Digital Dealer - February 2018 - 32

DDW & CATA | Feb. 13-14, 2018 | Chicago

Cover Story (Continued from pg. 31)
the night before. What's non-negotiable that day, what needs to get
done, what can be put oﬀ, if it has to
be. I actually start planning for the
week on Sunday night. Then, when
I leave here, I leave here. That's
my time with my children. Again,
unless it's an emergency, I make it a
habit to not answer my cell phone,
to not check my emails, and that's
generally going to be between the
hours of six and eight. At eight
o'clock, I'll usually take another
half-hour to check the phone, check
emails, again just to make sure
there's nothing urgent. If it's urgent,
I take part of that half-hour to
respond; if not, I'll move on. Then,
I'll take about an hour for myself at
night, where I'm winding down and
relaxing. I'm a big reader, which is
generally how I relax and what I do
in the evening.
From the time when my kids
wake up in the morning until we
walk out that door at eight a.m.,
that's their time. I am not working.
I have people (and this is one of my
pet peeves) whether it is vendors
or co-workers who will text me at
seven-ﬁfteen, seven-thirty in the
morning and, again, if it's not urgent, I'm not responding to it. That
is my time with my kids.
I'll do the same thing on the
weekends. Saturday, if there's some
extra work I need to catch up on,
I'll ﬁt it in and plan that out. On
Sunday, I teach Sunday school in
the morning, then I go to church
service, and the rest of the afternoon is family day and, again barring an emergency, I'm not working.
I really try to stick to that, and when
I do stick to that, it's been extremely
helpful.
LET'S LOOK AHEAD FOR A
MOMENT. WHAT DOES THE BDC
OF THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

I think it has to become a kind
of hybrid model, what I'm calling a
"customer concierge center." What I
mean by that is you read a lot of articles by vendors out there who are
32

FEBRUARY 2018

trying to sell something and they're
claiming you don't need a BDC, that
a BDC has had its day, they're going
to be extinct. Well, yes and no. If
BDC's continue to operate the same
way, they may well become extinct.
I think that the misconception is
because everything is so transparent
now on the web and that's what customers want. Transparency. They
want to be able to go online and
just get information, know what the
payment is going to be, know what
the price is going to be. Do I think
we're at the point yet where people
truly don't want any interaction
with a dealership? No, I don't. Will
we get there at some point? Probably, but I don't know if I'll still be
alive to see it. Today, I think that's a
very, very small percentage of people. I think the majority of people
still want to come into a dealership
and interact.
What they don't want is the
nonsense, the back and forth negotiating. They don't want to have to
come in with their guard up. They
don't want to have to go through
ﬁfteen back and forth negotiations,
with the salesperson running back
to the sales manager. A lot of dealerships don't even get that. So, their
websites are not transparent. And
I hear it a lot. I'll be frank. I even
hear it from our own managers.
They tell me they don't want to put
that information out there. Guess
what? It's out there anyway. The
only thing you're doing by not providing that information is pushing
the customer to a third-party site. If
we provide all the same transparent
information on our site, why would
they need to go to a third-party site
where competitors are also listed?
Or, they're trying to eliminate the
dealer all together, in the case of a
Carvana or something like that.
I think the initial introduction to
a customer, whether it is a phone
call, email, text message or however
that customer prefers to communicate, needs to be more about

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

providing transparency, information the customer is looking to get.
Also, acknowledging if they went
to your website, what parts of the
process they went through. Again,
using that, as a customer concierge,
to sell, doing these things are going
to save time in the dealership, and
make them feel more comfortable
with the transparency they are
receiving. Their guard is not up
when they ﬁnally do come in to the
dealership.
I think the BDC needs to be
trained more on product knowledge
and pricing. Whereas, going back
years ago that was like a complete
no-no. I think they need to be
trained more like sales people to a
certain extent. However, we need to
recognize that we need to communicate, at least initially, through whatever medium the customer feels
most comfortable using, whether
that's chat, text, email, or video. I
think a lot of dealerships don't want
to do that because it doesn't work
for them. Well, too bad. Because
if that's how the customer wants
to communicate, then you need to
be trained in how to do that. And I
think that is where the BDC of the
future needs to go, if it is going to
survive.
WHAT IS THE ONE WORD OR
PHRASE THAT BEST DESCRIBES
YOU OR YOUR BUSINESS
PHILOSOPHY?

I would say, "No excuses."
Actually, I have a sign in my oﬃce
that says, "No negative thoughts or
excuses or giving up allowed here."
That would probably be my go-to
phrase. ■
Meet Toni Anne and learn more
about her BDC approach at the
Digital Dealer Workshops on Feb.
13-14th in Chicago, where she will
be a panelist on the opening Keynote Panel, as well as presenting a
breakout session. Have a question
for Toni Anne? You can email her
here: tfardette@aagny.net.

http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - February 2018