How Volie Boosted Niello's BDC Performance By 5X!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another Volley rally. Today I am joined by Carl Figgenschu with the Nilo Auto Group. Carl, how's it going today?

Good, good. How are you doing?

Doing fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to join me today. Really appreciate having you here. Carl's with the Nelo company and out of California. Carl, tell us a little bit about what you do with the group.

Yes, I'm the B2C manager for the service side of our group. And we have about 10 dealerships plus a collision center here in the greater Sacramento area.

And so you're the BDC director. How long have you been in that role?

So this department is new for the Nelo Group we created in January of this year.

Awesome. And so we'll talk a bit about how volley has been going for you guys. You did start with Volley and in May. So the department was started in January. Can you talk about. Really? You want to just talk a little bit about how this whole year has gone before Volley?

So prior to adding on Volley, we were kind of doing a combination of car wars and using xtime and just to kind of give you some numbers here. In April, when we were doing doing Car wars and Xtime, we had a total of about 2,400 inbound and outbound calls and about 850 appointments. And the very next month when we switched to volley, just, you know, the efficiency just went through the roof. We had a total of 6,200 phone calls and we. I'm sorry, the screen went blank there for a second.

No problem. No. So you had 6200 phone calls and.

Yeah, and we had about 1200 appointments. So definitely a huge increase over what we had done the previous month. And just to show where we've gone in a short amount of time, for the month of September, we had a total of just a little over 14,500 phone calls and almost 3,900 appointments for the month of September.

Wow. I mean, that is quite an increase since you guys started folly in May. Can you just talk a little bit about your. So you started the department in January and you have 10 stores in the group. Is this a centralized BDC then for the whole group?

Yes, it is.

Okay, and how many agents do you have taking calls for the group?

So we have a kind of a little different setup than what I've seen other BDCs doing. We have a total of eight agents. Seven of them are handling inbound and outbound calls. One of the agents is dedicated. Specifically, she handles next day appointment reminders. And CSI follow up for the different dealerships.

Okay, and how have your agents liked using Volley?

There was little, you know, getting acclimated to the new software at first, but compared to the old way of doing it, they absolutely love it. It's been a huge leap forward for us as a, as a team and a department.

So when you do the math on those numbers that you shared, I mean that is nearly, I mean that's nearly five times increase on the number of appointments going from 800 to 3,900. And I really had to think there, that was some slow, bad math for me there. But no. So that's nearly a, that's nearly a 5x on the number of appointments. Your agents enjoy using it. How do they feel about, I mean, is there anything that, was there any apprehension to using Volley where they had, you know, all the visibility into their activities and I mean, surely, hey, you know, we're going to use this tool. We expect, you know, we expect more out of you guys, you know. How did that implementation go?

Well, there was some apprehension. How is this going to work? How are we going to be able to handle increased call volume? Because you definitely couldn't do it the old way through car wars and Xtime. And so just imagining being able to handle 150, 200 calls per agent a day was like, no, I don't see how that's going to happen. But when once we got our feet wet with the system and saw how it works, everyone really got on board with it.

So again, a nearly 5x with the number of appointments that those are incredible results from the BDC team. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, kind of going the other end up? How has I know Toli Williams and some of the other folks within the company. Can you talk about how, you know, their view is in terms of some of the reporting and visibility that they have into the BDC that wasn't there before.

Well that, that's a great point. The, the service managers can now really see the calls that we're doing for them. Even Volley can track it down to specific cues. You know, whether it's a recall campaign or a CSI campaign or a next day appointment, the service managers can see all of that detail. But I think one of the really cool stats that they really appreciate is last month our department made about 82% of all of the service appointments for the entire group. So they can really see the value that we've added and especially some of our dealerships, Volkswagen, BMW, the volume of calls that the service riders were having to handle was just off the charts. And it was, you know, they were juggling balls to try and keep up with the needs of the customer. And answering the phone now the phone's not ringing. They can concentrate on the customer. They can concentrate on making recommendations to keep their vehicle running in top condition while we handle all of that in the background for all the phone calls for them.

