chrysler Jeep Dodge and Hudson Nissan. With this move I wanted to deepen my understanding as a whole of the entire workings of the dealership having access now into the Fixed Operations side of the industry. While I was there, Hudson Toyota was the #1 Volume Dealership in the New York Region for Toyota in 2015 & 2016 and the most profitable Toyota store in the Penske Automotive Group worldwide. Our Service BDC handled the service centers of the 3 stores and we were able to create a process and team that successfully bridged the experience with the dealership and the customer before the customer came to the store. Penske offered me a baptism into this role through education, training and support allowing me to grow tremendously in the past 2 years in understanding the purpose and importance of the Service BDC role in a dealership.

In short, the ultimate and main purpose of the Service BDC is to facilitate a team of customer service professionals to handle first time and return service customers with a world class experience over the phone. Sounds easy enough right? Although that is a simple statement, the role and existence of this department along with the people that make it work, is tremendously vital to the overall success and satisfaction of the dealerships client base.

-The Owner of The Dealership-
How would you act towards the owner of the dealership if he or she called in and wanted to set up an appointment for service?

Would you treat them with respect?
Would you stay as friendly and professional as possible?
Will you speak and communicate clearly?
Will you raise your voice in frustration and cut them off to hurry them up because you’re busy?
Will you slam the phone down after they hang up and begin talking bad about them to other co-workers?

The answers to these questions are pretty obvious and for the most part a dealer employee would do whatever they can to serve the owner as quickly, efficiently and most professionally as possible.

While I was with Penske, we were having an MOR meeting. It’s a Monthly Operating Report Meeting each month to assess, evaluate and review the stores performance in all areas and departments of the dealership. While we were discussing some items, the Area Vice President asked the Service manager to have his vehicle get an oil change. He handed him the keys and someone picked them up and took it to get everything done while we continued our meeting. Just about 45 minutes later someone comes in with his keys and says, “Here you go.” The AVP said, “If we could only be that fast with our customers we’d reduce many of the time complaints we get.”

Why was the AVP able to get his vehicle done so fast? Because it’s the AVP! He’s the main man of the campus. Everyone was aware of it and made sure they impressed the AVP in how good we can serve him. I have a feeling he got pushed through as quickly and efficiently as possible because of whose vehicle it was.

What would happen if we treated every customer with the same treatment? If everyone was handled with the efficiency and care that we would give the owner, then we would be able to avoid many of the headaches and complaints we experience.

-The Customer Experience-
In the service and sales experience that every customer has, they will most likely have an opportunity to share their experience with friends, families, Facebook, social media platforms, the sales person, management and the manufacturer through surveys and reviews.

Everyone loves to see and hear the great and good experiences. We enjoy the compliments and praise for providing an exceptional and uniquely pleasant experience to any customer, right? However, when we get that negative survey, the feelings change! The survey becomes a stupid thing. The experience usually involves a customer who is either “Crazy” or “Impossible to Please!”

However, these surveys and experiences that are expressed are valuable training opportunities if we harness them properly. The times that someone praises a team member or members, bring it to their attention and congratulate them for a job well done. Also, when we receive a “Bad” survey, address the team member or members in the same manner and use this experience as a coaching and training opportunity. Investigate all sides of the experience and story and see where the problems lie. Also, look for solutions throughout the experience to be aware of and notice in similar situations down the line to avoid repeating them and improve on the outcomes.

Always use every opportunity as a teacher in how you can improve, grow and do better next time around. We may not be able to make everyone act or respond a certain way we’d like but we can do our very best to change, adjust and better our actions and responses moving forward!

Ask yourself these questions when going over these experiences.

  • Where is the problem within this experience?
  • How can “I” resolve this problem?
  • How can “We” resolve this problem?
  • What steps can be taken to avoid this problem from occurring again?
  • Regardless of what anyone else did or did not do, what did I do to contribute to make this better or worse at the time?
  • What training can be done to make others aware of this issue or similar issues so they can also identify, recognize clues and act before it happens again?

-The Customer Experience Culture-
We have to remember that if it weren’t for the customer we would not have a job. If we answer the phones with an attitude that the customer is bothering me, then we are confused. The reason for our coming to work every day is to serve our customers. We come to work in our positions everyday so we can help our customers solve problems, answer questions, set our customers up with appointments and to help them in whatever their need is.

Now, we work with people that we may like, love, dislike, tolerate and maybe even can’t stand, but regardless of how we feel about the people we work with, we have a responsibility to serve our customers. Our attitudes and understanding of why we do what we do makes a huge difference in the actions and reactions that we express on a daily basis.

The way we talk, the tone in our voice, the posture in our seats, the perspective of that day all contributes to the overall experience we provide to the customer and within the room and area of influence that we have.

The conversations that we have over the phone are the first impressions of the experience they expect to have. Are we helping create a positive experience or negative experience? The way the phone call is handled sets the stage. The customers may not remember everything that we say to them. However, they will remember how we made them feel. When they associate the memory of that call to the appointment that they are going to have, every feeling experienced before that moment is brought back to remembrance. This is why when we think about things we’ve experienced in life, we remember the feeling that was associated with that experience and thought.

Ultimately, everything results in an experience. Every interaction we have creates an experience. The experience creates a feeling and a feeling creates a response whether negative or positive. Right now, this session is creating an experience. Our interaction is creating an experience. The experience is creating a feeling and the feeling is creating either a negative or positive response in your body and mind.

