Pulse in Action: Real Results from The Tony Group’s BDC Team

Foreign. Welcome back to another volley rally. Today. I have Hannah heard with Tony group. With the Tony group out in Hawaii with me today. Hannah, how are you doing?

Hi. I'm doing great this morning. How are you?

I'm doing great. Really, really appreciate you taking the time to join me today to talk about your experience with Pulse, with volley. And you guys have been on Valley for several years now, right? I mean, it's been. Was it the start of 24 that you started?

I want to say we just made two years in April, so it was.

The start of 23 then. Okay. I was off a year. Yeah. So you guys have been on for quite a while. You've been a great group to work with. I know Manny from our team was just down there in person, which is pretty fun. But we want to talk about Pulse today. So before we dive into that, you want to just share a little bit about your experience with volley. I know you've been with Tony group for over six years, but talk about how volley has impacted your team.

Before we had volley, everything we did was very manual, from our missed calls to voicemails to seeing what my team was doing. So a lot of my time was manually looking for information. Volley came in and it was all laid out for us. I could see what my team was doing, where we were struggling, how many calls we were answering or missing. It helped my team, even instead of searching for people to call to get in, it helped brought them right to us. So it got us a lot more work to do. It made the standards clear and very visible so we could produce higher numbers.

And then introduce Pulse. Talk a little bit, if you can, about some of the qaing that you were doing before Pulse. What did that look like, doing it before the AI took over, so to speak.

It. The best way to describe is very time consuming in order to listen to one call while still being able to help your team and handle emergencies as they arise. It could take 30 minutes to listen to one call from beginning to end to give coaching on, and that's just for one associate. So now when Pulse came in, it kind of does all the hard work for us and it lays it all out with the transcriptions. I can filter it. My favorite is to filter it by negative sentiment to see, oh, no, we're making our guests upset. Why?

And what was some of the. What was the biggest motivation behind turning on Pulse? I know, you know, I'm the one who wrote the, you know, the, you know, write the papers to get it turned on. So I know, you Guys jumped really quickly to get it turned on. So what was the motivation there?

At Tony Group, we focus a lot on customer service and taking care of our guests, building those relationships. So it was thought of as, how are we going to take care of our guests if we don't know what they're saying? And that also helped us to kind of internalize. We can hear feedback when guests call in upset with service or finance or whoever, and we can get more collaborative as a whole to take care of our guests now.

Well, can you please walk through what the onboarding looked like for Pulse? Was it easy to get used to it?

Super easy. We had it turned on really quickly. I kind of dove right in and clicked every button, and Maddie walked me through it a little. I. Before we actually started actively using it, I had a meeting with all of my team, said, hey, ladies, this is what we're looking at. We can track this, this, this. And at first, they were a little bit frightened because now all of your work is very visible. But then they were very excited about it, and we started doing coaching and trainings, and they're getting very involved, and they can see the difference in our guests as well as with each other.

So once your agents got past the initial holy smokes. My, my, my, all of my calls are going to be graded. I really got to button up, you know, a little. A little bit of that fear off the bat, you know? Was it easy to get them past that?

Yeah, it was almost instant. It was. As soon as I told them, they were like, oh, no. And then I explained it, and they were like, oh, yes.

And so can you talk a little bit about the coaching and training that you're doing with them, like you said?

So this one, I've actually was kind of inspired by the sessions with Peter explaining how to use ChatGPT for trainings. So I have it set up to simulate a call for my team and coach them after each question, per se. I have it included when I sort it by negative filter the negative sentiment. I include all the reasons our guests are unhappy or where. We got it short to include in those trainings, so we have practice with it before the next calls in so we know how to handle it better next time.

Mm. Well, Peter's gonna love to hear that. That you're tuning in and definitely taking to heart what he was talking about. I know he was really excited about those sessions. So can you please talk a little bit about, you know, the impact that Pulse has had towards your overall business?

We've seen an uptick in our guests reaching out to us, reaching back to us. We had issues with the first call resolution before. Since doing this, we noticed we're handling them the first time they come in. A big difference. As well as we can share these insights with the managers of other departments. So I share with them the screen and I'm like, hey, this is exactly what the guest said. This is exactly where we got wrong. So now the training, it extends past the BDC walls and we can get in other departments that may need it. So it didn't just help bdc, it's helping us grow in each department as well in our customer service.

Is there something in particular. I know you said you like to look at the, the, the negative sentiment. Is there something in particular that really stands out and surprised you about Pulse that you just. You didn't expect to love it so much, but. But you love it.

I love. Not many people will that I can have it. Email me automatically all of the flagged calls. It can be a bit overwhelming, but it lets me immediately see and catch anything.

Have you had an experience where, you know, a customer was on the phone and something, for whatever reason, an appointment wasn't made and you then got the alert right away and you were able to say, oh, you know, with this simple little verbiage change, we might have been able to get this customer in. So either you or that agent called that customer back and did get them in. Is that something that's happened similar?

Yes. We had a change in process actually, where now our vehicles will get covered for recalls. And I immediately caught where we had an upset guest who was like, what do you mean my vehicle is not covered? And I immediately caught it and was like, no, no, no, no, no, let's call him back. And he was so happy and grateful, he showed up the next day and kept thanking my team. So it has been helpful from the get go.

Oh, that's great to hear. One of the things that Peter is really harping on with Pulse is, is having the ability to say, oh, well, this customer said that they couldn't do this time. And then, okay, well, thanks. Have a great day. Well, instead of okay, what works for you and fitting them in and Pulse would then give you, the manager, Hannah, the tools and the visibility to then be like, oh, man, I got to get this customer on the phone and get them scheduled. So wonderful to hear that that is something that you're experiencing.

Yes, we. I love those trainings and I watch them religiously. We're always looking for ways to grow and it's, it's helped in so many different aspects that definitely worth it.

Are you watching the sessions live? Because I think we do them at 11am Eastern, which for you is 5am.

There was one that I did live. I was actually still in bed kind of hiding under my pillow. But I go back. I watch the recordings now.

Well, good. And it's, it's, it's certainly one of you kind of take for granted the, the time or the lack of time change with some of this stuff, so. But anyway, glad, glad, glad to hear that. Is there any other advice that you have for other BDC managers in regards to not just pulse but qaing calls in general?

I would say don't allow yourself to be too overwhelmed by it. There's usually help around. Just take a deep breath in and find a solution. Don't let it get overwhelming. It's okay. There's a way out.

There's a way out. And there's a lot of calls to grade. Right. So finding the tools to help make it easy is kind of the goal. Well, really appreciate you taking the time. Hannah, is there any other, anything else that you want to add here? I mean, what's, what's next for, for the BDC team at Tony Group?

We'll see. We're in a growth stage right now. We're hoping for big things in the future, but definitely Volley will be involved in it, so.

Well, we really appreciate you. I know it's been now over two years. I don't know why I was thinking 24. I remember when Scott met your group at NADA. I was there but I didn't go to 24, so I guess it makes sense it was 23. So anyway, time flies. You guys have been great partners. We really appreciate you and we appreciate you taking the time today. So Hannah, thank you very, very much.

Thank you, Jake. Have a great day.

Everyone tuning in. Thank you. And we hope you have a fantastic day.