Tag: Used car dealers

The customer that cannot be pleased.

Posted on | by Tom Hampton Agency

By Tom Hampton

Every business owner has had customers that have issues that sometimes make doing business much more complicated. There is, however, a particular type of customer that cannot and will not be reasoned with or compromise their demands. For those of you experienced enough to have been around the mountain a few times during your career, have found these types of challenging clients get resolved by two general types of outcomes:

1. (Most Frequent Outcome) An unpleasant type of compromise is negotiated between both parties for a final resolution.

2. (Not So Frequent Outcome) The situation becomes unpleasantly distasteful and detrimental to both parties, with no resolutions whatsoever, and the loss of a customer (sometimes several by word of mouth, negative reviews & ratings, etc).

 

Losing an especially upset customer can be infuriating and frustrating (to say the least). Our pride has taken a hit, and our insecurities are rattled. So, what do you do when no resolutions can be met by either party?

 

First, if you have not already done so, examine the instance very closely and ask yourself, Did I do my best in the situation? What lessons can I take away from the situation to make me and my business better. 

 

Personally, when I lose a customer in events such as this, even after 40 years in the business, part of me still mourns. The only way I know how to describe it; It is humbling. I not only feel as though I have let my customer down, but I also feel I have let my team down to lose a customer without resolution. We all strive to serve our customers to the best of our abilities.

 

Secondly, remind yourself and your team that in any business, you can have the BEST customer service on the planet, yet the situation will still inevitability occur at some point.  As the owner, I am usually the one having that final conversation with the customer after my team has exhausted all other avenues. Unfortunately, in a lot of dealerships, the collections agent/manager is the one having these front-line battles. It is imperative you trust the people handling the confrontation before it escalates to you. These team members are much in need of your support, guidance, and sometimes, nurturing. Their frustration levels can bleed over into other interactions with detrimental results (they often do not even realize is happening) when becoming overwhelmed and feeling unsupported.

 

A weekly 20-minute one-on-one meeting with these team members just may help them vent, learn, and grow while meeting these challenges and company expectations. When things get heated, or an appropriate time presents itself, a great start is to have them unplug; Get up, walk around, take a breath, or maybe even a lunch break. The important part is they have a few minutes to clear their head and step away from the confrontation. I also suggest having them provide you with an emotion-free (practice makes perfect), brief, and factual statement about the incident.

 

Finally, before you find yourself neck-deep in a domino effect of fires to put out, provide your team with the training (such as courses, experienced management provided, or practice sessions), support, and guidance to be as successful as possible through these types of situations. Every day, as the owner, it would be best for you to be informed of any customer confrontations; What happened, what was attempted to resolve the situation, what the customer was demanding, and whether those demands can be met or not. These statements can become invaluable training tools.

 

You will always come across demanding customers. It is the price of admittance into the used car business. How we prepare ourselves and our team for these storms is what makes our businesses flourish!

 

As always, Car Guys Agency is here for all your Buy Here Pay Here needs! Contact us anytime to assist with solutions for your business! We have partners we have searched high and low for to provide our dealers with the very best available!

 

Create-A-Great-Day!

Tom Hampton 

Olympian or Spectator?

Posted on | by Tom Hampton Agency

Truth time my friends. This may be one of the most challenging pieces I have ever written. In November of 2019, my health took a turn, and painfully begin to control my every effort for these last 22 months.   

 

Short personal history: At 8 years old I was told I would never walk; With great perseverance and determination, the brace, wheelchair, and crutches were gone by 10 years old! I took 6 years of speech therapy as a child because I stuttered severely; I have since then, spoken freely and effortlessly. I have lived with chronic nerve pain ALL my life and put on mass doses of pain killers as a young adult; I have not taken a prescribed pain pill with any kind of regularity for over 30 years. For the past 14 years, 70 + hour work weeks were the norm and I traveled at a minimum of one week a month. For 7 of those years, I successfully managed my family’s business in conjunction with my own, after my dad passed.  

 

I tell you these pieces of my personal history to show you, my friends, that you are not alone. We are all overcoming personal and business hurdles of all varieties. Please, take care of your health. Drink plenty of water. Stay positive. And embrace challenges head-on with strength and determination! Through it all, with much support from my amazing team, I have been able to keep pursuing my goals to grow my business helping to support dealers in their own growth.  

 

Things are changing, both here at Car Guys Agency and with me personally. Most of you are used to having me pop by your lot, check up on you, and dish out some awesome advice while I am there! (Toot, Toot!! 😉)  

 

Those days my friends can sadly be no more. As much as I dislike it, my decreasing mobility has become the reality of my days. So, in the future, I will be reaching out to you via telephone, email, and text. By the way, as always, my team and I are here in any way we can help support our fellow dealers.  

