Category: DMS

A Right-Sized DMS: What’s Tech Costing Your Dealership?

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The business of selling cars is complex. Technology solutions were supposed to streamline and simplify the process so your team could focus on what you do best: serve your customers. But, as dealerships began adopting technology at a rapid pace, their investments haven’t always served them back.

According to our research, dealerships now run on average of 6.8 technology systems just to make it through the day. At this rate, it’s important to take a minute and ensure that the technology you’ve invested in is returning the favor. Watch the video below to get an end-to-end view of Dealertrack DMS and the goal of a dealer management system right-sized for your dealership.


Then, dive into the actual study, the Dealers’ Digital Ecosystem, and determine whether or not your technology is helping, or hindering, your goals.

Read the study here.

 

 

Driver’s Village: More Than A Vendor, A DMS Partner

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The crew at Driver’s Village relies on their DMS for a lot of things: running a smooth business, digging deep into their data and analytics, and growing. So, when it came time to choose a new technology, they didn’t want to purchase a vendor, they wanted to find a partner. That’s where Dealertrack DMS came in. But, what does it take to make the grade? What are the key attributes that make a DMS provider qualify as a partner? Here are the four top qualities that Driver’s Village looks for in their partnership:

A True Partner Drives Connectivity
With Dealertrack DMS and Opentrack, there’s a bi-directional connectivity with other partners and integration that allows dealerships the ability to look back. And when you have the ability to dive into your dealership’s history, like Driver’s Village, you’re more empowered as you move forward. Connecting, empowering, and making all data easily accessible is step number one to being a good partner.

Good Partners Help You Grow
Driver’s Village has actually partnered with Dealertrack DMS since the 1990’s and a lot has changed. As they’ve grown (and grown!), Dealertrack DMS has been there each time a new dealership has joined the family. Having a partner who helps Driver’s Village reach their goals, without being a roadblock or a burden, is key.

“We don’t consider Dealertrack DMS as a vendor,” says Firas Makhlouf. “We consider Dealertrack DMS as a partner.”

A Good Partner Brings Bright New Talent to Your Dealership
The old, archaic days of DMS in the green screen is the fastest way to scare away millennials when recruiting new team members. With high turnover rates and an increasingly difficult race to master the millennial market, a shift in DMS technology can be the key to finding, onboarding, and retaining potential candidates. “Our new hires? They like that ease-of-use and point-and-click…When we show them a nice DMS user-interface, with point-and-click, they feel at ease,” says Fira Makhlouf, CIO of Driver’s Village.

Making the Switch to a New Partner
An overhaul of your dealership’s DMS technology is a big deal. Although Driver’s Village has been with Dealertrack DMS for several decades, each time they acquire a new dealership their team faces the reality of changing the new business’s DMS to Dealertrack. The emotional process of making the switch, however, is softened by having a good partner at-the-ready. “Dealertrack’s DMS is intuitive,” explains Lou Bregou, Director of Operations. “Dealertrack has a history of integrating companies.” Plus, Driver’s Village points out that Dealertrack DMS is backed by Cox Automotive. It’s a partnership that the their team has come to rely on as more than just a vendor. “We don’t consider Dealertrack DMS as a vendor,” says Firas Makhlouf. “We consider Dealertrack DMS as a partner.”

Your dealership will always work with outside vendors, SaaS providers, retailers, perhaps even marketing agencies. And those vendors can be the key to your success or drive your downfall. It’s vital to select technology vendors who understand your goals, have reliable platforms, and are willing to work together to drive the success of your business. Ultimately, take time to select your vendors wisely and to forge partnerships with real people you trust. Read more about Driver’s Village and watch their story here.

