It is also apparent that all dealers are not ‘bad’, but there is a spectrum of competence, capability and delivery to be managed and optimised.
The key issues can therefore be summarised as follows:
- How can you ensure that your brand promise is delivered and your customers’ expectations are met by your dealer network?
- How can the in-dealer experience be consistent with your promises and customer expectations whilst retaining a local personality and not making the customer feel ‘processed’?
Benefits of ‘raising the game’
Sales are made to two broad categories of customers – repeat buyers (of the same brand) or conquests (first-time buyers or brand switchers) – and the delivery of the customer experience is a key component in the conversion and ongoing relationship management of both types.
The ‘raising the game’ approach assesses dealer competence in key aspects of whole-lifecycle Retention and Acquisition customer experience management (CEM), and then identifies ‘quartile’ performance – what the top 25% are achieving, 2nd 25%, etc.
Rather than trying to get everyone to improve x%, this approach then puts in place actions to uplift the performance of the 4th quartile to that of the 3rd, who in turn are stimulated to achieve the levels of the 2nd, etc. The upper quartile is left alone to perform – and perhaps act as role model/coach. This approach generates real results, and is a realistic improvement proposition. It also allows franchise management resources to be focused where they’re needed.
How can this be achieved in real life?
WCL and our partners Springboard Commercial provide a team of experts to assess your dealers’ strengths and weaknesses in CEM (via our bespoke tool, called CxP), and then to work with your team to create a road map to swift and achievable improvement.