Posted on 01/04/2016 6:12:11 PM PST by saleman
I'm in the Automobile business and have been for about 25 years. Believe it or not the Auto business has gotten into the internet age. Big time!
Heck, our dealership has only had a website for....maybe 8 years? Something like that.
We don't have an internet dept. Salespeople receive internet leads based on a round robin type of thing. When an internet lead is sent then the first thing sent is an auto response. Then the salesperson responds with a template and if a phone number is included, a call.
Here's the thing. As of today, sales people are required to respond personally to an internet inquiry. After hours, off days, holidays, Sundays...anytime a request is sent.
A year or so ago I made it very clear I wasn't going to respond "on my own time". Which meant when I was not at work. Did I tell you we don't get paid for this?
We had a meeting today and the sales vs. internet inquiry's dealership wide is approx. 2%. That is for a 90 day window. Did I mention I don't get paid for this? Unless they buy.
So, I'm sure what I'm going to do. But I wanted some input so I don't think I'm being unreasonable. In other words, should I be required to do work after hours for something I don't get paid for?
Hell, really, should I be required to respond, period to internet traffic that I don't get paid for? Well 2% paid for.
I have been working at this dealership for the past 7 years. Make a good living. Don't want to quit. Or get fired. But I don't think I should have to work for no money, on my own time.
I don't know it is set up, so I can't offer advise on using it to your best advantage. A 2% return is very poor return and suggests an ineffective website.
I once worked as a "closer" for a famous dealership (made $1200 in '87) for a week. I quickly decided I should not waste my life working for jerks.
I hear ya. I am the internet go-to guy at our Chrysler dealership. I’m also the sales manager for our new Arctic Cat powersports dealership. I take all the sales leads I can. However, I also have an hourly wage because I handle IT, web maintenance, marketing, etc. I love it and will continue as long as I keep loving it.
If you’re dead set against making lemonade find out what the experts say.
https://labor.alabama.gov/Wage_and_Hour_Info.pdf
Alabama does not have any state laws governing wage and hour issues. Therefore, employers must follow federal guidelines set forth by the U.S. Wage and Hour Division, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor.
The U.S. Wage and Hour Division can be contacted in Montgomery at (334) 223-7450, in Birmingham at (205) 536-8570, or in Mobile at (251) 441-5311.
Their website is: http://www.dol.gov/whd/.
Topics covered by the U.S. Wage and Hour Division include:
• Wages
o Minimum Wage
o Home Care
o Overtime Pay
o Employee Misclassification
o Hours Worked
o Recordkeeping
it goes on and https://labor.alabama.gov/docs/pressreleases/uc_press%20release%20(oct.%20unemployment%20rate)%20112015.pdf released November 2015 says business of labor is booming so moving on might be a good possibility. Except in Choctaw county. Things aren’t so good there.
I started selling cars 8 months ago.
If I got a hot lead(Internet) I’d be all over it.
You wanna make $100k? You worky lotta much time.
Again, you’ll probably get some replies telling you that you should be slavishly thankful to your employer for condescending to permit you to work for their glorious advantage, but I’m convinced some people around here would say the same thing to the starving peasants licking crumbs off the boots of textile mill oligarchs.
Commissioned sales people should not be evaluated for much other than how much they sell.
The dealership should divvy up leads to whichever sales people are available to respond when the leads come in. If the website cannot do this, then the dealership needs to improve the site.
Generally, commissioned sales people are eager to get leads. But no one is available 24/7. If leads are assigned based on availability, then the sales reps, the dealership, AND the customers win.
If there are hours that are difficult to cover that generate significant leads, the dealership may need to hire hourly customer service reps that can assist with pre-sales questions.
Your firm needs a social media manager. One person to be the admin for those things.
Why not just set up an auto-reply on your email?
Simplest solution is just to check it once or twice a night and send a quick response to everything that has come in. Sure, you’ll still end up doing some work after hours, but you don’t have to respond instantly, and I doubt they will care as long as people are getting a response within a few hours.
If want to talk, I have some really great strategies for ending the “price” argument
You can demonstrate the Quality and Service advantages of your dealership and end that stupid conversation about price.
I rarely discuss price, as I build value before we get to that and I average 2.1 products per sale.
There is a way to win with less stress for you and your customers.
If you want to talk, ping me in private mail and we’ll trade numbers.
I was number 2 in my dealership last month, besting men who have doing this 10+ years and I take off when I feel like it.
Copies and carbon paper were high tech compared to the mimeograph of the 50s and dictaphone of the early 60s.
Honestly. Do you like your job? Are you paid well for it? DE entry benefits?
Measure that against how long it would take you to respond. Take into consideration other jobs in the area. Can you find another job that is better while employed?
The grass is ALWAYS greener.
My opinion is that if you are treated decent, paid decent, then what’s the big deal for a bit of your own time. Be thankful for what you have.
If management really insists on this, maybe you could suggest that for after hours, one person be “on-call” to handle the Internet requests after hours.
I work in IT as a salaried network administrator, where there is no such thing as “my own time.” A couple of weeks ago, at 11:30pm, a couple of application servers went nuts and sent out 138,000 error messages by email to the developers, effectively shutting down our email system. I received a call and had to delete the error messages from the email servers’ queues. Thank goodness for remote access!
A normal work week for me is 60-70 hours, and besides the normal 10hr x 5 day work week, we have to perform maintenance between 10:30pm & 6am weekdays, or between 8pm Saturday & 6am Monday mornings. And if something critical goes REALLY wrong, well, I’ve had more 36+ hour work days than I care to remember over the years (I’ve been in IT since 1986.)
However, we rotate off-hour end user support coverage within the department (in fact, this is my week “in the barrel.”) One guy is on 24 hour call from Monday through Sunday, spread around between 5 guys.
Mark
Personally, I would leave no stone unturned. I am self-employed and work at all hours. I enjoy it.
I’m in commercial RE and some of my leads come from the internet, many of which are before, after or weekend hours. I quickly respond to the prospect that I will be in touch in the AM (if the next day is a work day) or on Monday if a weekend. Sometimes I’ll reach out immediately and ask when or how is the best time to reach them and they often don’t respond right away so I bought time.
Bottom line; I think you need to respond right away but just not work on it right away. Is that possible?
I hear ya. The internet has created an ‘expectation’ among customers that business operates 24/7/365. I know that pretty early on I was taking a laptop on vacation with me so that I could keep tabs on things — my boss expected it. Then smartphones & tablets proliferated. Good News, I don’t necessarily have to carry a PC; Bad News, now my boss & customers can reach me even when I’m out of the country. And now he expects it.
I was thinking of something similar, but different.
If the other salespeople feel the same way you do, saleman, why couldn’t you coordinate so each of you covers, say, only one evening a week? And if they don’t all feel the same way, probably one or more would be happy to cover more of the time for more sales opportunities. Your employer shouldn’t mind if you can propose another way that the same work gets done and the same level of sales responsiveness is provided.
If it’s after hours, who is going to know if you call?
And, if someone is contacting you via the Internet, they don’t want a phone call back. Usually a a return “in kind” is what is expected. My guess is management is not a Millenial.
Someone needs to take an “internet” marketing course.
I love cars but I would never want to sell them. Stealerships play $hitty little games with everyone including the salesmen.
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