 

5 Unique Lessons from the Experts: Hire Better, Not More

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The automotive industry faces high turnover, employee burnout, and staffing struggles that cost dealerships more money than most realize. Considering most employees reach their highest level of productivity at three years on the job, it’s disheartening to learn the average employee tenure rate at most dealerships is as low as 18 months. Dealertrack DMS AVP of Operations, John Grace, reached out to Van Horn Auto Group’s leadership team to learn the secrets of their high employee tenure rate. In their conversation, Chief Financial Officer Tom Stocco discusses Van Horns’ innovative hiring practices and unique strategies. Here are five valuable takeaways from the conversation, which was recorded and is available to watch anytime here.

Those Annual Reviews Should Really Be Daily Reviews
The saying goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” According to Tom Stocco, if you’re focused too much on the strategy of people management, and not on the culture of where actual people are working, those annual reviews are not going to work out for you. Instead, Tom recommends managers check in daily to get a pulse on the team’s satisfaction with their role and their workload. Checking in once a year is, sadly, too little, too late.

When Hiring, Tell The Story Of Your Dealership
When a candidate is interviewed at Van Horn Auto Group, transparency is key. Tom suggested that dealerships make an effort to tell the story of their dealership. Where did you come from and where are you going? What are your goals and aspirations as a company? Let the candidate know, and be upfront, because this will tell them more about your culture than you know. And, speaking of culture…

It Shouldn’t Take A Personality Test To Learn About Someone Sitting Across From You
Tom and his team threw out the personality tests a long time ago and instead opted to go with trust. According to Tom, it hasn’t always worked out. However, it feels more honest. Having multiple people within the dealership meet and interview each candidate, and giving each person the benefit of their full attention and time, is part of their culture.

Make Your Dealership Family A Priority
Investing in your employees needs to be more than lip-service. Company picnics and parties are nice, but your dealership needs to do more to prioritize their people. At Van Horn Auto Group, the leadership knows employees work harder for companies who actually care about them. Van Horn wants to see their team become successful long-term, and to prove it, they’ll pay half of the tuition cost for their employees to get a college degree. They also have serious focus on creating community, with shared experiences, within the dealership.

“Everything that we’ve done has focused on creating shared experiences and building a family.” – Tom Stocco, CFO of Van Horn Auto Group

Technology Is Critical Today. Embrace it!
Technology can, and should, bring knowledge to the transaction, to the customer, to your entire sales experience. If you aren’t making training and learning opportunities mandatory for your staff, you’re making a mistake. Reach out to your vendors and ask for additional training if you feel that your team would benefit from it. The bottom line is that dealerships spend a lot of money on technologies, and if you’re unable to optimize it, you’re hurting your employees.

In addition to these valuable takeaways from John Grace and Tom Stocco, you can view the full webinar on-demand here.

Overcome Your DMS Transition Fears

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Breaking the news to your controller that your dealership is switching technology is a difficult day for any Dealer Principal Owner or GM. While a technology transition can seem intimidating, staying stagnant with an out-of-date Dealer Management System (DMS) is much, much worse. Slow systems, data held hostage, expensive add-ons, poor customer support? These are practically nightmares! Take a look at the steps outlined in the graphic below and discover five ways to make the switch—and what you’ll gain once you do!

Download the full eBook and get ready to Overcome the Fear of Technology Transition today.

When a Fear of Change holds you back

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“Time, training, resistance, nightmare, contracts and confusing.” These are some of the first words that come to mind when a dealership considers making a DMS switch. These words are also often at the root of the ultimate decision to forgo the switch.

A fear of change and the potential roadblocks linked to switching technology has locked many dealerships into complacency, with many choosing to stick to their legacy DMS even if it means they are unable to integrate with new tools or keep up with the changing needs of the modern consumer. While concerns of losing finances, employment records or customer data — not to mention the potential for staff resistance — may understandably discourage dealership managers from modernizing their DMS systems, if they are willing to open themselves up to change, a seamless transition is achievable.

To stay competitive in today’s environment, dealerships need to meet consumers on their terms, and that means dramatically upgrading their technology systems. When purchasing a vehicle, consumers are now looking for a connected experience. They want to find a dealership where they can begin the car shopping and buying process online and complete it in-store. Keeping up with the changing needs of the customer is vital. In fact, according to the 2016 Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report, half of consumers report they are likely to change brands if a company doesn’t anticipate their needs.

