All the comments I am reading are mentioning the smart phone. Well tap into it and don't get left behind. LOL we are all on Linkedin right now!!! Are you at work?

Nothing you can or should do about it. Many sales are made through friends and connections. Also as a sales person you spend more time at work than at home with family. Idle down time cannot alway be spent "calling". People dont pick up, andd the dont answer emails. BUT they do read a push notification with  in 3 minutes or less. Be APP solute is a tool the dealership can purchase for $1500.
All communication can be done through this APP. Service Departments can really benefit from an APP. Unlimited texting, ecommerce, GPS, fan wass, share with all social media, so much more.
Who interested in their customers don't have $1500.

JessicaRuth Sarah Udelhofen dealerrefresh Michael Rodriguez I mean we do have twitter blocked here but that doesn't seem to stop me from tweeting 30 times a day

Sarah Udelhofen dealerrefresh Michael Rodriguez JessicaRuth Exactly - it's not just unique to your store.

It's a lot higher than 30%!

So long as an employee is exceeding my expectations I am not particularly concerned with what he or she does during work hours. Too bad not everybody agrees with me

dealerrefresh Michael Rodriguez JessicaRuth They always over react...You would think someone might be like hey maybe everyone else's employees might be on facebook too....just saying. They will still do it...just a whole lot more phone action.

Nope- it CAN'T be stopped. HARNESS it instead and leverage the youth in the store to use it to their/the store's advantage

I wonder how many of those people do work during their off-hours? seems to me it ought to cut both ways...

JessicaRuth Michael Rodriguez when our GM would walk around over the years, he would notice many computers on facebook or youtube, etc., after we had a poor prospecting month, he decided it was time to make a change

my company HP does block facebook, and email services.

Nice one Tommy.

Michael Rodriguez What caused the move to block?

KevinFrye I agree with you. I think anyone who can should be sure to attend Kevin's session. I think this is an area where education will trump regulation.

i would answer, but i'm too busy at work on facebook. lol.

zonewebb true.

AutoLawJD dealerrefresh - My guess is that isn't listed in their job description, though.

We start blocking tomorrow at our dealership. I will let everyone know how it goes.

We fought this battle in the past, and Facebook was blocked on our networks. The first to complain were our customers who accessed our wi-fi, so we opened the wi-fi to social media. Then the sales reps just bypassed their direct network connections and used the wi-fi to get to Facebook. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Bottom line, the sales rep and the dealership of the future need to embrace and participate with social media, and we opened up Facebook on our network some time back. We actively train our folks on how to engage with their customers using social media. The greatest opportunity for sales referrals now lies with social media sites, so opening up Facebook and educating your folks on how to use it is key to future success. I will be talking about this at length at DD15...

dealerrefresh Agreed!! They will do it no matter what, might as well promote best practices &helpful hints on what may help them use it as a selling tool.

Blocking Facebook or any other social sites can actually do more harm than good in my opinion.
I actually encourage the use of any and all social media. This is a great time for me to teach sales folks the proper way to tag our dealerships on a platform level. For the bold ones I teach how to set up listening channels and proper hashtag usage.
It helps bring down the costs of paid advertising and helps drive the earned and owned segments. It isn't something that should be forced upon or taken away. But rather trained, explained and encouraged.

I think that most employees check their Facebook & personal sites on a regular basis throughout the day. I know I'm guilty of that. I'm surprised they are only saying 30% of employees use Facebook during business hours. I would think that number would be higher with all of the smart phones, tablets, ect. I think social media can be a great selling tool that lets face it....not many salesman utilize. I would never recommend it being blocked at a dealership but I do understand why some companies still do block it. (Most of the time I find those companies don't have a strong presence on social media & don't see the value in it, but then again not many dealerships do it right!) I don't think Facebook stops my productivity at work however, I do see how it could effect some people.

I love the new knowledge we are gaining from this type of analysis. It is changing the way we do business as we work with more and more dealer groups. Making the data actionable is obviously the key and in doing so we can now see not only which cars will produce the leads, but which cars will be the best sellers in your market in the next 45 days. And those predictions are correct over 86% of the time. we have never had that ability before.
We recently worked with one dealer group and took their day turn down to under 20 days. meaning they are turning the entire inventory almost twice a month simply by aligning inventory with consumer demand. It works. Fewer cars going to auction, lower losses on those vehicles, and higher gross on sold units by having the right car in the right place at the right time.
there are many sources and many great independent reporting tools that can give dealers insights they have never had to run a more proactive, efficient business with lower acquisition costs and increasing sales opportunities.
great stuff here, love to see companies coming together for the best of the dealers

Thanks Chris - more from Gary coming soon.

Excellent post.