In the typical dealership, there are basically two ways teams handle their leads — there’s either a business development center (BDC) or the salespeople manage the leads themselves. However, often when dealerships empower their salespeople to manage their own leads, some of the processes end up creating backlogs of to-dos for salespeople, and in higher volume dealerships, this can get overwhelming fast.
Josh Potts, the executive manager and general manager of Mac Haik Chevrolet in Houston, Texas, saw this happening at the dealership and, as someone always looking for areas to improve, he looked into some of the vendors that had reached out to the dealership for a solution.
“I’m always looking for the areas where we’re weak. Where are our holes?” Potts explains. And while he was wary of putting his trust in one vendor, he did his research, asked around and one company stood out from the rest.
“I’m looking for ways to grow at all times. I believe that you’re either growing or you’re dying, and I don’t want to die,” Potts continues. “So here we are looking for growth, and I had heard about TECOBI, but I wasn’t real sure about it, so I started asking around and talking to some people.” He received reassuring feedback from trusted sources that TECOBI would be a great fit for the number one Chevy dealership in Houston.
Improving Processes & Simplifying Routines
Potts credits TECOBI for helping the dealership’s team simplify routines and save valuable time.
“The first thing that it does is it helps salespeople maybe not be so overwhelmed in the big, long list of to-dos they have,” he says, crediting the TECOBI system for enabling the salesforce to focus on the leads that are responding first.
“If you’re a salesperson, nothing’s more frustrating than sitting down and you have a list of 212 to-dos, and the first 46 people you call, you get nothing,” Potts says. That has since been remedied and now interested leads come to the forefront and his team can focus their efforts on more promising leads.
“The second thing I would say is it fills the communication gaps,” he says, explaining that if a customer responds, but the salesperson isn’t able to answer right away, TECOBI’s platform and their “ninjas” jump in and start responding, so they don’t lose the lead.
“And then the third thing is just long-term follow up. TECOBI has ultra-, ultra-long-term follow up, and you don’t typically get that from salespeople.”
Potts appreciates TECOBI’s partnership and their diligent communication. If leads for the Mac Haik Chevrolet salespeople start to back up, Potts knows he’ll be hearing from his TECOBI rep to work on a plan of attack. “Their communication’s always on point,” he says.
Long-term follow up was also a pain point for Mac Haik Chevrolet. While most salespeople or BDCs are adept at handling fresh leads, Potts wants his team to not forget about the customer who hasn’t opted out or who hasn’t said that they’ve already bought a car.
“It’s that low-hanging fruit mentality where (as a salesperson), I’m not necessarily worried about following up with something from 60 or 90 or 120 days ago when I’ve got this brand-new, shiny lead in front of me here today,” Potts explains. “And the way that I always kind of explain it to people is, you’re fighting nature, right? Your salespeople by nature are hunters, right? That’s what they do. And by asking salespeople to do ultra-long follow up, you’re asking them to be farmers. You’re asking them to plant something, water it, take care of it and eventually one day it’s going to become something that they can actually eat — and they’re not going to do it.” Potts says that TECOBI then steps in and can set up the system to pause a customer for a month or more, enabling them to pick up where they left off right before a set deadline. “And you can’t really do that in your CRM — at least not any that I’ve ever seen.”
While CRMs have their purposes, Potts knows they also have their limitations. “Yes, you can do email templates, but in today’s world, that’s not the primary method of contact that people will respond to. As a matter of fact, I challenge my salespeople all the time.” Potts asks them to check their phones and say aloud how many emails they have. “The answer that I get from them all the time is ‘thousands.’ Thousands and thousands of emails they have sitting there that they haven’t even looked at.” Then he asks how many text messages they have not answered, and that answer is usually “none.” “All their texts have been reviewed and answered,” he says. “And I just feel like that ability to touch people right away is a fantastic filler for our CRM.”
“I’m looking for ways to grow at all times. I believe that you’re either growing or you’re dying, and I don’t want to die.”
Sage Advice
Potts advises dealers who are struggling with some of the above issues to “always keep an open mind to try new things. Because you never know what is out there that can impact your business.”
And while many may look at TECOBI as just an advertising platform, and Potts does appreciate that aspect, he strongly recommends dealers dig deeper and see all that they have to offer.
What he values most about TECOBI is their immediate response to a customer lead. “We have everything set up to filter to TECOBI first because they’re going to immediately start texting that customer,” Potts says. And while the salesperson will still call, email and text, “as they’re doing that, if they notice that TECOBI’s having any sort of dialogue with a customer, they can jump in and get involved in that process a little bit faster. And again, it’s a little bit more into the nature of a salesperson, right? They’re a hunter, so they’re looking for that immediate gratification.”
Another feature Potts likes is text blasting. “You can do a thousand at a time, as many times as you want, and you can reengage conversations with customers,” Potts explains. “And you can also now set it up where you can link your DMS system to TECOBI and start text blasting customers in your DMS.” Text blasts can be sorted by offer or by model, for example. “TECOBI gives you one more way that you can text blast your DMS to generate traffic with some types of vehicles you want, or certain models that you want to sell, or your customers that you see are in equity. So, it’s just another good way to work and market your own database.”
Potts has been impressed with the quality of customer service he’s received from TECOBI, even garnering a visit from company CEO Jason Girdner. “Jason came down here and he gave me some advice that I didn’t even know that I could do that we weren’t doing. So, we look forward to taking our own game up a notch and improving our business. As I said before, we believe here we’re either growing or we’re dying, and we don’t want to die.”
