Training plays a critical role in the success of dealership staff and, in turn, the customer experience. Yet far too often dealers struggle to ensure their teams are taught in a way that ensures clients are treated consistently across all departments. On this episode of Inside Automotive, host Jim Fitzpatrick is joined by Sarah Vantine, vice president of sales at Quantum5, to discuss why dealers are turning to new methods of training and focusing on the customer experience.
Through conversations with dealership staff and managers, Quantum5 realized that standard training practices are becoming less effective. While car dealers are used to teaching BDC, F&I, service and sales teams differently, the industry is beginning to realize that without a unified, cohesive approach the customer experience becomes fragmented and inconsistent. “What we’ve heard from all our clients,” explains Vantine, “is it’s really time to have a holistic approach to dealership learning.” This is why the company’s program covers the entire sales and service process, with an emphasis on increasing synergy between different teams.
The reason car dealers are beginning to understand that existing training frameworks may no longer work is partly because of the pandemic and partly because of changes in consumer behavior. COVID led to a massive transformation in the retail automotive workforce due to an influx of new hires and a surge in retirements among industry veterans. In most storefronts today, the dealership staff is comprised of individuals who never worked in the car sector before 2020 and who bring new perspectives and skillsets to the table. To accommodate these workers, car dealers must consider new education models and best practices that ensure all employees are on the same page and know how to provide the best customer experience possible.
On the other hand, buyers are now accustomed to high levels of convenience, efficiency and customization when it comes to purchasing products. Since each of these elements require cohesion between dealership staff, the less communicative and unified departments are, the worse the customer experience will be. “We have to be able and ready for where the customer ultimately is taking our business, so training is critical no matter what the department is,” Vantine comments. “If you think about what happens when a customer comes in to buy a car…in a typical dealership [they have] a very, very specific way that that car gets sold…Well, then it comes time to service the vehicle and now this customer is getting this whole different treatment [based on] however that service advisor has been trained to communicate.”
Quantum5 helps car dealers fix these issues with a performance suite of education tools that keep employees across operations focused on the same core principles. Based on feedback from managers and leaders across the automotive industry, the platform provides a unified and cost-effective training program that covers all departments in the dealership, including service, leadership, sales and BDC. The platform also provides KPIs and other data that allow store owners to track the progress of their dealership staff and ensure that the customer experience remains consistent. The retail automotive sector has gone through immense changes over the years in order to survive. By updating the guidebook on training dealership staff to sell and service cars, the industry can continue looking forward to a successful future. To learn more about how Quantum5 can help teams grow in unison, visit their website here.