Every experience is connected to a feeling. Every memory of that experience also is tied to that emotional feeling as well.

For example:

  • Have you ever experienced a vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles before? 
  • Have you ever experienced going to a car dealership to buy a car before? 
  • Have you ever experienced going to a live NFL Football game before?
  • Have you ever experienced the birth of a child? 
  • Your Wedding Day?
  • A loved one’s funeral?
  • Winning a game or team sport growing up?
  • A car accident?
  • A special moment with a loved one?

Everything mentioned created a memory and with that memory came an experience which created a feeling associated with that experience.

When people think about going to a car dealership for a sales experience or service experience, many times their past experiences are what cause the feelings they have and filters their perception towards their current and future experiences.

The Service BDC is a place that creates an environment that welcomes customer interaction while aiming to provide an exceptional experience. This is why it is important to facilitate a team to handle these calls in a way that is welcoming, professional and efficient.

-Call a Dealership For a Service Appointment-
One final thought and that is this. Call some dealerships other than the one you work for and set an appointment for service. See how they are handling return customers and first time customers who want to get their vehicle serviced.

Contact me to help you set up a plan and strategy to get your Service BDC moving or if you don’t have a Service BDC contact me to go over how to get yours set up. www.josephacala.com josephacalajr@gmail.com (848)-248-0730.

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Comment by Joseph Cala on January 20, 2017 at 5:13pm

Thank you Steven for your comments. 

Comment by steven chessin on January 20, 2017 at 2:07pm

CLEARLY --- Customer satisfaction is forged by service not sales --- and I laugh to myself whenever I hear a salesman state that he is "always there" for his customers. What does that even mean ? People have urgent service needs not urgent buying whims. If YOU want to impress me YOU send me YOUR fastest tow truck instead of telling me to "call the convenient 800 number in my for warranty roadside assistance"

It is SO EASY to impress a service customer by doing the same things the same dealer already does for the high-line customer. You will find stores with standard and high-line brands that have a barista serve free Starbucks half-latte moca-chinos and biscotti for high-line "and would you like a chocolate drizzle on that Sir ?" --- but self-serve coffee by a vending machine with a dollar candy machine dropping a package of crackers for "regular" customer. Is that customer service or customer insult ? That "regular" Nissan customer is paying the same hourly rate and cost for parts as Infiniti clients.  ----- A dedicated SERVICE BDC would need to address not just appointments and schedules but maintain a closer relationship with the customer's FEELINGS about how they are treated. Keeping the car running and looking right is the battle but keeping that customer a C-4-L is the war.      

Comment by Joseph Cala on January 19, 2017 at 10:04am

Thank you for your comments Mark. The Service BDC is a great opportunity that is proven to help in sustained and increased retention when done with a good process. 

Comment by Mark Handlon on January 19, 2017 at 8:49am

Good morning Joe,

        When you consider that the advertising dollars spent to inspire a customer to call your dealership or visit your dealership it seems to make sense to take some of that money and invest it into your BDC. I agree with Steve that there should be a separate entity within the dealership to concentrate on customer retention from the service side of the business.

Comment by Joseph Cala on January 17, 2017 at 4:18pm

Thank you for your insight Steven. As a main focus of the Service BDC, we are to maximize the impact of our SCR score or Service Customer Retention ratio. Most Manufacturers consider a service customer being retained when they visit your store 2 times in a year. With this driving our retention scores we have multiple opportunities. We focus on something called a "shortfall list". This list is generated from either your manufacturer or DMS data that shows you the customers names and when they fall off the retention time period. There is more to talk about and I will focus this in my next article. Thank you Steven! 

Comment by steven chessin on January 17, 2017 at 3:34pm

Most dealerships today have a pretty decent sales BDC department that focuses on lead management. SERVICE BDC is all about retention and referral business. So look at your loyalty stat. Is it below the manufacturer's national average ? 

I made the mistake last year of suggesting an upgrade to the existing bdc to address this issue.  I now believe this should be a completely separate entity as focused on exiting customers as the sales bdc is on fresh customers   ---- and with many thousands in the active and inactive in the database there is a mountain of work to be done.

  

Comment by Joseph Cala on January 16, 2017 at 1:08pm

Thank you Mark!

Comment by Joseph Cala on January 16, 2017 at 1:07pm

You're welcome!

Comment by DealerELITE on January 16, 2017 at 1:03pm
Joe thank you for Sharing
Comment by Mark Handlon on January 16, 2017 at 9:29am

Good morning Joseph,

             Great article! Customer perception is ignored so many times in many areas of any business. It is imperative with the automotive business that everyone from any department within a dealership put their "best foot forward"! I don't know anyone who is excited to visit a dealership for purchasing or servicing their vehicle unless their is a friendly face that greets them and is "genuinely" happy to see them and is appreciative of them coming in.

               Service advisors seemed to be overwhelmed at times with the tasks that they are faced with. A service customer who receives great treatment will consider continuing doing business with you long into the future for not only service but also their next vehicle purchase. Not many service customers will even remember the sales persons name who sold them the vehicle within six months of ownership due to lack of follow up from that sales person. They will remember the service advisor each time they come in and will always gravitate to that person if they were treated kindly and respectful on their last visit.

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