‘Extraordinary New Ordinary’ in Car Dealership Experiences

LOS ANGELES – An automotive conference audience groans as it listens to a recording of a phone call between a dealership salesperson and a customer asking about a car she saw on the store’s website.

The salesman wasn’t much interested in answering her product questions. Rather, he obsessed about trying to get her into the store.

“So, when would be a good time for you to come in today?” he asks. She hesitates to say. Moments later, he says: “So when would be a good day or time for you to come in?”

After asking for the spelling of her name, he says: “What is a good time, do you think?” He ends the call saying, “Hope to see you this afternoon.”

The persistent salesperson likely was following a dealership practice of not giving a lot of product information over the phone but instead concentrating on getting the customer to undergo an in-store sales process.

But Holly Markel, a partner at the firm CallRevu, uses that conversation as an example of what not to do. Not that it’s an inherently bad idea to encourage the customer to come on down. But fixating on that goal in a clumsy, obvious way is inadvisable.

“The employees you put on the other end of the phone and their skills drive your callers’ experiences,” she says at the Thought Leadership Summits’ annual Customer Experience Conference here.

Markel’s company coaches dealerships and automakers’ call centers on the art of the phone call. She contends that’s imperative in today’s customer-centric world.

“Phone skills, while always important, are becoming critical,” she says. “To improve the caller experience, every call should be positive. Today’s customers expect an authentic, unscripted style.”

They don’t like talking to human robots. They feel more empowered and informed. “They have high expectations,” Markel says. “Extraordinary is the new ordinary.”

She cites a study in which 66% of respondents say valuing their time is the basis of good customer service.

That means not making customers go through an automatic-answering-system maze. Limit choices to four, she says. “That’s all people can remember.”

Dealerships typically give “press-or-say-one” status to the sales department. But most dealership calls are service-related, Markel says, suggesting the back shop get top billing on the call-selection menu.

“Today’s customers expect the use of good technology,” she says. “Beware of false economies, including automation that saves you money but costs customers time.”

To prevent 75% of hang-ups, keep hold times to 30 seconds, she says, acknowledging “that’s easier said than done.” Need more time? Check back regularly or ask if the person on the other end would prefer a call-back at a designated time.

One way to get good at handling phone calls is to reduce their need in the first place, she says. Offering online service appointments helps that cause.