The comfort that comes with keeping to the status quo, and the time and money that has been invested in training employees on the legacy system, make it easy to stand still. However, in a time where adapting to the changing industry is vital to a dealership’s long-term success, stagnation is no longer viable. With the right planning, open communication, ample and ongoing training, and invested partner in place, a DMS switch can give dealerships the opportunity to propel themselves forward and overall grow their business. It’s time for dealerships to take on fear of change head-on and implement modernized technology that can help tighten operations and increase efficiency across departments.

A version of this article originally appeared in AutoSuccess Magazine here.

About the author:

John Grace is associate vice president, operations, for Dealertrack DMS, Cox Automotive. Grace brings nearly 20 years of high-tech operations and support experience to this position. Grace joined Xtime in 2011 from Tastingroom.com where he was vice president of operations. Prior to Tastingroom.com he spent nearly eight years as a member of the executive staff of the Location Services Division of Autodesk. At Autodesk, he played a critical role in the growth and expansion of the division, delivering middleware and application solutions to wireless telecommunications companies. He was responsible for managing SaaS solutions, customer premises equipment, and customer support for domestic and international customers. Grace has a master’s degree from Purdue University and a bachelor’s degree from the California State University.

Smythe Volvo: Free to Focus on What Matters

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The team at family-owned, family-operated Smythe Volvo takes their culture seriously. Employees, sales people and car buyers are treated with respect, fairness, and trust. It makes sense to start there and let people come in the door with their guard down, ready to do business. They’ve practiced this level of customer service since 1966, greeting return customers by their first name, and providing a relaxed atmosphere to everyone.

Beyond the Buyer
Smythe extends the same level of trust and decency beyond the buyer to their vendors. In the automotive business, this isn’t naïveté. It’s not even simply generous. It’s just how Smythe Volvo practices business. Which is why they were generally surprised to find the attitude of their original DMS provider was anything but reciprocal. When taking calls about service, managing upgrades, or navigating ongoing training, Smythe Volvo’s employees began to feel like a burden so the team at Smythe began to shop around.

“We treat both our guests that come in every day to purchase and buy from us, as well as the people who work for us, as family. And that’s what’s most important and the most wonderful thing about our business.” – Kevin Flanagan, President and CEO

Time is Valuable
When you focus on the wrong things, you waste precious time that could be spent helping the customer. So, for the team at Smythe Volvo, it was finally time to choose a new DMS provider. Although making the move was “scary,” according to Smythe Volvo Vice President Sean Flanagan, it was worth it to find a true technology partner. Once the family at Smythe Volvo had found a partner whose values and goals aligned with their own, they could get back to focusing on what they do best: offering exceptional customer service.

From New-hire to Expert in No Time
One of the biggest benefits for the family at Smythe Volvo was the easy adoption of the DMS technology by the entire staff, most notably with new-hires. When Smythe Volvo’s Office Manager on-boarded a new team member– previously unfamiliar with Dealertrack DMS–she was posting deals on her second day.

It actually costs very little to be a better partner to your customers. When we encounter businesses like Smythe Volvo it inspires us as well. Treating each other like family, offering a kind word, taking a moment to remember a client’s name, making sure your new DMS technology is explained thoroughly, or building a community for continued learning opportunities are some of the ways we aim to remain trusted partners with the team at Smythe Volvo. You can read more about their experience making the switch to a new DMS here.

Data-driven Dealerships: 5 Metrics for Improving Retention

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You’ve heard it before: You can’t manage what you don’t measure. And this is true…mostly. Human Resources, Controllers, and People Ops often struggle to capture meaningful data around high turnover. Employee satisfaction on the job, training expenses per employee, and the unforeseen costs of replacing key team members can go untracked. When it all adds up, the total cost of employee turnover can reach $439,000 per year. What if you could measure the “unmeasurable” canary in the coal mine, so to speak, that indicating a positive work environment?

