Automotive News - October 16, 2017 - Supplement - S14

14 | OCTOBER 16, 2017
B I L L P E N N E Y T O Y O TA , H U N T S V I L L E , A L A .

Phone overhaul boosts profits
New setup improves
customer retention,
satisfaction scores

appropriate department.
In sales, four-person teams take shifts in a
call room. All of their phones ring at the same
time and the first one available answers the
call, sets an appointment for the customer to
come in and handles a potential sale, Hensley
said. It gives all the salespeople a fair shot at
making a sale and for customers, "Your call
should be answered in a very speedy process
compared to before," Hensley said.

Printed in Automotive News Feb. 20, 2017

Jamie LaReau
jlareau@crain.com

anagers at Bill Penney Toyota, in
Huntsville, Ala., thought they were
using top telecommunications
technology. But a little more than
three years ago, they got a shock when customer satisfaction reviews started to show otherwise.
"We were getting blown up with 'Nobody
would return my calls' and 'You missed the
sale' and 'All I wanted was to talk to a service
adviser and get an oil change price!'" recalled
CFO Ryan Hensley.
Hensley's research showed the problems
started with the phone system. "We couldn't
blame it on our people because they were just trying
to satisfy the customer in
front of them at the time."
Bill Penney Toyota, about
100 miles north of Birmingham, Ala., had an antiquated phone system that limited the operator's ability to
transfer callers to a staff
Hensley: "A
huge win for us" member without putting
the caller on hold, sometimes for long periods. It was dinging service
revenue, new- and used-vehicle sales and customer satisfaction reviews.
So starting in 2014, Hensley overhauled the
dealership's telecommunications. The result is
better customer retention and satisfaction
scores and gains in profits.
"We were on the defensive trying to answer
calls," said Hensley in a pensive Southern drawl.
"Today, we're on the offensive. We averaged, last
year, over 6,000 outbound calls to get customers
into our shop and we cut our advertising budget
in the service department because we have people now actively pursuing our customers."

'Down the drain'
Bill Penney Toyota sells about 4,200 new
and used vehicles a year. It services about
4,000 vehicles a month. Despite its scale, its
phone system was more than a decade old in
2013. The expired technology made adding

Call center

Bill Penney Toyota's service department call
center has used the new phone system to
increase repair orders and gross profits.

Next, Hensley hired a consultant to develop a call center for the service department. It
opened on-site in October 2015.
The consultant, who hired and trained six
call-center employees for Hensley, cost about
$24,000 for the first year. The dealership spent
about $30,000 on six cubicles and six phones.
It spends about $18,000 a month to pay for
the employees and the software.
In total, the phone system, vendor, new
hires and training cost more than $350,000.
The returns are worth it, Hensley said: "I'm a
CFO. I've got everything down to the dollar."
In 2016, Bill Penney did 650 more service repair orders per month, counting both customer-pay and warranty work, vs. the same period
in 2013 before the new telecommunications
system, Hensley said, resulting in a 16 percent
increase in gross profits per month.

phone lines or updating technology on it
nearly impossible, Hensley said.
Furthermore, the store's phone protocol
was flawed. Salespeople and service advisers
received customer calls in a ragtag manner.
"A call would come in and go to a switchboard
operator and she had a round-robin system to
transfer the call to whoever was the next person
on her list," Hensley said.
The problem was the operator had no
way of knowing if the next person on
Updated
the list was available to take the call,
Return business
phone system
or was even in the office, he said.
New and used sales are up, too. On
puts store "on
"So customers were leaving mesaverage, Bill Penney sold 179 new
the offensive."
sages and not getting called back,
and 111 used vehicles a month in
or left on hold," Hensley said. "Sales
2013. Last year, it sold an average of
were going down the drain."
212 new and 145 used vehicles per
The same scenario was happening to pomonth. Bill Penney's customer satisfaction
tential service customers. In short, the dealerscore rose to the 92nd percentile last year
ship was analog in a digital world, Hensley said.
from the 90th percentile in 2015.
The customer retention rate also is rising,
Hensley said. Toyota encourages its dealers
In the queue
to do oil changes in 60 minutes or less, he
In January 2014, Hensley spent about $35,000
said. So in 2015, Hensley built a quick-lube
to install new phones. Hensley pays a vendor
center in a separate former body shop. The
about $450 a month to support the phone syscall center staff can now set oil-change aptem. That part was easy. The challenge came
pointments for every 20 minutes. As a result,
when Hensley killed the round-robin system.
the dealership's average time to do an oil
"The staff liked the new phone system, but
change is 71 minutes compared with 90 to
now everyone is thinking they're going to lose
100 minutes before 2015, he said.
their turn for a sale," Hensley said.
"It's been a huge win for us," Hensley said. "If
The remedy came in a new queuing system.
we can have a dramatic impact on customers in
A live operator still answers incoming calls
their first three years of ownership, they will
and can see each staffer's status on a screen.
come back to us for service work and we
If the operator is already on a call, then the
wouldn't have been able to do that three years
caller is sent to an automated system. From
ago." a
there, the incoming call is transferred to the

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