“Because of the programme we have definitely followed up a lot more consistently and it has had a very positive impact on our results!”
Jacqui Barnett, Director, Hepworth Motor Company Ltd. This dealership hit its yearly new car sales target six months early!
PHP mystery shopped the 34 dealerships before the programme began to measure their base line performance and across the network the enquiry to appointment ratio came out at 10%. During this programme this same ratio has been strictly measured and has now reached 42%! This means from 1941 incoming enquiries, instead of making only 194 appointments (at 10% enquiry to appointment ratio ) the network has increased showroom traffic by more than 300% making 815 appointments.
At a sales closing ratio on appointments of 45% the Daihatsu dealership network have sold 367 cars from the appointments made. Additionally, another element of the programme focused hard
on follow up activity and from this alone the dealerships have sold an additional 188 cars!
Bringing us to a total of 466 extra cars sold as a direct result of this PHP Programme, just three months in!
INCOMING ENQUIRIES |
1941 |
APPOINTMENTS WOULD HAVE MADE |
194 |
CARS WOULD HAVE SOLD |
89 |
|
|
|
INCOMING ENQUIRIES |
1941 |
ACTUAL APPOINTMENTS MADE |
815 |
ACTUAL CARS SOLD |
367 |
|
|
|
TOTAL FOLLOW UP CALLS MADE |
4352 |
ACTUAL CARS SOLD FROM FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY |
188 |
Initially with the dealer principals, PHP discussed the behavioural change material they planned to use with the sales force and the reporting and measuring mechanisms they had in mind. Buy in right from day one was extremely high.
Dean Hines, PHP Ltd Director, said, “Buy-in up front is probably the single most important aspect of any successful programme. The league tables we have introduced and the tools and techniques we are using to change the sales people’s behaviour and attitude towards incoming enquiries and follow up activity has been widely accepted amongst the owner-drivers of these Daihatsu businesses, which is a real credit to them.”
Jayne Camber, Sales Director, from WEM Motors said, “Our PHP consultant told us that the dealerships that have supported the programme from day one are the ones that have sold most cars and this is clear for all to see from the league tables that have been circulated.”
Each of the 35 dealerships has had at least 3 visits each from the PHP consultants.
Visit One focused on maximising marketing spend. Generating appointments of course doesn’t come free. Dean Hines, Director of PHP Ltd, who headed up this programme commented, “Companies spend extremely large amounts of budget on lead generation activity. For sales people not to take these incoming enquiries in my mind is unforgiveable.
I believe that if ALL enquiries are handled properly and professionally there is absolutely no reason why every dealership in this country could not sell at least 1 additional car per week per sales person and probably a lot more!”
The PHP consultants spent visit one establishing whether or not the dealership had a robust enquiry management process in place.
High impact coaching visits began across the network and the implementation of PHP’s weekly reporting system against all sales activities. A weekly sales person’s league table was introduced too.
Sales Manager, Marty Loughran from Desmond Eastwood had this to say, “PHP’s visits have been very important to us. Each time our consultant goes through what we’ve done, what has worked well and he gives advice on how things could have been done differently to generate better results. He likes things done right and passes that on to the people he works with. He is exactly the right kind of person for this job.”
The consultants introduced the PHP well-proven Telephone Response Techniques and the ESP Diary.
The ESP diaries help increase customer retention, allow a salesperson to record every new contact quickly and easily, provide analysis on enquiry type, ensure every enquiry is captured, followed up and offered a test drive, shows performance by individual, by dealership or group, regionally or nationally, gives at-a-glace activity analysis and instant information for key performance indicator reviews.
Paul Hunt, a senior consultant and programme manager for the Daihatsu programme, told us, “The ESP diary system is an excellent system, there is no doubt about that, but it is everything else that goes with it that is adding the value for the Daihatsu dealerships. The coaching, the disciplines, the control, enquiry management and the behavioural change is most important of all. Computerised systems are not always necessary or cost justified.
The ESP diary can be used very effectively as a forerunner for putting in a computerised system later on.”
Marty Loughrin, Sales Manager from Desmond Eastwood added, “The diary is a very handy day-to-day record of what you do. I find it very helpful to open the page last thing at night to give me a kick-start for the next day’s sales effort.”
Stephen Barnard, Managing Director, Woodford Motor Company, had this to say when asked what from the PHP programme is working well for him, “I like the diary particularly. It’s well laid out, easy to use and it provides a much more structured process for us.”
