Focused on success
By Joff Suter, Southern Zone Sales Director
It is a pleasure to see another case study identifying how a dealer group adjusted to the COVID-19 backdrop successfully. Drive Motor Retail does not point to a ‘surge’ of online sales. Instead, success is attributed to the way customers, having found a car online initially, have subsequently engaged on the phone or by Live Chat. It points to the importance of one-to-one personal communication.
Reflecting upon Drive Motor Retail’s success over the last year, amongst the many areas the business has addressed, two stand out for me, quality and adaptability.
The wisdom of concentrating on the ‘vital few’ versus the ‘trivial many’ is a well-established quality management ethos. Keeping things simple, as Stuart Harrison notes, is about creating KPIs on the things that matter and concentrating on them. I was pleased to see looking after customers as the first KPI referenced. Sustaining our ‘Excellent’ rating on Trust Pilot certainly focuses minds across the AutoProtect Group!
On adaptability, I want to pick out how Drive has reframed salespeople’s roles and, in particular, the increased selling role for the Group’s call centre. Across our dealer customers, we have seen the success of call centres and training on telephone technique. Active listening helps to build a trusted rapport and an understanding of the customer’s needs. It helps to present the right car and added value services such as Smart and GAP insurance and extended warranties, making it easier for customers to buy products that suit their needs.
We are in a changing market; online and offline have merged as the guys at Drive note. At the heart of this change remains service. Of the ‘vital few’, an excellent service and buying experience are the metrics that can future-proof a business. My congratulations to the Drive Motor Group for their success and for sharing their story.
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