Gerald Auto Groups Rise to #1 in the Region with Volie

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another volley rally. Today I'm joined by Vicky. Vicki is the BDC manager for the Gerald Alder Group, Vicki Koranta. Vicki, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. How are you doing?

I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me.

We actually got to see you down here in Fort Myers in person last month for one of our 20 groups. So that was pretty fun. But anyway, can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are, what your role at Gerald is and what the group looks like?

Sure. So I am the director of business development. I run our service BDC for the Gerald Auto Group. I've been with the Gerald Group for seven years. I've been here since the beginning of our BDC concept and it has grown and been fantastic for us.

So what were the store before you did the bdc? How were the stores handling service retention and such?

Sure. So we were relying on our advisors like a lot of groups do without a service bdc. When we started our bdc, it was very basic. We like a lot of dealer groups, we had paper lists, we used our desk phones, and we relied on agents to manually tally their efforts. And that's how we measured our success.

And so how long were you doing that before you started doing volley?

We did that for two years. And then we, we were lucky enough to be introduced to volley. And volley truly has far exceeded our expectations of what we we hoped for. Volley has presented us with things that we didn't even know that we wanted or needed.

And one of the cool things about Vicki is, you know, we just had her here for the 20 group and she's always trying to learn and trying to figure out how she can improve and improve her processes. So what does your day to day look like now? You know, you guys are in the double digits of stores. You know, in terms of rooftop count, I mean, it's. I'm sure it's pretty complex. So what does your role look like?

Yes. So we have 14 rooftops and so it can get challenging juggling all of the needs for all of our service drives. So, you know, making sure that everybody has equal efforts. We're supporting all of our stores is very important to us. So, you know, the metrics matter to us. When we were searching for BDC software, that was the number one thing that we were interested in. We wanted to be able to measure our success. We don't know what we need if we can't see how well we're doing. So that was something that was very Very important to us. And so I am watching our daily progress all the time. And volley allows me just to sort of manipulate our campaigns, move them around and change them as needed. And that's been something that has made us, helped us be very successful.

So you said that you were looking for a way to measure and you know, you can't manage what you can't measure. Did you have any thing in particular that you were looking at? Did you have any metrics in front of you or was it truly just. We had no idea how many calls we were making. We had no idea what our drop rate was, for example.

So unfortunately, because our phone system was very basic, we didn't have a way to measure our drop rate. And our success was, was reliant on the integrity of our agents. And so there's always that element of human error. You know, did they forget to mark that they made this call or did they accidentally mark it twice? With Valley? It's, it's, it's there, it's, it's very transparent. And so all of our, all of our activity is tracked and so we can use that for all of our coaching needs and all of the, you know, anything we need to do with it.

And you know, you guys, I had say send this over to me before, but you guys currently have a 5.08 drop rate, which is stupendous. And VALI helps you there. Is there, you know, any, any other metric that you guys are really focusing on that that's key for your success?

Yes. So we, I like to measure our call length. How long are my agents staying on the phone? You know, that's something that will help us get more calls in, in the course of the day. If we can kind of monitor. Our call recordings are fantastic too. We love the ability to listen back to those calls and use them for coaching opportunities with our agents. That's been tremendous. We also use them. There are also recordings when we contact our lane. And so how many times do we call an administrat advisor and ask questions where now we have cat, we can capture those conversations. It's just helpful all around.

And one other thing that I think is neat about how you guys operate is all of the different, you know, you have a lot of different brands and a lot of different manufacturers that you work with. I know we're going to talk a little bit about Subaru in a minute, but can you talk about that dynamic with balancing the different brands, the different manufacturers? How easy is that in Bali? And really, what do you think it's been fantastic.

So I've been able to create my campaigns from basic to very detailed. Whatever each individual need is. So our OEMs are different and our connected vehicles are different. Now I think that one of the things that sets us apart tremendously is, is the ability to manage those connected vehicles as quickly and efficiently as possible. Subaru Starlink is a great example. We felt like we were, we had a fantastic process in place for our Starlink connected vehicles and we were receiving emails and we were contacting guests as quickly as possible and getting them in for service and we felt that we had that, you know, we were handling it great. Well, Vale has allowed us to take it from great to extraordinary. Today we are contacting our Subaru Starlink guests in record time. Sometimes we are contacting them faster than they have even seen their alert while they're driving for their. In their vehicle. So those alerts are automatically served in Tavali and our agents, that's the very next attempt, the very next phone call that they make.

And every, you know, all of the manufacturers have something similar to the Starlink. You know, Toyota, they have the TIS leads, for example. Do you. So you feel like having that load right into Volley makes it easier to hit your. Because Subaru cares that you're calling those customers?

Absolutely. Not only is it important to our OEMs, but it's also important for our guests. The feedback that we get from them is such gratitude that we have been so on top of this. They feel as though we are taking just such fantastic care of them.

Can you share a little bit about how Volley has helped you with some of the other key metrics that Subaru in particular cares about?

Sure. So the one thing that's fantastic is that Vale does the work for us. So I can take that list from our OEM and I can import it into Volley. And Volley is going to add the contacts that are maybe aren't added in another campaign. It's going to strategically place these leads where we need them. So, so if I take, if I can pull a list from my manufacturer sites and I load them into Volley, it's going to go exactly where I need it to go and it's going to serve the agents the calls in the way in which we have planned. We intend them to. To take them. So how many times before we have software like this do we give our agents lists and maybe they. They contact from this list and, and we really need them to contact from this list. We can target our lists on the backside where we're programming our campaigns and.

Share with everyone exactly what you were able to do in terms of your, terms of your ranking when it comes to your Subaru OSR campaigns.

We are in the, in the top in our region and we are just very happy. We have, we are thrilled.

You guys have a very well known couple of Subaru stores too. But I think it's, I think it's pretty awesome, you know that you guys are, are knocking it out of the park. I know that, that the manufacturers care about your retention campaigns and so being ranked number one in your region is, that's quite a, quite an accomplishment for you guys.

Thank you.

How do the rest of your team feel about volley? How do your bosses and how do your agents feel about Volley?

The agents love it. It's very user friendly. They are able to navigate the site very easily. We have some wonderful training videos when we have new agents and we have no problem with agents very successfully navigate learning valley and navigating it very quickly.

And then what, what do you, you know, everyone that you report to for your department, how do they feel about Volley?

Valley has been great. In the beginning we, we had a little bit of. Everybody didn't really understand what, what, what we had at our fingertips. But now as we, it has evolved, it's wonderful to see how small so many of our stores will contact and say, hey, you know, we've got this idea, what can we do? And everybody is excited to sort of get on board and help build campaigns ideas and see how I can build something special for them.

I know that this is going to be tough, but if you can pick your favorite thing about volley, what would you say?

Well, I do love my reports. I think they're great. But I love the capability of listening to my agents calls. I really do. I think that that is very important, the coaching element with that. I just think it's, it's, it's wonderful.

If you, if someone in your, in a similar role to you at a different group were to come and ask you, you know what, what should I know about Valley? What would you, what would you tell them?

Well, like I said earlier, Valley has helped me not only do what we do, but do it better. It's made me a better manager. It's given me tools that I didn't even think I needed. It's really helped me support my team and help them grow far beyond what my expectation was.

Awesome. Well, Vicki, thank you very, very much for taking the time. Really appreciate it, really appreciate you taking the time to get down here. Last month for the 20 group. That was. That was a very fun time, and we look forward to continuing to work with you for, you know, as long as we can. So thank you very, very much and have a fantastic day.

Thank you. You too.