Measuring ‘People Ops’ can be difficult. What’s the retention rate per department? What’s the cost of training? Answering these questions should not fall to HR professionals alone. The answers paint a picture of the overall health of your dealership—which is important not just to your turnover rate, but your customers as well. When it comes down to it, unhappy employees and an knowledgeable staff lead to poor reviews. Simply put: people impact profits. Here are five metrics you can start evaluating, today, to make sure you’re hiring and retaining top talent:

1.Employee Satisfaction
Your dealership’s Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a tool that organizations use to track employee loyalty across time. It was originally designed to gauge customer satisfaction, and it works the same way. As you track it over time you’ll set a benchmark and watch your score either dip or rise.

2. Voluntary Turnover
Are you seeing your best sales people move on at a regular rate? Some churn is natural, so use this as an opportunity to conduct professional exit interviews and unlock the root cause of your employee turnover. What did your staff learn during their time onboard? Did they have any suggestions for improvement? Be open and honest—assure them they aren’t jeopardizing a key employment reference—and use their feedback for future team members.

3. Involuntary Turnover
Make sure you track this number separate from base turnover. Plus, you should keep track of any improvement plans or violations reported to management. Is this number increasing every year? How about every quarter? Do you see a troubling trend? Compare these figures year over year.

4. Managers
Do the previous figures align to your managers evenly across the board? Why, or why not? Are you promoting your managers from within with a clear career trajectory? You may not be able to measure how skilled each manager is at conflict resolution or rely on a metric that can predict which manager is better at delivering bad news, but you can (and should) track how often your managers hire and fire your staff, how long their team members stay on board on average, and which managers have the highest rate of complaints.

5. Training Budgets
This should be a no brainer since you’re likely tracking how much money is spent on several key areas. However, you should also pay attention to which types of training you’re paying for, what your staff thinks of the training, and what the adoption rate of these learning tools is. If you’re throwing money into a budgeted item that no one uses, you might as well use that money on something everyone enjoys…like donuts.

Every dealership is unique and has its own story to tell–and your staff is a crucial part of that story. Pay attention to your employees and the five people metrics that signal a warning that your dealership culture–and turnover–might be in trouble. Retention is a better business strategy in both the short- and long-run.

 

7 Tips For a Stronger Dealership Human Resources Team

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Partnering with People Ops at your auto dealership has to happen now. And it’s time to get creative because a strong labor market—with an unprecedented unemployment rate of 3.9%—means the pressure is on you to hire and retain the staff you need to run your dealership. If that worries you, then you’re probably paying attention. You’re probably realizing the your HR strategy needs to align with your business strategy–HR is no longer a silo or department DPOs and GMs can ignore. Now that we have your attention, here are 7 ways to improve your hiring strategy:

1. Filling The Seat Quickly
Don’t make the mistake of hiring the first candidate whose resume uses the correct form of “they’re, their, and there” simply to take the pressure off your overworked sales team. It’s tempting to move through the hiring process quickly, but a bad hire could end up costing your dealership even more in training, turnover, and replacement costs.

2. Making the Decision Solo
Make sure to have any candidate you’re seriously considering meet with several key team members. Get a “gut check” from everyone they’ll be interacting with and don’t make the mistake of putting this very important decision entirely on one person.

3. Failing to Offer a List of Why’s
Every candidate will be asked “why” they want to work with you. But things have changed; remember the 3.9% statistic? Your candidate is evaluating the position as much as you’re evaluating them. What unique benefits does your company offer? What tools and technology will they get to work with? What does your corporate culture look like? Does your dealership offer flexible time off or work schedules that fit with the candidate’s schedule? If you don’t, have you considered why not?

4. Overselling The Job
Make sure you’re honest about the position and everything being offered. If you’re transparent and upfront about your compensation structure now, without over promising unrealistic commission goals, you’re more likely to keep that new hire around longer once they accept the position. Don’t worry, not everyone is looking for an easy job, either. Be honest about what your team does, be proud of what you’ve accomplished, and share what you hope to do in the future. The right candidate will appreciate it.

