Pub. 1 2018-2019 |Issue 4

9 The following reasons apply: • As should already be obvious, keeping a dealership compliant is a fulltime effort all by itself. For extremely large dealerships, it may even be necessary to assign this important work to more than one person. • Having a designated compliance officer prevents a conflict of interest. What is the conflict of interest? Someone who is protecting the dealership is going to focus on making sure problems are resolved correctly. Someone whose sal- ary is determined by commissions may choose to overlook those problems. • Customers like having a clear process for resolving complaints, so having a compliance officer is also a way to im- prove the dealership’s reputation. According to a 2016 Total Dealer Compli- ance survey: • More than 30 percent of those who were surveyed said they had submitted a complaint to a dealership but were unhappy with how the complaint was resolved. • More than 50 percent of those who complained were convinced the dealerships were not interested in fixing the problem they’d reported. • More than 60 percent said that they were less likely to buy a car from any dealership that hadn’t created a complaint resolution process. • Almost 75 percent preferred making their complaint by phone instead of over the internet. Having a compliance officer clearly has two benefits: • It either prevents legal problems or solves them while they are still small. • It improves the dealership-customer relationship Train the dealership’s staff Many dealerships do spend time training staff, but the main focus is on making the monthly sales numbers so manufacturers and management will stay happy. Employees sometimes come and go quickly, meaning they take any lessons they’ve learned with them when they walk out the door the last time. The result of running a dealership this way is a bad one. No dealership can be as profitable as possible if it is only focused on short-term gains. However, there are two ways to improve the situation: 1. Good employees are valuable, and the longer they stay with a dealership, the more valuable they become. Treat them accordingly. Celebrate their length of service and their successes. Give them opportunities to develop their skills so they can become even better. 2. Train employees so they know what to do in order to keep the dealership compliant. (The compliance officer, of course, should be front and center when it comes to teaching employees about compliance.) Make sure you provide reasons for employees to stay with the dealership. Review employee performances, and have benchmarks for salary increases and promotions. Everyone should be involved in internal quarterly audits. The goal should be to work together as a team to find problems and solve them. Training sessions should be for new employees and for continuing employees. To be most effective, training should be mandatory, brief, and have a certificate of completion to display for those who have participated. Employees don’t need to lose a lot of time when they could be selling again, but a short, effective message will help them make incremental improvement over time. Provide online classes as well as in-person classes. Use information gained from the internal quarterly audits to improve what’s being taught in the classes. Displaying the certification lets potential customers know about the training. According to one survey, 73 percent of customers are more comfortable at dealerships where completed certificates are being displayed. Ongoing training should include the following: • Teach employees to emphasize follow- up tasks. Following up on tasks will help employees be more organized and it will also help them to be more productive. • Have employees study what exactly a lead has already researched. When an employee is knowledgeable about a potential customer’s needs, it becomes much easier to talk with that customer so that it’s clear the customer’s needs and wants are understood. • Work on phone skills. Keep phone records and use them to identify the employees who would benefit from a little additional training in this area. • Be aware of the customer’s budget. The size of the car payment is only part of what the potential customer should be thinking about. The total price is also important. If you think a third party can do a better job of training employees than someone in-house, then hire the third party and have them make suggestions about how to improve training going forward. Put your dealership association to work Dealership associations, like the New Car Dealers of Utah, have one purpose: helping dealerships make the best possible decisions. They have the energy and resources to stay on top of any legislation that affects the way a dealership works, and they also have the muscle that comes from dealerships coming together in order to lobby the legislature when necessary. Automotive compliance is difficult, but it is a necessary part of doing business. By paying attention to compliance, you can avoid the pitfalls (and consequences) of noncompliance. That is a worthwhile goal. 3 Review employee performances, and have benchmarks for salary increases and promotions. Everyone should be involved in internal quarterly audits.