Constantly Ensuring Your Success

Who’s watching over your business to make sure you’re getting the most from your system, and seeing to it you’re on the right path? This might not be a function every dealer expects from its solutions provider, but it should be.

Most suppliers will provide you with some form of support after installation of your system, though as discussed in the previous article, they are not all the same. The better ones will have a single contact to reach out to when you need help: one phone number to call when you have an issue with your bill or a question to be resolved. That customer-care person — called a Success Manager at CDK Global — is responsible for seeing your issue to its most satisfactory conclusion.

That’s what is called reactive assistance. But the best kind of performance management process goes beyond that to also provide proactive assistance. And if your dealership were in the same situation as Granger Chevrolet, that’s what you would want your supplier to deliver.

Providing Proactive Assistance

When a natural disaster occurs, your Success Manager should be doing more than waiting for their phone to ring so they can react. They should be proactively monitoring your dealership and doing everything possible to make sure you’re able to do business.

Of course, this is an extreme example. Even under circumstances that present less of a crisis situation, your Success Manager should be looking for opportunities to help your business move forward. At CDK, that includes performing ongoing check-ins with dealerships, and being sensitive to changes in:

Utilization
Through their Utilization dashboard, CDK Success Managers can keep tabs on which of about a dozen applications each dealer is using — and how effectively they’re being used. They identify which tools aren’t being utilized. And they keep a watchful eye on opportunities for —

• Revenue Generation
  This may include checking whether Parts Pricing is as high as it should be based on market and demand.
• Cost Savings
  This may include reviewing parts on Special Order to determine the percentage that’s sitting in the bin and costing the dealer money.

Performance
Consulting their Performance dashboard, CDK Success Managers review critical financials to determine how the dealership is doing year over year, and to evaluate how the various departments are performing. Most importantly, they identify areas that are underperforming so they can be addressed and make your dealership more profitable.

Additionally, Success Managers at CDK can compare your dealership’s performance with comparable dealer metrics sorted by size, region and OEM. That’s an advantage only we can offer, based on the sheer scale of dealership data CDK analyzes daily. And all utilization and performance data are updated every 24 hours, to facilitate the most informed decision-making available.

Making a Plan

Let’s say an opportunity has been identified, either reactively or proactively. Next, it’s time for the CDK Success Manager to work with the dealer on formulating a plan. Exactly what kind of plan depends on the needs of the specific dealer, and may involve one or more of the following:

• Learning classes — hundreds of on-demand courses are available through CDK University
• Relevant webinars — dozens of product-focused presentations are hosted each month
• Specialist attention — experts on our entire portfolio of solutions are on call

When a specialist is needed, the type that’s contacted most frequently is a CDK Performance Manager. Let’s look closer at what they bring to the performance management process.

Calling in the Specialists

The Performance Manager has the tools to look more deeply into many kinds of dealer questions and resolve them effectively. So when the Success Manager has an active or proactive opportunity that could use their help, that’s when the Performance Managers go to work. And like Success Managers, Performance Managers will also reach out to dealers running CDK Drive and certain other solutions — particularly when monitoring tools indicate there’s cause for further examination within:

Service Utilization
Performance Managers can compare the dealership against standards for appointment, reception, inspection, VIR, lane and closing rate. They can view multiple dealer locations in a group, all in one place; take deep dives into Service department sales, labor, parts, and parts wholesale business; and identify the services that are the most recommended — and the most declined.

Key Performance Indicators
Want to know how each of your Service Advisors is performing — who’s doing well and who needs the most help? Performance Managers can tell you. They can drill down into new and used car sales, current vs. previous sales volume, gross profits and average per-car sales. Parts, Service, Sales, and Accounting all receive their thorough consideration.

Taking Action and Following Through

After carrying the Success Team’s initial diagnosis through to a more detailed analysis of your dealership, the Performance Manager can provide you with a thorough plan of action. But even then, the performance management process isn’t over.

You can expect follow-up from your CDK Success Manager or Performance Manager at a frequency that’s customized to the precise needs of your business. It could be weekly, monthly or quarterly: whatever it takes to make your dealership its most successful.

Can every technology supplier deliver this level of ongoing performance management? Unfortunately, no; and the few who come close may require you to pay additional fees. But at CDK, we see it as essential. It’s included — not extra, and evidence of the successful long-term relationships we look forward to building with you from day one.

Your Dealership Deserves It All

As you’ve seen through this series of articles, the right technology supplier for your dealership:

• Shares your goals
• Implements smoothly
• Educates your team effectively
• Supports you reliably
• Manages your ongoing performance

At CDK, we are committed to being that partner for you. And we thank the dealers who have kindly lent their voices and stories to this series: Premier Automotive, Granger Chevrolet, Morrie’s Automotive Group and BMW of Beaumont.

For more resources supporting you and your business, visit us HERE