A lot of emphasis on the seriousness of dealing properly and professionally with incoming enquiries was covered during this visit to really hammer home the importance of each step of the process. Also the psychology of dealing with people in a sales situation.
Chris Hill, Sales Executive at Desmond Eastwood, said, “We are much more organized now and its much easier to find information. I have certainly closed more sales since the introduction of the diary system. Posting enquiries forward in the diary makes it easier for me to remember who I have to ring back.”
PHP use a five-piece human change technology model to drive all of their material. This combines neuro-linguistic programming, hypnotic change technique, accelerated learning and emotional intelligence. All of this is underpinned by a powerful personality and psychometric profiling tool called Insights.
Tony Jones, who is Sales Manager at Parkside Daihatsu, commented, “PHP did an Insights profile on me and I found it to be extremely accurate. It does make you think about the aspects of your personality and how you tend to handle sales situations. It has helped me improve the way I sell.
PHP programmes are built around the belief that understanding your own behaviour helps you understand the behaviour of others. The Insights tool has proved time and time again to be extremely powerful in a sales situation. The Insights tool, based on the work of Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, focuses on colour energies: sunshine yellow, cool blue, fiery red and earth green.
Nowhere on the planet are there two people that share exactly the same personality or even the same preference for communicating. Each person has a unique mix of all four colour energies making up their individual personality. However, in many it is clear to see their dominant energies and understanding this gives a good understanding of what is likely to make them tick.
As well as reviewing everything covered in visits one and two, during visit three, the PHP Consultants introduced the 10 minute experience.
This focuses on the showroom enquirer and the PHP philosophy that “They are not here to tell you they don’t want one.” A person does not visit a car sales showroom to tell the sales person that they do not want a car. PHP research indicates that 78% of people who go out and look at a car actually buy one. But the reality is that the average closing ratio across dealerships today is around 15-20%. Hard facts like these emphasise that excellent sales processes alone are just not enough and that a change in attitude that goes beyond sales process is needed.
Visit three also covered follow up activities and introduced the concept of 4th time follow up. Many sales people shy away from follow up, especially if they have already followed them up once or twice before. Many don’t get to 3rd or 4th time follow up. This programme has generated 188 incremental sales from 4th time follow up activity.
John Kerr, Sales Manager from Portman Motors, said, “The follow-up activity has worked particularly well for us. We are being more persistent. No one has ever measured our follow-up activity before, many training providers talk about it, but PHP actually measured it and the incremental sales that have come out of it. It is a good programme, I would recommend it.
Richard Calvert, General Manager at Highweek Garage, added, “The consultant’s visits certainly shook us up. I don’t think there is a magic wand anywhere that you can wave and create business overnight, but the programme is having a positive impact and long term, because of all the extra follow up activity, I believe less opportunities will be lost. We are not yet perfect, but we are significantly better than we were before the programme began.”
PHP also spent 3 days coaching all of the Daihatsu regional business managers to make sure they were fully au fait with all the processes, the psychology of the change techniques being used. Again their buy-in was excellent.
The PHP Consultants chosen for this programme are extremely experienced motor industry people with high levels of skill and expertise in people development and the PHP human change technology model.
Ed Stanwell of Chandler’s Horncastle, said, “One of the overriding things about the programme that stands out in my memory so far is the attitude of the consultants I have worked with and the way they have presented the programme to us. They have been open with their views, but not regimented. They have listened to our views”.
Moving forward there is a lot of scope to improve things further within this network. Particularly working with the Daihatsu field based force.
To summarise this case study demonstrates how implementing control, measurement and enquiry management disciplines can quickly have a significant positive impact on the sales performance or an entire network. Here are some closing comments from the dealerships.
Sally Green, Managing Director of K T Green, said, “It has been very good. It has made us think about a lot of things we haven’t ever looked at before. The good thing about the PHP consultants I worked with is that they have such a depth of knowledge they can tailor their advice to each dealership situation.”
Brain Showell, Dealer Principal of Showells, said, “We are now on target in a very sluggish market and without the programme I have no doubt that we would have slipped back. The PHP consultants
have been absolutely spot on. My sales team cannot make the decision that an enquiry is a waste of time, because in this system everything has to be followed up without fail and anything that prevents leakage of opportunities has my 100% support.
Ray Law, Dealer Principal, Hall’s of Ruddington, said, “This programme has turned one of my poor-performing sales people into a very good one. It has given him a structure to follow enquiries up correctly. He now does the job he is paid to do because of the controls put in place by PHP”.
