Digital Dealer - April 2018 - 8

DD24

// Dealership
Management

FEATURED SPEAKER

By Chuck Barker
President & Founder,
Impact Marketing &
Consulting Group

Relationship
Development
With People Is
the Key to Your
Success
Would you agree that
great people drive
greatness and without
good people, your
business is just a sound
check getting ready for
the real show? I do and
that is the message I wish
to expand upon. There is
a long-standing concept
going around that states;
this new market economy
is all about taking stock in
people. Without motivated, well-trained and cared
for team members, the
dealership loses its most
important component, the
relationship. Consider
this: without first building
solid relationships with our
team, it becomes difficult
for them to build solid
relationships with their
prospects, managers,
teammates, and customers. The end result is that
we most likely will not
have 'loyal' customers.
Just temporarily satisfied
ones. While obvious, this
reality is often overlooked.
8

APRIL 2018

The solution is either
re-tooling your current
team or finding and
developing new ones
equipped in building
long-lasting customer
relationships.
When I sit down at the

percent of the time they
respond by choosing 'C'
or customer. I guess this
response stems from the
car business that tells
us we have to have a
customer in order to sell
them a vehicle. Just like

...AS TO WHY THEY
PURCHASED THEIR
VEHICLE, 82.4%
RESPONDED 'BECAUSE
WE LIKED OUR
SALESPERSON.'"
very first meeting with a
dealer/principal and his or
her entire management
team to explore what
opportunities a sound
customer relationship
approach could mean
to the store, I begin with
the three letters, CRM
on the whiteboard. I then
ask which of these letters
they consider to be the
most important. Eighty

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

us to put ourselves first,
you know, sell them a car.
Perhaps it stems from
one of the million definitions of CRM; Customer
centric or customer first.
However, when you look
at the statistics of the
number one reason given
by new vehicle owners
when surveyed as to
why they purchased their
vehicle, 82.4% respond-

ed: "Because we liked our
salesperson." Hmm, don't
you think the 'R' could
be most important simply
because it is difficult to
even have a purchasing
customer if there is not
a relationship? In most
cases, it actually requires
a good relationship.
Hopefully, we are in
agreement that relationship development is a
good starting point. Now
let's look at the various
relationship areas we
need to focus our attention in order to achieve an
overall acceptable foundation for understanding
relationship building.
Before the customer
ever gets to the dealership there is another
relationship construction
site which needs to be
developed, stabilized and
rendered with consistency; The Management
Team. We all know that
most managers would
rather manage paper than
people. Paper does not
challenge them, talk back
to them, ignore them or
in most cases, demand
immediate attention. Our
problem in this business
for way too long has been
expecting monumental
'people developmental'
skills from our managers
without providing them
with the learning tools to
teach them.
It is indeed unfortunate
that, as of this writing,
I have not seen one
automobile manufacturer
Continued on pg. 10
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - April 2018
