6 BDC Call Principles That Drive Real Success

Okay, back again, Kim. We're back for another great topic. What we're going to talk about today is the six things that you as the BDC leader for Joe Corporal Auto Group, insist on with every appointment, right?

Absolutely. You know, I wanted us, Scott, from the beginning. I didn't want us to just be a call center. I wanted us to be different. I wanted an elite BDC experience for my fixed operations customers across the Auto Group. And so I developed a process, you know, and a lot of it is the same thing that everybody else does. You know, try to verify the van, determine the needs, determine the transportation. We don't need to get into that. But there are six things that I feel makes our phone calls different. Because what we felt from the very beginning is if this service experience starts off great and starts off a little bit different, then it's going to continue throughout the entire visit and then end up again with us calling and saying, how'd we do? So I want to start it out with a bang first thing. Obviously, I do not. It's an upbeat, friendly greeting. I know that sounds like a no brainer, but when we make test calls to see how we sound as opposed to the rest of the market in our area, I get a lot of, you know, ABC Ford, this is Carrie. How can I help you? And I don't want that. I want that. Hey, man, thanks for calling. This is Kiana. And I'm pleased to help you today. Let's get started, shall we? That sounds completely different.

You know, I couldn't even help smiling when you said it. Sorry to cut you off there. I always think, by the way, and this is along these lines, the world is only going to reward the optimist in life and not the pessimist. And when you don't have that mindset, you sound like a pessimist.

Yeah, I agree. And you know, for me, it's voice tone. I train on voice tone. One thing that we will do, and this is a pro tip, it's kind of silly, but I have them sing their greeting because honestly, a perfect greeting to me has that little bit of sing song in it. Thank you for calling. You know, I know that sounds crazy, but we practice singing our greeting and that has been a helper. So there's my first thing that, that I'm happy to have this phone call. You know, you're not a nuisance. Change that game. And then the first thing we do is when a customer says, yes, I need to make an appointment. I need to schedule, I need to whatever we don't say okay. Okay is banned from my bdc. We use power words and phrases and absolutely, of course, I'd be delighted to. You've reached the exact right person to help you with this. Let's get started. Those are the affirmations I want to hear. So we call those our power words and phrases. I have a. I made a sticky notepad with the word, you know, the letters O and K with a circle and a red thing like Ghostbusters around it. And anytime I hear somebody say okay or. Yeah, they get that slapped on their monitor. So it's. I don't hear it very often. People don't like. They don't. My team doesn't like that. But that's something that made us stand out. You know, when. When you hear someone say absolutely. Well, of course, that's so much better than okay. You know, it's almost that. That monotone computer sounding person. Okay, let's get started. No, I want that sing song. Happy to be here. Absolutely. So there's two. The third thing, and even though we can see the customer's history, that they've been here before or if they have and if it's a new customer, the next thing that I want is have you ever visited one of our Cooper dealerships before? And the reason I want them to say that, and that is a must do in every call is so that they can immediately do number four. Thanking the customer for being a continued customer, for trying Joe Cooper, for letting us, you know, giving us the chance. Verifying. Have you been to a Cooper dealership before? No, I haven't. This is my first time. Well, thank you so much for choosing Joe Cooper. Let's get started. This is different than that. And then verifying the customer's name. And I show that I'm speaking to Sally Smith. Is this Sally? Yes, it is. Well, hi, Sally. I'm Kim. Let's get started. I want that customer's name used twice in the conversation. Not ma' am and ma'. Am. I'm in the south. And it sounds like it's a sign of respect, but to me, sometimes ma' am can sound a little bit off, you know, like I don't care about you enough to use the name that I can see right in front of me. But I'm just going to call you ma' am because I don't have to work at it. So we don't use ma' am or we use Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, Sally, Bob, Joe. So that helps.

Unbelievable. I mean, common sense when people come in to the store, when they call the bdc, when they put a form in line, they want someone to say I got you, I'm here to help. And those things, it's just gold.

Well, and taking the time to use their name personalizes that very first experience because, you know, everybody knows that. We all learned this in school. The one thing a person loves to hear more than anything else is their own name. That's right. That's kind of a cheesy way of putting it. I view it as a sign of respect. I respect your business enough to call you by name, just like I would if you came into my office. I stood up and shook your hand. I'm asking your name and giving you mine. So let's use that. And then of course, the sixth thing, we have to verify that our current and future communications are going to be correct and go to the right person. If the customer calling me their name is Sally Thompson and on their email it says Joe Stone, something's wrong. So regardless of, even if it looks right, we verify that email every time because that's how we do our communication. Thenceforward, that's how our advisors give the customers their health safety checks. This is how everything goes. And then verifying the best number to use to call the customer. Sometimes it's not the number they called in, which is their office. They oh no, I need to use my cell phone. Let's change that. So making sure that those communication lines don't get shut down because of a silly oversight. And then of course, the very last thing that I listen for when I'm checking calls is thanking that customer for their time, their business, and acknowledging that with their name. You know, Mrs. Smith, thank you so much for calling us. It's been a pleasure talking to you today. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday at 8:30. Have a great day. That's the way to end a phone call. So those are my, those are my. Gotta have it, gotta do it in my department. Everything else is common sense. You know, as far as figuring out transportation and services and things like that and everybody knows how to do that. But up the upping the game, being different, sounding different, that's what changed it for us.

Just too good. I'm just shaking here. Yes, it's all common sense, but why doesn't everyone do it? I hope this impacts some of you to, to put these things in, in place in your BDC and everyone have a great day. Thanks, Kim.

Thanks, Scott.