That is a great point that in taking a lot of those calls off of their hands, they're able to focus on the other things that they should, more importantly be spending their time on. Right, Exactly. And I loved what you said about, hey, we're doing a great service, really, for the group. We make 82%, we said 82% of the total service appointments for the entire company here. And Volley helps you show your team, hey, the BDC team is really worth it. They're kicking butt here, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we first started, our goal was to maybe make 50% of the appointments and, you know, maybe slowly grow that to 75. And here we are, you know, a few months in, and we're already making 80 plus percent of the appointments for the group.

Mm. Can you speak for folks who don't, who aren't as familiar with Voli, if they're watching this or listening to this and trying to decide if they should, you know, maybe look into it, what specifically has led to the dramatic increases in productivity, total calls, they're taking appointments, etc. What. What about it has made your agents much more efficient.

The. Just the way that the program Volley operates, when we call a customer and, you know, we're not able to connect with them, the system automatically sends a text message and an email to the customer. So that way they can see, hey, we're trying to reach out to you about your recall or your car is due for service, and maybe we don't connect with them by phone, but we connect with them by text message, and we can still use that as an avenue to get them scheduled or. Or service.

And then in addition, of course, the. Can you talk a little bit about the speed ups in between calls?

Right. So it just makes wrap up that much faster. You know, we can see the different calls that are coming in and for the different queues and the different dealerships, and it's just a much faster way of being able to handle a call and process it, whether it's, you know, scheduling appointment or. It was just a general question. And we can just disposition the call and move right on to the next one and volley has it ready to go for us. Whether that's an inbound call or an outbound call, Volley has it all set up for us. So there's. The agent doesn't have to spend time digging into different records to find customers to call. Volley serves them right up to us.

And I guess, last thing I want to touch on here is your role, your role, excuse me, as the BTC director, can you talk about your day to day with Volley?

So I'm right there with the team. I help facilitate. So when they have questions, you know, customers ask asking about this type of service for their car, I can help answer those questions and just keep the ball rolling for them. But if the call volume is too much, I can step in and help answer those calls. But the other really cool thing with Volley is that it has a screen that I can monitor exactly what queues the team's in. Maybe they've been on a call for a little bit longer period of time and Volley alerts me to that and I can just, you know, kind of step in with the advisor and check in with them. Hey, you know, is everything going okay here? You know, you're having some challenges on this phone call. And so it just really allows me to keep a much better eye on what the team is up to and if they need help and where I can step in.

So our. From the sounds of it, you're pretty much just living on that live dashboard then throughout the day?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's a wonderful tool. And Tully's working on trying to get a TV with that live dashboard running so the whole team can see it at the same time.

Awesome. I do know of several groups we work with who do have that set up and they love it because it allows the whole team to kind of. Oh, yeah, you know what's going on. Right?

So, yeah. And you can see calls that are coming in, you know, how many, and which dealership they're for and which queue they're for.

Mm. Carl, thank you so much for taking the time here. Really appreciate it. You guys have been great partners already in the short, I guess now six months that you've been on Valley. And, and I know that you, you know, you've said a lot of kind words about us too. We really appreciate it. Is there any. Anything last minute here that you would want to mention to someone who's thinking about taking a look at Vale?

You know, I. I'd be happy to offer myself anyone that wants to connect, pick my brain on why going with Volley is such, you know, the right move to make, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I definitely and a big fan and would like to help any way that I can.

Awesome. Well, again, we really, really appreciate you guys. You've been a great group so far and we look forward to seeing where you guys are at in another year, maybe we do another touch base in maybe six to 12 months and you guys are knocking it out of the park even more, which would be awesome to see.

That'd be great.

Carl, with the Nelo Company, thank you so much for taking the time here. We really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Yep. And for everyone tuning in, we hope you have a fantastic day.