Just because two dealerships use the same training partner doesn’t mean they’ll get the same results. For instance, not all businesses can make the same financial commitment to training, and everyone will have their own unique market and priorities to address.
Regardless of what makes sense for your dealership, everyone needs to get the most out of the strategy they choose. Phone Ninjas clients who benefit from our active coaching model typically see an appointment set rate of 60%—well above the industry average of 20%. But our top performers? They’re hitting between 80-90% month after month. That’s a huge advantage in an industry as competitive as auto sales.
So what are they doing differently? We’ve discovered that it’s not just a question of spending more money and dedicating more time to training. Our most engaged dealers all share three elements that help them achieve these truly outstanding numbers.
The Three Key Pillars
When our clients are really crushing our training and hitting those crazy 80%+ conversion rates, there are lots of factors that play into it: employee buy-in, regular work with new skills and materials, and data-backed investments in new tech, to name a few.
These things are important for any training strategy, but years of practical experience have taught us that maximum success tends to boil down to three fundamental pillars that support the whole system:
- Buy-in from the top
- Staff views coaching sessions within forty-eight hours
- All staff maintain certification at all times, or they don’t take or make calls
1. Buy-In From The Top
If every single staff member is not 100% on board with your coaching strategy, then your investment will suffer. This is especially true for your managers because they will be responsible for implementing change and communicating how coaching will translate to bigger paychecks. If they don’t, training can quickly turn into a dreaded activity that builds resentment between owners and employees and affects every aspect of your business, including:
- Retention rates
- Morale
- Staff efficiency
- Recruitment
- Staff discipline
- Customer service
- Sales
- Inventory management
Phone Ninjas’ coaching program is designed to be largely hands-off for you and your management team, and we handle the reports and weekly activities. However, the strategic choices and training elements we focus on translate directly to performance boosts across your business. Managers should still be very engaged with program fundamentals while encouraging the hard work your team is putting in.
2. View Coached Sessions Within 48 Hours
Human memory is surprisingly fragile: we can forget up to 50% of something we just learned within an hour or two, and without repetition, we lose up to 90% by the end of the week. This is why our most successful clients ensure every employee views their coached sessions within 48 hours of the original call to get maximum retention and value.
Since our top performers are committed to weekly one-on-one coaching sessions (usually about 15 minutes each), this is often the ideal time to review the call we’ve selected and practice skills with employees. During that time, we can point to concrete opportunities that were missed and provide guidance that will help keep future calls moving in the right direction. These can cover a range of topics that translate directly to revenue, like:
- Appointment setting
- Gathering customer information
- Handling objections
- Sales script delivery
- Service agreements and upsells
3. All Staff Maintain Certification at All Times… Or They Don’t Take Calls!
Our Phone Ninjas coaches take great pride in keeping your staff’s training certification current at all times. Employees who aren’t up to date on their training won’t make the most of your sales opportunities on the phone, and that costs everyone money. A certified rep will be in the best position to capitalize on your overall sales strategy, which is why uncertified employees cannot take calls under any circumstances!
Seem a little extreme? It’s hard to argue with the appointment rate results, but consider the number one reason why a phone call doesn’t turn into an appointment:
The employee forgets to ask.
That’s how quickly a rep without proper training can affect real numbers, and there are many other ways a call can go wrong. If an employee is unfamiliar with a script they might get off topic or incorrectly gather vital customer information. They could also make a mistake about how to pass appointment information to a manager for confirmation or simply fail to give a customer accurate answers to their questions.
All of these things can be the difference between success and failure in an instant, and it’s invariably better to ensure a trained person is taking a call rather than risking a lost opportunity.
Is Your Team Ready to Take It to the Top?
Phone Ninjas’ training is proven to work over and over for every client. Our customized sales scripts and one-of-a-kind individualized coaching program have been carefully honed through years of field testing to deliver the best research-verified training and selling techniques.
But you don’t have to take it from us: the results are in the reports. Clients are seeing key metrics like appointment rates triple, translating directly to more sales. We also focus on revenue strategies across your business like lead qualification, connecting sales and service, and unifying brand messaging.
Give us a call today! The sooner we get to know each other, the faster we can help you join our top-performing clients.
