Appointment display board

[Jeff Kershner]

To add to the conversation around this Topic --

Is an appointment board, like the examples provided really necessary?

In my opinion they not only exude professionalism but give the potential client that "good feeling", something most customers need when visiting a car dealership. It's like having their vehicle of interest pulled up to the front of the dealership and ready for the test drive when they arrive. It's all part of the experience.

What do you think? Does it really make difference or have an impact on the experience and/or possible sale?

 

[Brad Burlingham]

Good stuff Rick. Thanks for the screen shots.

I have a few screen shots of an appointment board running off of eLead CRM somewhere - I hope to find and post here.

We use elead, but didn't know they offer one. i just shot my rep an email

 

[Rick Buffkin]

I think your right Jeff. I've seen cases before where a customer set the appointment with the sales person but the sales person didn't add it into the system. Another sales rep greets the customer once they arrive, walks them over to the Appt board and doesn't see the customers or sales persons name and the customer insist on working with the sales rep that greeted them. The customer was a little bothered that their appt wasn't posted after the sales person went through the trouble of making the customer think the appt was set.

 

[Melissa Maxey]

Good stuff Rick. Thanks for the screen shots.

I have a few screen shots of an appointment board running off of eLead CRM somewhere - I hope to find and post here.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I think your right Jeff. I've seen cases before where a customer set the appointment with the sales person but the sales person didn't add it into the system. Another sales rep greets the customer once they arrive, walks them over to the Appt board and doesn't see the customers or sales persons name and the customer insist on working with the sales rep that greeted them. The customer was a little bothered that their appt wasn't posted after the sales person went through the trouble of making the customer think the appt was set.

There's an example of it working against you; if you're staff doesn't understand the importance of data entry. I'd encourage a dealer to have a process around the appointment board before moving forward.

Another way to help enforce CRM usage across the sales floor. No posted/logged appointment on the appointment board then no deal if the customer comes and starts working with another sales person. That's always fun to deal with.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

View attachment 1527

I swear thats the same photo I took. Thanks Melissa.

 

[William Bryant]

So I took this photo today at a store, they've had an appt board in the middle of the showroom for a while but I was able to add a little video loop along with the ELEAD appt board, which is customizable. AMSI stores like their backgrounds to be black with orange text. You could do something with a blue background if you like Carmax's look.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Here's a question:

Is it okay to show SOLD on the board?

I've always believe that activity breeds activity - the more SOLD displayed could potentially give the impression deals are being made.

Yes - No?

Lets not loose sight of John's original post and question on how one can achieve a digital appointment board using a third party service (minus changing to a new CRM for this simple function).

John, how "automatic" or "hands free" are you looking for?

 

[JohnH]

A lot of great points are coming up. I am heavily focused on minor details such as aesthetics, the interface has to be simple and approachable. Some of the appointment boards currently on the market, which do the job, are not exactly what I was looking for. They seem very old-fashioned. I have a certain design in mind (similar to Carmax). I am planing a trip down to Chattanooga, Tennesse to go see the "next-gen" Carmax store. If anyone wants, we could do a field-trip down there as a group! There are a couple of other innovative dealers I want to visit too.

Rick, I will definitely contact TVPOS to look at the possibility to do a custom design. Thank you very much.

Here's a question:

Is it okay to show SOLD on the board?

I've always believe that activity breeds activity - the more SOLD displayed could potentially give the impression deals are being made.

Yes - No?

Lets not loose sight of John's original post and question on how one can achieve a digital appointment board using a third party service (minus changing to a new CRM for this simple function).

John, how "automatic" or "hands free" are you looking for?

Jeff,

I like the way a lot of tech startup companies display company stats on television's around the office (Information such as; registration, # of paying customers, real-time on-site traffic etc). If I had to create a similar environment of "live display" at our dealership I would include daily sales across our 11 dealerships, live online visitors (Google analytics API), monthly pageviews data on our website (Google analytics API), SRP or VDP data on Autotrader + cars.com (manual entry). Basically, I would include real data that would give the customer the sense that they are buying from a "large" dealership that has a lot of customers. Then even if you don't have the best looking dealership, you can bring back the online experience into your showroom. If I had to settle for something free and easy today, I would use the "real-time" dashboard in Google analytics (shows live web traffic) or I would customize a dashboard to my liking in the "Dashboards" section. I would then display the page on a television screen in the showroom. This is hopefully my "phase-2".

Since our BDC department is centralized for all of our stores, our agents already have no choice but to enter it in a system. The same system or a different one would (hopefully) sync with the display board.

Thanks

 

[Sharrett]

Some other options:

AQUOS BOARD

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