5. Not Doing Your Homework
Job applicants put a lot of time and effort into building crafted resumes, networking, and fostering great references. If you’re not doing your research and looking into their work history, contacting former colleagues, and doing important background checks, you’re wasting both your time and theirs. Save time, money, and hours of frustration if you build this process into your standard operating procedures now, so you don’t have to worry about it later. Bonus: a little creeping on social media is to be expected on both sides these days. Everything that’s put out in the public sphere is fair game.

6. Taking Too Long
Yes, you should take your time and be thorough, but keep in mind your applicants may have other offers on the table. Don’t be surprised if they’re suddenly unavailable to take your offer if something of better or equal value came along while you kept them waiting. Top talent may also weigh your offer against another if you failed to show up at a scheduled interview time and date. Consider this: many job seekers take time off from current positions to meet with you, at a personal cost. Were you ready and willing to meet them on time?

7. Failing to Develop New Hires
According to a survey of 1,000 dealer professionals, 36% were motivated largely by personal development and career progress. If you onboard a new hire and then fail to train them, develop their skills, or simply leave them alone to figure out the nuances of your dealership’s unique expectations, don’t be surprised when they bail.

If it sounds like hiring and retaining top talent has gotten more difficult, it has. But establishing a long-term relationship with team members who drive sales at your dealership, grow your business, and who remain loyal to your company over time is valuable. Taking the time to find the right people to build that trust is an investment in your dealership’s future. Good luck!

 

Unlock Root Causes of Employee Turnover

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In 2016, the turnover at dealerships in the U.S. was 43%. If you calculate the average number of employees at every dealership, that equals more than 23 team members giving notice in one year alone! That’s a lot of churn. With figures like that, if you don’t think your dealership has a turnover problem, you might want to think again. So what’s the big deal? Take a look at the root causes of employee turnover you may have overlooked:

A Lack of Diversity
There’s a general need for change in the auto sales industry. A quick look at the numbers shows that only 19% of traditional new-car dealership employees are women. And, while dealerships are aiming to bring in more millennials to the workforce, the ability to keep this group around long-term is failing. Broadening your search to be more inclusive, working with more flexible hours, and trying creative compensation structures are a few ways to start the process of change.

Hiring to Fill Niche Technology Needs
If your technology is out-of-date, hard to use, or even just oddly specific, you may be limiting your pool of candidates. Employees are already required to learn and adapt to everyday changes to industry regulations. If you refuse to consider a candidate based on their experience with the technology you currently have (when you know it will likely change), you aren’t planning for the future.

Failing to Compete with the Competition
Demand for qualified employees is growing. This is good news for anyone working in the industry, but it does mean managers and Dealer Principal Owners need to build a solid strategy for attracting top talent. As the market for employees becomes more and more competitive, your staff has the flexibility to move on to competitors who may offer better compensation, more flexible hours, better paid time off policies, or company perks and benefits. A similar story played out in the technology industry in the last ten years, and managers were forced to get creative when it came to attracting talent.

Poor, or Inadequate, Training
No one enjoys feeling lost on the job. Employees today realize that every position they fill is a stepping-stone on a career path that needs to offer skill development and training to promote growth and success in their future. Does your dealership offer e-learning or a career trajectory plan aimed at improving their development? Is there a position in their future available for promotion or advancement? Your employees have plans for their own future—do they include you?

Highly Selective Employees
Dealerships already must compete to overcome a negative reputation. Today’s employees aren’t afraid of hard work, but they’re also more agile and tech-savvy. They know how to network and will use their skills to consider better options, whether a position is in a brand new industry, or not. What does your opportunity offer that they can’t find elsewhere?

It’s not too late to uncover these often overlooked issues to retention. You can develop strong employee relationships and attract quality team players. Discover more ways to attract and retain talent in our new eBook: 8 Ways to Reduce Turnover & Improve Retention: A Dealer Principal’s Guide to Hiring and Retaining Talent.