It’s true what they say, first impressions are everything. And your BDC is often the first human-to-human interaction customers will have with your dealership, but too often BDRs fail to make a strong first impression, resulting in lackluster results and a BDC that’s not worth the cost it takes to run.
When done correctly, a BDC should serve as the lifeblood of your dealership. A BDC running at max capacity increases the amount of foot traffic to your showroom and helps warm up leads, so they’re more likely to turn into sales.
However, if your BDC isn’t running at max capacity, you’re leaving money on the table—or worse, you’re losing money.
So what can a dealer do to make sure their BDC is firing on all cylinders?
Here are four way to get peak performance from your BDC.
1. Ditch Difficult CRMs
Your BDRs are limited to the capabilities of their CRM. With a good CRM, your BDRs can work through leads quickly and efficiently. This is good because the more leads they call, the more appointments they’ll book. And the more appointments they book, the more cars you sell.
So how can you help BDRs work through leads quicker? Use a CRM that serves leads in quick succession and doesn’t allow for cherry-picking which leads to call—this prevents BDRs from skipping leads that could potentially become appointments. Not only are they losing opportunities by skipping leads, but they’re also wasting dial time by searching for which lead to call next. You need a CRM that takes all the guesswork out of who to call.
2. Build A Strong Culture
Lately, there’s been a lot of focus on companies fostering a positive workplace culture. Employees don’t want to come in, punch a clock, do the job and leave—they want an engaging work culture. And with unemployment the lowest it’s been since the 60s, now employers need to listen if they want to keep top-rated talent.
This is especially important in BDCs because most BDRs can work at any call center—they’re all the same to them. But if you want the best BDRs, the ones who sound great on the phone and book lots of appointments, you need to build a culture that attracts them to your work environment.
With a strong culture, you’ll also experience less turnover, which means less money going towards recruiting and training.
3. Improve Morale
The same benefits that come from having a strong culture also come from having good morale. Unfortunately, many BDCs still don’t focus on employee morale. The truth is, dialing all day can be taxing on your BDRs, and if left unchecked, negative attitudes and low morale can lead to burnout, which will drastically affect results.
That’s why it’s so important to hold your BDC managers accountable for keeping morale high. Daily employee inflation like positive quotes and words of encouragement are easy and free ways for your BDC managers to boost morale. They could also try friendly competitions for small gifts like candy bars and gift cards or the occasional surprise team lunch.
You will find that when you invest in your employees’ well-being, your employees will put forth more effort and produce better results.
4. Establish Clear Expectations
How can you expect your employees to give you 100% when they don’t know what 100% looks like? From complicated expectations to changing goals, if your employees don’t know what you want from them, they can’t give it to you.
Set expectations like number of dials per day and number of appointments booked per week. Then make sure your BDC manager is holding their staff accountable when expectations aren’t being met.
With clear expectations, your employees will feel guided and not only will they meet their goals more frequently, but many of your employees will push themselves to exceed their goals—resulting in more output from your BDC.
Great, high producing BDCs aren’t built overnight.
But a well-managed BDC will prove that it’s well worth the intention, time and hard work that’s required to make it great. Because at the end of the day, a great BDC will lead to more sales at your dealership.
If you truly want to unlock your BDC’s potential, or maybe you’re looking to build a killer BDC from the ground up, you need our eBook The Ultimate Guide To A Powerhouse BDC—download it for free here.