I'd really love to completely revamp our referral process. Like 99% of dealerships, we tell customers: "Hey thanks for your business! And remember, anybody you send in that says you sent them and buys a car gets you $100!! Here are some business cards!"
But you know what? People don't give a s***. We're a big dealer and we rarely cut bird dog checks. It's just not motivating enough. Anybody have any cool ideas? What does your dealership do?
Sean,
you're right on the money. Coast to coast, EVERY dealer offers a bird dog deal of one form or another and they all fall short. Here's why.
Only a tiny
fraction of customers are driven by COMMISSIONS. Customers are 100% more likely to refer someone if they've had an TRUELY AWESOME experience. This empowers them to speak from the heart. In other words, if your store is cutting just a few bird dogs checks, then, your store is simply average.
There are very very few genuinely different car buying experiences. I love to track these brave souls that dare build a dealership that is truly different. 5 years ago, I wrote a DR article on this:
The winds of change are among us, enter in…the Game Changers.
Since then, a few other amazing players are:
The AMAZING Subaru of Wichita (aka ride home happy)
Carvana, (home of the million dollar photo booth)
One Price Stores (they're popping up all around)
Since it's damn near impossible to change your store by yourself
, if you want more referrals, one idea is to train your sales force to "work" facebook. The model is simple, copy this guy:
Bill Delia of Sun Auto 1,400 followers and LOOK at the AMAZING engagement. Every post he makes has 4-6 comments. He's fun and entertaining (like all sales people are), but he WORKS FB.
Deliveries from the last 4 days:
His FB circle keeps growing...
and growing...
and growing...
Everyone knows I think FB for dealerships has low ROI, but not for sales reps. When it's done right, FB is the ULTIMATE referral machine.
HTH
Joe
