Automotive News - October 17, 2016 - Supplement - S10

10 ❙ OCTOBER 17, 2016 P H I L L I P S C H E V R O L E T, L A N S I N G A N D F R A N K F O R T, I L L . Monitoring calls to save business Dealerships' improved phone skills boost customer satisfaction Printed in Automotive News Jan. 18, 2016 Jamie LaReau jlareau@crain.com P hillips Chevrolet in northern Illinois nearly lost a sale last February because of an employee's bad phone skills. The employee told a customer that a car on the dealership's website was sold and did not suggest another vehicle, ending the call along with a possible sale. But thanks to a new policy Ⅲ Critiques of customerrequiring managers to listen employee to randomly recorded phone phone calls calls, a manager caught it. He called the customer back to offer a similar car from the group's other store and made the sale. "We've saved many deals this year that almost fell through because of calls that were handled incorrectly," said Mike Maheras, co-owner of Phillips Chevrolet, which has a store in Lansing, Ill., and another in Frankfort, Ill., both south of Chicago. "Managers call the customer and correct it, so it results in a 'wow' experience for the customer." Since January 2015, when Maheras started requiring managers to listen to at least one employee-customer phone call a day, he estimates 10 to 15 customer experiences a month in sales or service have been saved. Also, the stores' customer satisfaction scores have risen by about 20 percent, he said. 'Change the culture' Maheras started the policy to inspire continuous training and improvement in phone skills. In a daily group email to other managers, a manager must grade the call he or she listened to, comment on the good and bad parts, flag it if it needs attention and outline any action taken to correct it. "We wanted to change the culture, on the phones, for the whole store. They were in an old-school culture," Maheras said. "We had some employees who were answering the phones very lackadaisical, like it was painful to answer the phone." There are 30 managers at the company, so that means at least 30 calls a day are moni- Managers put smiley-face stickers on parts employees' computer screens so they remember to smile, like Parts Manager Jeff Van Deursen, above, when they answer the phone. tored. The business development center managers listen to five calls a day, Maheras said. The calls cover a wide swath of needs. "It could be a customer who called for service, and a sales manager heard it and sends it to all 30 managers with an alert to the service manager to coach the employee," Maheras said. Initially, he said, there was resistance, most notably from parts department employees. "They didn't think they were doing anything wrong, and that was the area that had the biggest room for improvement," Maheras said. "They wouldn't even say, 'Hello.' They'd answer by saying, ''Lo, parts.'" Managers coached them and stuck smileyface stickers on the corner of the parts employees' computer screens. "So they know now when they answer the phone to remember to smile," Maheras said. The call-listening soon shed light on other phone problems that led to policy changes. "We learned that lunchtime was the busiest time for phone calls, and we were understaffed because our staff was at their lunches," Maheras said. Maheras decided to stagger employees' lunch schedules so there is always enough staff available to answer calls. He also stopped allowing "blind transfers," which can happen, for example, when the sales department gets a phone call for service work. "They can't just transfer it and hang up," Maheras said. "If no one in that department answers, they must take a message." Another rule: Never transfer a call to the operator, who already is overwhelmed. Maheras also changed the dealership greeting from, "Sales. May I help you?" to "It's a great day at Phillips Chevrolet. I'm Mike. How may I assist you?" 'Full attention' He also told staffers to keep it down. "We noticed background noise and wanted to make sure whoever was on the phone was giving a guest their full attention and not multitasking," Maheras said. "We make sure there's no laughing in the background by other employees and no chewing gum." It takes each manager about 10 minutes a day to listen to a randomly recorded call and write up an email for the other managers, Maheras said. "I get a log weekly on how many calls a manager listens to a week. If they miss a day, they can do two the next day," he said. He said some managers listen to up to 200 calls a month. In addition to coaching employees who fall short, they reward those who excel. In one case, a service employee successfully calmed a frustrated customer. Maheras gave that employee a $25 dinner gift card for how well she handled the call. He said nearly all the employees are aware the calls are monitored now, so they make better efforts to have superb etiquette. "Our problems have gone down, our professionalism has gone up," Maheras said. "This was a way that we could train every single day and take a small amount of time out of our busy days to do it." c

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