Appointment setting is one of the best ways that a dealership can get people into the showroom to buy a car. But if your agents don’t see success on the phones, it can feel like a waste of time. Luckily, proven training methods increase your agents’ efficiency in getting people into your dealership and closing sales.
Hold Regular and Ongoing Training
Phone training plays an important role in improving the outcome of your agents’ phone calls, but training is never just a one-and-done thing. Holding training at regular intervals will allow you to address current issues, teach new techniques to try, or allow team members to share stories of success. The type of training you require will depend on the length of time a person has been on the job, their responsibilities, and their overall performance. You can have training that involves the whole team for company-required training and team updates, but you should also focus on individual and small-group training that allows people to hone the skills they need at their own pace. These training sessions should happen at regular, expected intervals.
Involve Different People
Everyone on your team has their own strengths, and the best way to utilize them is to allow your team members to share the things that they are good at with everyone else. If the same person has been hosting the same training for a while, consider switching out who is in charge. Not only will this give the former trainer a chance to learn, but it also gives your team a new perspective to consider and a new way to learn something they may have heard before. Nothing makes people pay less attention than feeling like they already know every word that is going to be said. You can also reach beyond your team to find experts to help you train your employees. Professional coaches are a great resource to use when you are trying to help employees develop new skills and increase their success rates.
Set Clear Goals
Unless the training that you are implementing has clear goals that you can use to measure progress, you may not see any difference in the before and after your training. If there is no measurable change, that means you’ve wasted your time and your team’s time. The most measurable goal you can set for phone agents at a dealership is the outcome of their phone calls. Agents should set appointments, resolve concerns successfully, and generally have good phone interactions. Before you start any training, make sure you know each employee’s metrics for their phone calls, and set a customized goal for them to work on based on what they learn during the training. Custom-tailored goals can help employees feel empowered to be successful and apply what they have learned. After all, you probably shouldn’t expect your top performer and a new employee to have the same results. You can also set an overall team goal to motivate them to work together.
Provide the Right Tools
No matter how much training you provide, if your phone agents don’t have the tools they need, they aren’t going to be successful. It’s important to not only provide them with these tools but also train them with them and incorporate them into all aspects of the job. Phone scripts are an excellent example of one of the best tools that allow your phone agents to be successful at what they are doing. Phone scripts give them the information and direction they need to have successful phone calls, but if your agents have never used a phone script before, it is unlikely that it will actually help them. If you update software, procedures, or anything else your agents use, ensure you have enough training to empower them to use these tools successfully.
Using these methods to improve the efficiency of your training will help you and your dealership flourish. With the ever-changing car market, you need all the resources you have access to to see the success you want.
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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.
