As a successful dealership owner or GM, you know that training your team is a critical and ongoing task.
But what’s the best way to go about it? Training can be expensive, with the average cost being $1286 per employee. That’s high enough that only 64% of smaller companies can afford to invest in it even though it’s a critical part of building a businesses
Fortunately, automotive training videos can be an extremely cost-effective solution to have at your disposal. However, they won’t be enough as a stand-alone—you need to back them up with a partner who can strategically support your video-based training program without breaking the bank.
What Makes Videos Such Excellent Training Tools?
Research studies have repeatedly found that video learning is one of the most prevalent, affordable, and powerful ways to train employees. Here are some advantages:
- People tend to remember more information when they have visual reinforcement to supplement the teacher’s message.
- They are reusable materials. They may age, but they do not wear out or come with long-term recurring costs.
- The movement, action, and sound of automotive training videos automatically make them more engaging.
- Video training can be accessed anytime, anywhere thanks to the internet.
- They are flexible and efficient tools for learning. They’re instantly scalable across multiple platforms—something that cannot be said for physical training materials.
While video training has plenty of advantages, creating your own content may not be possible. Production costs can be so high (averaging $30,420 per video) that only the very largest corporations can afford to develop their own.
This means that the most likely way your business will support its training program is by working with a top-notch consulting agency that produces content.
What Do the Best Videos Have?
The simple fact is that all automotive training videos are not created equal. For instance, lecture-style videos are easily the least effective because they aren’t interactive—your training program has to be engaging to grab and hold an employee’s attention and create opportunities for discussion and feedback.
Documentary-style videos deliver 71% better retention rates versus lecture-only programs. Even adding a simple quiz or two to that lecture would improve retention by 25%. Here are three more items a consultant can offer to enhance a basic video lecture for your team:
- Include an interactive simulation or gaming component. These activities should be accessible to employees as many times as they want, and instructions should be actively given as the game or scenario is explored.
- Breaking up videos into segments of no more than six minutes (interspersed by interactive activity) to encourage the best engagement. These breaks are a great place to include quizzes and discussions.
- Include whiteboard-style explanations. Employees engage at rates 50-100% greater than PowerPoint slides or screencasts.
Finally, getting the right balance of instruction and interaction is key to creating an enjoyable and productive experience. The best automotive consultants have decades of experience working with many different kinds of people, and they’ll be able to tailor these activities to your business.
Instructor-Led Videos vs. Premade
Due to the up-front costs of producing even a single automotive training video, it’s fairly common for training videos to be instructor-led. These have their advantages: they can be more interactive, are less expensive, and offer the opportunity for the teacher to directly answer questions in the moment. However, this approach loses the scalability and cost efficiencies that come with pre-made content.
So which one is best? Well, you know your people know your team, and your dealership’s solutions may differ from your neighbor’s. Weighing your budget, your team’s strengths, and the amount of ground to cover will empower you to make the best decision. And in most cases, a range of content is ideal.
They Should Support Real-World Job Skills
Videos are highly effective tools, but to maximize your ROI automotive training videos shouldn’t just deliver general or generic content. They should give you industry-specific tools and techniques your team can put into practice right away.
A good example would be sales and phone scripts. A video about customer interactions and sales trajectories might be nice, but without modeling the specific tactics and scripts your employees will be using it won’t give them much to go on.
We all know scripts are good—your video content needs to get in the weeds and demonstrate specifically how to apply them to a customer call.
Match Consulting and Automotive Training Videos
Even under the best of circumstances, after thirty days the average trainee has forgotten 80% of what they learned from automotive training videos. The key to using automotive training videos effectively is pairing them with a great consultant who can deliver exactly the level of support you need.
Phone Ninjas offers the best of both worlds under one roof, and we can tailor our extensive consulting services to match your needs and budget. Our initial training is conducted as a group by our head of training Mike Hoyser, either remotely or in person as you require, and we can transition into a range of strategies to fit your business including video-based training.
We’re helping dealers around the country up their appointment rates and crush their monthly sales goals, and we can’t wait to turbocharge your team. Contact us today for two free mystery shops and a demo of what we can do for you.
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