 

I know how hard you are pushing yourselves, especially in this unstable market, just to keep afloat. We are not out of the woods yet. Markets are predicting there are another 6 to 8 more months of retail-priced units rolling across the auction blocks nationwide. It is unnerving to have a 60-car lot with only 14 units on it. I am also betting we will soon see Floor Plan companies start dropping dealers and smaller dealerships with limited financial resources who just cannot buy. Sooner, rather than later, the public will start pushing back at the higher retail prices and sales may just keep tanking.  

 

The nationwide market is constantly readjusting itself. The dealerships that survive and thrive over the next wave of challenges, yet again- must reinvent themselves and how they do business.  A growing dealership will be operating with new resource partners, rely even more on their communities, and embrace & adapt to changing paradigms.   

 

The large dealerships have 20+ groups of high-paid professionals that use their collective knowledge to market the company. So, with my own advice in mind, we too are adapting and redesigning how we grow as a company. To our loyal readers and longtime customers, we want to personally extend a VIP Invitation to be a part of our newest upcoming project! In June/July of 2021, Tom Hampton Agency will be forming a new group focused on bringing together like-minded dealers motivated to be a part of creating Strategic Growth Plans for the benefit of all.  If you are interested in joining and growing with us, email us here! 

 

Change is uncomfortable and often painful. I remind you; Olympians never won a medal because it was easy. They got it because they pushed, shaped, and molded their potential until the dream met reality. You have got to MOVE and DO to accomplish your goals. Repetition WILL create change in you, your salespeople, and your entire organization.   

 

To best survive this next incoming wave of industry evolution, we must grow; Grow new resources, new alliances, and more courage to jump in and start now. Waiting to see how things may go, could leave you left behind to play catch up. With great new products added to their lineup, Tom Hampton Agency is a great place to start finding those new and inventive (additional income bringing) resources! 

 

Here is to YOUR bright and successful future! Let us face this evolving world together to do and create what others say is impossible!   

  

Create-A-Great-Day,   

Tom Hampton 
832-723-3976  
[email protected]  

To buy or not to buy…

Posted on | by Tom Hampton Agency

April showers bring may flowers, but this year’s February freezes brought us auction squeezes! We are seeing prices are far above normal tax-time hikes, with no signs of tapering off. Playing the usual Price Game is the surest way to the poor house in our current market!

 

How are the new car dealerships holding on to high mileage trades and still getting their money for those units? Trust, transparency, and a supply-and-demand mentality! With less inventory on hand, we know that that means every unit we already have needs to get adjusted for retail. Time to re-appraise all your current inventory and start looking at replacement cost / availability.

Trust and Transparency are a symbiotic relationship. The more transparent you become in all your processes and procedures; the more trust is built along the way. Make sure your website is easy to navigate and all your policies and procedures are outlined in detail. Finance options/information should be easy to understand and access and make darn sure it is all secure!

There has been so much success in providing customers with an online credit application. Financing and an approved loan amount first, vehicle second, then delivery in minutes (not hours!) Knowledge of one’s financial abilities in any type of purchase is empowering and removes a lot of fear from the entire process! For us, it removes having to show them 20 different cars, only to find out 3 hours later, they can’t even afford the porters ’98 hooptie!

Find your technique to symbiotically build Trust and Transparency in today’s marketplace and on your website. Remember my friends. Without us, the independent used car dealer – most Americans would be walking! The better you serve your prospects, the greater your client base becomes.

Create-A-Great-Day

Tom

TCPA Violations can cost you BIG!

Posted on | by Tom Hampton Agency

By Tom Hampton

TRUE fact, 95% of texts are read in 90 seconds or less after you send it. Texting is unquestionably an integral tool to engage consumers in 2020, HOWEVER, it is not without extensive legal and regulatory risks.

In order to survive and thrive, businesses must be mindful and play by the rules set forth by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, known as the TCPA founded in 1991. Car dealerships directly put their business at legal and financial risk each time they text, be it to correspond with a lead, with a customer, for collections, or sending inventory pics…the list goes on! TCPA penalties START at $500 and can go up to $1500 per text sent.

Example:

A customer submits a complaint that 5 texts were sent to without their permission. At a minimum, fees will start at $2,500, likely much more, as well as setting the way to a full investigation looking for compliance violations, often adding more fines.

How can the average dealer keep track of all the texts sent by the entire team, on top of the 5,000 other things they are currently doing? The solution is very simple and so cost effective it is scary! For less than one average auction fee and no long-term contracts, you are covered-7-ways-to-Sunday, 24/7/365.

