By John Sevier, CEO, Dealer Advantage BDC

We’ve all heard the most common arguments both for and against dedicated Internet Departments – no need to rehash stale arguments here. The truth is, our customers are demanding our full attention and it is our job to deliver exactly what our customers ask. If you aren’t a believer yet, rest assured: BDC’s are here to stay.

Enterprising BDC Managers around the country are building their departments with a progressive spirit of aggressive follow-up, objection handling and concierge level assistance – it’s what our customers are demanding from their car buying experience.

So, what’s the problem? Creating an Internet Department is easy. Sustaining a successful BDC is not.

Now that you’ve decided to be progressive and buy in fully to a dedicated Internet Department – how are you going to measure its success or failure? How are you going to pinpoint exactly what’s going wrong in your BDC to make necessary adjustments?

Simply using metrics like close percentage, BDC managers may be missing opportunities to identify exactly what’s happening in their department and too often they end up deceived about its true performance. Close percentage will always be important: we all need to know how many sales our efforts are translating to – but it’s an incomplete picture of the BDC’s performance. Furthermore, focusing so much on this one metric may be blinding you from simple adjustments you can make that could have a tremendous impact on your department’s success.

BDC Managers that are using the best key metrics are getting the clearest picture of their department’s performance and can use them as a road map for fine-tuning their department’s processes, training and goals.

First, it’s crucial to understand exactly how our customers are interacting with our organization – not just our BDC. Today, customers are having multiple interactions with multiple departments within our organization throughout their buying experience. They may start out with a simple internet lead, but depending on their needs, they may interact with the BDC, sales or F&I – before they even commit to an appointment! Once the BDC connected or engaged with the customer, how are other departments within the organization handling these customers?

With the myriad of online tools available, customers are doing more research and are more informed than ever. With the BDC being the first line of contact, how can we be sure we are setting our reps up for success with these more educated customers? Unfortunately, BDC Managers that are solely focused on the latest industry trends aren’t setting their reps up for success.

The reality is even the best BDC managers can fall into the trap of chasing the newest industry best practices, like personalized video, and simply expecting their close percentage to skyrocket. Unfortunately, like most things in life, it’s never that easy. Chasing the newest industry best practice can only take you so far – and if you’re the type of manager that strives to beat the competition, you must be willing and able to see the entire picture.

BDC Managers need to be able to figure out what specific adjustments they need to make that are unique to how their department is currently performing. Understanding this, it becomes crucial for BDC Managers to not only understand how their department is interacting but also to track customers throughout all the stages of their car buying journey.

So, what are these key metrics? One of the most important key metrics you may be overlooking: engaged or connection rate. This metric is simply referring to how many customers you connected with – via phone, text or e-mail – compared to how many leads the department has received in total.

Knowing your department’s engaged percentage can serve as a road map for how you can tweak your processes and allow you to design the most effective training program for your unique needs. If you are unable to teach your reps the most effective ways and times to get customer engagement – you’ll never get the BDC results you want. Diving even deeper, don’t stop at the departmental level. Calculate engagement percentage for each individual rep on your team – and share those statistics with your reps so that they know where they stand both on an individual basis and in comparison to the department. If you aren’t calculating and sharing individual statistics with your reps, you‘re also missing out on the front-line perspective of what challenges your reps are facing.

Most of the top CRM solutions are already capturing all the data you’ll need to constantly track to stay ahead of the competition. Falling into the trap of assuming widely known best practices will be the savior of your Internet Department will be bitterly disappointing and could even cause the dissolution of your BDC. Tracking metrics like engaged or connection percentage – and using those metrics as a roadmap to devising solutions unique to your BDC’s needs will be the key to its sustained success. What metrics are you tracking?

Don’t miss John Sevier’s upcoming session at Digital Dealer 26 Orlando. This session is a deep dive into the most important data you should be tracking on a daily basis.

About the Author

John Sevier is the CEO of Dealer Advantage BDC. He started in the automotive business with a single store Internet Department then moved onto large multi-rooftop centralized BDC handling over a quarter of a million internet leads before becoming CEO of Dealer Advantage BDC. EMAIL: john.sevier@dealeradvantagebdc.com