Just like having a DMS to keep all your paperwork records and compliance, this is also a tool to keep your texting compliant! Did I mention that with this service, you see it all! No more guessing what your employees are texting to prospects, customers, or account holders! No more getting blind-sided by customers who say…’your salesman told me if I did this…. then y’all would do that for me!’

SOLUTIONS are what we do at Car Guys Agency. Effective, affordable solutions for your dealership. Give me a call or visit www.carguysagency.com

The Power of Connection:

Posted on | by Tom Hampton Agency | 11 Comments on The Power of Connection:

2019 has drawn to its close my friends. It is usual for this time of year to be a time of reflection and planning. Did we measure up to last year’s goals and where are we heading to this coming year? This is very important in EVERY business, so I encourage you to get away from the dealership, turn off the phone (voicemail is wonderful) and invest an hour in this process. 

First and foremost; please come into this meeting with yourself armed with 2 very crucial things – PATIENCE & VISION. 

Patience for yourself and your employees; Business can be start-n-stop as we grow to new levels, each with its own set of challenges to master. After all uncharted waters can be both perilous and prosperous. 

Vision for your company and its potential.  

At this point, it is good to remember that only 2 things stand between unimaginable success and you. The first is LIMITED knowledge. The second is LIMITING beliefs (yours AND your employees). Who do you let in on the vision you have for your growth? If you only have employees — there is no reason to share your vision with them. If you create a family, a team — then it would be best that all share and contribute to your vision.   

Connection is the key, employees stay disconnected; whereas team members are tightly interconnected. Tight interconnection promotes COMMUNICATION, which as most of you know, is the cornerstone of any successful business (or given situation for that matter). 

Nelson Mandela was once asked what made him such a good leader. His reply was a brief story about his father. When his father sat in council with others, he always made it a point to be the LAST to speak. That way, he had heard the concerns and opinions of the others and could NOW communicate with the input of all. A pretty wise man in my book. This is one I myself am continually working to be better at. 

We tend to listen so that we can respond, not hear. A customer calls and starts to BBQ your backside over a minor issue with the vehicle (OK, minor to you)! Most of us within 2 minutes of the tirade tune out the rant ONCE we’ve heard the problem. We have our reply ready – the moment the customer takes a breath … our turn to talk, even if we cut them short! 

After all – we have the solution, we don’t need to hear all the “drama” we perceive the customer is espousing. What if, just, what if… you really listened with fresh ears? Yes, we get complaints and put out fires what seems like 100 times a day. Most of it without thinking, ‘been there – done that’ kind of thing. 

So, what if those fresh ears spent 5 minutes (that’s usually enough time to hear the whole story) and listened to this person’s fears? 

That’s the real reason they called, fear. Is there something wrong with the vehicle they just got from you? After all, they are informed customers and have listened to, read, and researched all the material about how crooked car dealers are. Didn’t cha hear?… Car dealers buy that vehicle for $1000 and just “patch it up”… then sell it for $6000 to some poor unsuspecting, hard-working person. Unfortunately, there is a very small grain of truth to that. There are too many dealers out there that skimp on recon. They spend just enough to sell it.  

What is all this rambling about goals, visions, ticked off customers, employees, team members, and connection???? Connecting to your employees, your clients – both groups’ needs/wants/desires will put you ahead of the game. Dealers are always coming up to me asking about sales/advertising/finance/inventory – Why do you suppose that is? I haven’t sold a car in 19 years and still know more about what clients want than most dealers do, by staying connected. I stay connected with the buying public. I stay connected with my clients (dealers) all over the state. I stay connected in my relationship with both the car industry and the government. Not a week goes by that I do not purposely engage someone at a gas station, convenience store, or out in public that has a fresh paper plate on the back of their vehicle (regardless of what state it is from).  

Purposely INVESTING your time into these areas will make growing your business faster and much more profitable. When people know (or feel) that you have listened to them – even when you still disagree, things will be easier between you. They feel as if they have been heard. After all, we all want to be heard – even you!  

I get asked daily for tips and tricks on how to grow. Connection is the best one in my arsenal of tips. It is always sharp and can penetrate even the most difficult of challenges when used. The goal of 2020 my friends, may be rather simple…Create as many “Fans” as you can. Starting now, begin connecting with your team, sharing the dream, and teaching them new skills to better connect with your clients. Most dealers have customers – yep sold them a car. Great dealers have fans – yep sold them a car, their cousin, a person from their work, and their postman came by too. You ONLY get fans by staying CONNECTED. 

Go out to our website at www.carguysagency.com. I have recorded a series of podcasts designed to help YOUR growth process. 

Be sure and subscribe as I put the really good podcast out to subscribers only. I figure if you subscribe – you WANT to grow and I’m going to help! 

Go out there in 2020 and CONNECT to your prosperity.   

Create-A-Great-Day, 

Tom Hampton